Comparable Worth: Worthy Bid for Fairness
“Comparable worth,” the concept that women have been underpaid and should command as much as people in traditionally male-dominated jobs of equivalent difficulty, is under increasing attack even as it gains wider acceptance.
The attacks have come from the highest level. A White House spokesman said last fall that President Reagan considered the idea “nebulous at best.” That was after a Reagan economist called it “crazy.” The assault on the concept is based largely on a preoccupation with statistics showing how much women lag in pay and the difficulty in comparing dissimilar tasks.
This serves to befog the real issue, which is whether classes of jobs such as secretarial work or nursing have been traditionally underrated in terms of importance or difficulty because they’ve been considered women’s work.
If there was any doubt that outdated stereotypes still influence pay standards, some of the recent breakthroughs in the drive for comparable worth ought to lay them to rest. The latest is the settlement reached with employees by the city of Los Angeles. In agreeing to raise the pay of 3,900 women, the city offered some dramatic evidence of the problem.
Stiffer Test of Skills
Consider the salary ranges that existed before the settlement. A stenographer was paid $1,291 to $1,519 monthly. Even a garage attendant made more than that, starting at $1,342, with a top pay of $1,677. Comparing such jobs may be imprecise, but employers have always had to evaluate jobs in setting pay scales. It doesn’t take much serious analysis to see that the stenographer would face a stiffer test of specific skills to get the job and at least as much energy-draining tedium during the work day.
The attitudes that built such discrepancies into the nation’s payrolls die hard. Some years ago, my wife confronted her boss at a savings and loan with a better offer from another company. He questioned why she would be so concerned about advancement. “After all,” he said, “it’s not as if you’re the primary breadwinner.”
Most managers are probably sensitized enough to women’s rights that they wouldn’t say that now. The problem is some of them still think it. Studies show that most top executives, having grown up in another era, have the false perception that their payrolls are still dominated by individuals like themselves, males who are the sole family wage earner.
Hence, it’s not surprising that even a superficial examination of pay policies is likely to turn up situations as clear as those demonstrated by the city’s settlement. Those examinations are being made increasingly by state and local governments. Private employers are slow to do so, fearful of what they might find and how it might be used against them.
Opponents’ Argument
Opponents of comparable worth maintain that all this activity is based on false assumptions, that the numbers on how little women make reflect not discrimination but reality. It is a fact that women delay or interrupt careers to have children and are more likely to play the primary role in child rearing, both of which have some impact on the pay averages. Moreover, they argue, it was by choice that women crowded into certain types of jobs and thus kept wages down. Never mind that much of that crowding has reflected limitations imposed by society’s attitudes and a male-dominated work force.
Opponents also confuse comparable worth with the issue of equal pay for the same job. Exaggerating the impact of both, they suggest that employers would be compelled to pay women as much as men regardless of years of experience.
Unfortunately, the movement gives its critics ammunition by dwelling on arguments such as how much less the average female lawyer makes than the average male. It’s obvious that law firms were slow to hire women, but now that they do, some of that wage gap reflects the fact women haven’t had time to move up.
All that begs the point. It’s apparent that a class of workers often operates under established pay scales that lag unreasonably. The concept of comparable worth, however imperfect, is a reasonable way to correct the problem.
