As I wrote about last week, feminists designated April 3, 2001 as Equal Pay Day to highlight alleged continued differences in pay for men and women. Activists touted claims made by a government study that women who worked on federal contracts made only 72 cents for every dollar a man makes. It turned out, however, that there was very little substance to that claim and the real message of Equal Pay Day should have been that women are, in fact, achieving parity with men in many fields.
It turns out the study that looked at government contracts was an unreleased, unpublished survey that had numerous problems. As an Office of Management and Budget memo noted ,”Spells of not participating in the labor force (such as for child rasiing) are not included. These spells reduce both the experience and the continuity of experience, which can reduce wages.”
Or as Peter Jennings summed it up on ABC News, the study “doesn’t take into account age, experience, hours or even the job itself” when comparing wage rates. Those are some pretty important factors to leave out of any analysis that wants to accurately look at wage rates rather than just serve as political fodder (with this study apparently preferring to perform the latter role).
Meanwhile, a new study by the Employment Policy Foundation highlighted the enormous gains that women have made in the work force over the last decade. The Foundation look at the top ten occupations in which women’s participation increased the most in the last ten years. These included,
veterinarians (female vets have increased from less than 2 percent to 43 percent); top public administrators (37 percent are now women, compared to 4 percent in 1989); math & science teachers (increased 6-fold), chemistry teachers (increased 4-fold); industrial engineers (22 percent are now women, compared to 6 percent in 1989); dentists (increased 4-fold); car salespeople (increased 3-fold); messengers (increased 3-fold); physicians assistants (increased from 20 percent to 58 percent); and members of the clergy (6 percent of clergy members were women in 1989 compared to 18 percent today). Of the 497 occupations tracked by the government, women have increased their representation in 106 job categories.
The interesting thing for the issue of pay equity, however, was how much women in those fields, on average made. For women aged 23 to 35, the average weekly earnings was $823 per week, while for men 23 to 35, the average weekly earnings was $813. Women actually earned an average of 101 percent of what men did. The additional earnings were, of course, statistically insignificant, but a testimony to the fact that men and women with similar qualifications and similar experiences do in fact earn similar wages.
Looking at older men and women, women 35-44 earned only 80 percent of what mend di, and women aged 45-54 earned only 75 percent of what men earned per week, but this was accounted for because older women worked fewer hours, on average, than older men. When the wages of older male and female workers are compared on an hourly basis, men and women in these ten fields earned the same amount of money at every age level.
EPF vice president DJ Nordquist summed up the finidngs by saying,
Women are clearly making great strides in the workplace. Women are consciously deciding to go into fields traditionally dominated by men and they are proving that their work contributions are just as valuable — as can be evidenced by equal paychecks. Any type of pay disparity in these groups can be accounted for simply by the hours of work women put in compared to men, which may be attributable to non-work commitments, such as family. Overall, the news for working women is good. Biology is not and should not be a factor in occupational choice.
Some very good news for Equal Pay Day.
Sources:
Equal Pay Day Report a Bust. National Center for Policy Analysis, April 5, 2001.
Women Breaking Through Male-Dominated Fields. Employment Policy Foundation, Press Release, April 3, 2001.