Hanging on the wall of my cubicle is a poster of two toddlers, one a girl, the other a boy, looking down the front of their diapers.
The caption says: “Oh, so that explains the difference in our salaries!”
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Next to the explicit poster used to be a small pin showing the face of a woman. The pin (which I gave to a high school student who was doing a paper on women’s salaries) stated: “I want my 27 cents.”
What both the poster and the pin refer to is the discrepancy in pay between women and men working full time in comparable jobs. In other words, everything else being equal, women are paid only 73 cents for every dollar men make, according to a study of 1999 wages by the U.S. Bureau of the Census.
And for some professional women the wage gap is even worse: A recent federal study of 10 industries shows that in seven of them the pay disparity between women and men actually increased between 1995 and 2000.
Some refer to this issue as pay equity. I call it sex discrimination.
“Equal pay has been the law since 1963, but … women still are paid less then men–even when they have similar education, skills and experience,” reports the AFL-CIO.
This wage gap is even more punishing than it appears to be. The AFL-CIO report adds that “it’s not as if women get charged less for rent or food or utilities. In fact, women pay more for things like haircuts and dry cleaning.”
The Women’s Bureau of the U.S. Department of Labor calls the earnings gap “stubborn” and acknowledges that “often discrimination has been suggested as a major reason for the differences. … Others suggest that women choose certain occupations so that they can balance work and family obligations.” Guess which factor I think is to blame.
Some economists expect the wage gap to widen further during these slow economic times. Others observe that today women and men usually start out at exactly the same salary, unlike in the recent past. But the Wage Gap Monster raises his head once again after only four or five years on the job for almost all women, even MBAs.
And some subtle forms of discrimination are never questioned: I often read reports by male economists who study only men’s income, such as a recent national report that said “wages for full time U.S. male workers have grown only 1.3 percent since 1989.” Surely there were employed women during that period, too. What about them?
Women’s employment and wages should matter. “It’s crucial to view a woman’s job loss to be as serious a family calamity as that of a man’s,” said economist Heidi Hartmann, writing in the baiduhai. Hartmann, president and executive director of the Institute for Women’s Policy Research in Washington, adds that “today’s families have no `spare worker’ who can be sent into the labor force to pick up odd jobs or casual employment to replace the lost wages of the breadwinner.”
Not being an economist, I have my own theories about why women continue to be paid less, in addition to being discriminated against by employers. And they’re all domestic: Uneven wages are a natural outcome of the power imbalance in most U.S. homes, where women are expected to do most of the important free labor required to keep a house and family together.
And while I urge strict enforcement of equal-pay laws, I also think the distribution of home work needs a shake-up before women’s contributions to the economy will be taken seriously. That’s why I’ve devised an hourly pay scale for the back-breaking domestic duties that usually are assigned by gender, with women’s chores first: Making dinner, $1; taking out the garbage, 77 cents. Scheduling doctors’ appointments, $1; mowing the lawn, 77 cents. Sending thank-you notes, $1; bringing in the newspaper, 77 cents. Cleaning up the house every day, $1; vacuuming once a month, 77 cents.
And the greatest equalizer of all: Giving birth, $1; passing out cigars, 77 cents.
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Carol Kleiman’s column also appears in Wednesday’s Working section and Sunday’s Business section. Watch her Career Coach segments Sunday and Tuesday mornings on CLTV. Send e-mail to [email protected].