A Paper Series Celebrating the 50 th Anniversary of American Women: Report of the President's Commission on the Status of Women (original) (raw)
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Administration & Society, 2019
We examine Equal Employment Opportunity Commission data (1987-2015) to determine whether sex-based occupational segregation among administrative and professional workforces is related to state agency policy missions. Based on two thresholds, the customary 30% benchmark and the 50% benchmark of parity, the findings indicate segregation is related to policy missions. The 30% benchmark suggests a story of widespread progress across state bureaucracies. The 50% benchmark suggests less progress, especially, in police, fire, corrections, utilities, natural resources, and highways. The authors argue it is important to use multiple indicators to assess the progress of women in the workplace.
Sex‐Based Occupational Segregation in U.S. State Bureaucracies, 1987–97
Public Administration Review, 2002
Is the extent of sex-based occupational segregation in U.S. state bureaucracies related to agency policy missions? Drawing on arguments by Lowi (1985), we contend that levels of sex-based occupational segregation in state bureaucracies vary depending on whether an agency's policy mission is distributive, regulatory, or redistributive. We employ data on the distribution of administrative and professional employees by sex in several types of state agencies across all 50 states for 1987-97. Our findings indicate high levels of occupational segregation among administrative cadres in agencies with distributive and regulatory policy commitments; however, professional workforces in these agencies have become less gender segregated over time. We find no evidence of occupational segregation among administrative and professional workforces in redistributive agencies. We argue that researchers need to examine the relationship between glass walls and other kinds of sex-based employment impediments, such as glass ceilings. Brinck Kerr is an associate professor of political science and coordinator of the Center for the Study of Representation at the University of Arkansas-Fayetteville. His research focuses on legislative and bureaucratic representation and has been published in a number of journals including Public Administration Review, American Journal of Political Science, Legislative Studies, Social Science Quarterly, Women and Politics, and Urban Affairs Review.
protests about the treatment of women in the workplace have brought renewed attention to gender pay equity. This brief looks at three legislative solutions that aim to close the gap by increasing pay transparency and pushing employers to set salaries to the position, not the history of the person doing the job. The problem Women are paid less money for the same work: In the U.S. today, women who work full time make 80 cents, on average, for every dollar that white men make. The Economic Policy Institute shows that this wage gap also varies significantly by race: 4 Asian women earn 90 cents on the dollar, white women 81 cents, black women 65 cents, and Hispanic women only 58 cents on the dollar in comparison to white men. Wage differences are starkest among high-income earners, with women only making 74 cents on the dollar compared to their male counterparts.
State Policy Strategies for Narrowing the Gender Wage Gap
#MeToo and #TimesUp protests about the treatment of women in the workplace have brought renewed attention to gender pay equity. This brief looks at three legislative solutions that aim to close the gap by increasing pay transparency and pushing employers to set salaries to the position, not the history of the person doing the job.
Pay Equity and Women’s Wage Increases: Success in the States, a Model for the Nation
By 1989, twenty states had implemented programs to raise the wages of workers in female-dominated job classes in their state civil services. A study of these pay equity programs, conducted by the Institute for Women's Policy Research and the Urban Institute, found that all twenty states were successful in closing the female/male wage gap without substantial negative side effects such as increased unemployment. The extent to which the states succeeded depended on many factors including how much money was spent, the proportion of women affected, and the standard to which female wages were raised. As women's responsibilities for their families' wellbeing increase, it is important to explore policies to raise women's wages to levels that are free from discrimination or cultural devaluation. An American woman working full-time year-round in 1992 earned only 71 percent as much as her male counterpart.' This represents a substantial increase since 1982 when the wage ratio of female to male earnings was 62 percent. Approximately half of this increase is due to an increase in women's real wages, 2 while the other half is due to a decrease in men's real wages. 3 Despite this considerable advance, the wage gap remains; women still earn less than men even in the same occupations.' When different jobs * Heidi I. Hartmann is the director of the Institute for Women's Policy Research. She holds a Ph.D. in Economics from Yale University and is a 1994 recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship. Stephanie Aaronson is a research associate for the Institute for Women's Policy Research. She holds an A.B. in History from Columbia College. The Institute for Women's Policy Research is an independent, non-profit, scientific research organization founded in 1987 to meet the need for women-centered, policy-oriented research. This Article is based on chapters one and six of our report in progress, tentatively titled Pay Equity Remedies in State Governments: Assessing Their Economic Effects, by Heidi I. Hartmann, Elaine Sorensen, and Stephanie Aaronson, forthcoming. The study upon which this report is based was made possible through generous funding from the Ford Foundation.
State Liberalism, Female Supervisors, and the Gender Wage Gap
Whereas some are concerned that the gender revolution has stalled, others note the rapid increase in women's representation in the ranks of management, and the reduction of wage inequality in larger and more active welfare states. Although these latter trends portend an attenuation of gender inequality, their effects on the gender pay gap in the U.S. are understudied due to data limitations, or to the assumption that in the U.S. pay is determined by market forces. In this study we extend research on the determinants of the gender wage gap by examining sex- of-supervisor effects on subordinates' pay, and to what degree the state's commitment to equality conditions this relationship. We pooled the 1997 and 2002 National Study of the Changing Workforce surveys to estimate hierarchical models of reporting to a female supervisor and wages, with theoretically important predictors at the individual level, and at the state of residence (an index composed of women's share of legislators, a measure of the liberal leanings of the state, and the size of the public sector relative to the labor force). We found that state effects on pay were mixed, with pay generally rising with state liberalism on the one hand. On the other hand, working for a female boss significantly reduced wages. We discussed the theoretical implications of our results, as well as the need for further study of the career effects on subordinates as women increasingly enter the ranks of management.
Women's Work, Men's Work: Sex Segregation on the Job
Contemporary Sociology, 1986
The literature on sex segregation in the workplace was reviewed to determine how it could be used in formulating policy in the area of sex fairness in the American labor market. The committee found that although women's occupational options have increased dramatically in the past decade, sex segregation is still widespread. Among those factors that appeared responsible for sex segregation in the workplace were the following: cultural beliefs; barriers to employment such as discrimination, socialization, and unequal education and training opportunities; family responsibilities; and the opportunity structure. Analysis of the existing laws and programs geared toward intervening in the workplace, in job training, and in education revealed that what is needed is not new legislation but rather more committed leadership, stricter enforcement, and enhancement of voluntary compliance with existing laws. In addition, enforcement agencies must develop much stronger programs of policy-relevant research on such issues as the sources of change in occupations in which the most dramatic improvements in sex-fair opportunities have occurred and the relative effectiveness of measures to improve enforcement and voluntary compliance. (This report includes 15 tables and the table of contents from a comparison report, "Sex Segregation in the Workplace.")
Unequal Pay: The Role of Gender
Public Administration Review, 2006
Despite years of equal opportunity and affi rmative action eff orts, women remain concentrated in certain lower-level positions. In a study of the federal senior service, noted that women occupied 85 percent of all clerical positions but only 13 percent
Gender Differences in Agency Head Salaries: The Case of Public Educaton
Public Administration Review, 2002
This study demonstrates a quantitative approach to assessing gender discrimination in public salaries at the individual level. Using data from 1000+ school districts in Texas over a period of 4 years, the results show that gender differences in superintendent's salaries are subtle rather than systematic. Female superintendents who replace male superintendents receive lower compensation. Local district wealth also interacts with gender to affect salaries.