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Dr. Heidi Hartmann, President and CEO of the Institute for
Women’s Policy Research, discussed the wage gap and
its implications at the Women on the Job Annual Meeting on
April 19th at the Hofstra University Club. In her presentation
Dr. Hartman commented that Women on the Job is “working
on exactly the right things” and “should keep
it up”. Two of the major focuses of WOJ are the need
for pay equity in female dominated jobs and helping women
enter the trades.
Dr. Hartman began her discussion with the progress in closing
the wage gap. Since the 1960’s, the wage gap has decreased.
Forty years ago women earned 59% of what men earned. Now they
earn 77%. The biggest labor revolution during the period has
been the increase of women in the labor force and their not
dropping out completely for child rearing. Gender occupational
segregation, the separation of “men’s jobs”
and “women’s jobs”, is declining.
However, she commented, from another point of view, that
isn’t much progress for forty years. Though wages of
ethnic groups and women are converging, the wages of white
and Asian American men are much higher than other groups.
In the total lifetime earnings of working women, there is
even more of a wage gap. In a 15 year study of the prime working
years of adults (ages 26-59), women’s earning were only
38% of men’s. One of the factors was that women are
out of the labor force more years than men. Only one quarter
of the women worked full time all the time.
Part of this study was the effects of gender segregation
of the labor market. Wages were analyzed in six categories:
by the tier of job, elite jobs, good jobs, and less skilled
jobs; and by gender, whether these jobs were primarily in
the male sector or the female sector. In each of the six categories
by gender and tier, there was at least 75% sex segregation.
Among the conclusions were that in managerial and professional
jobs women have not yet made significant inroads into the
highest paid business jobs. The data showed that the gap between
men’s and women’s wages was narrowest in the men’s
sector of the middle tier, the good jobs (which include the
trades). However in the good job tier, the overall wage gap
is the largest. A huge difference remains in the percentage
of full time working women in the lower paid female sector
(this includes clerical and medical technician jobs) as compared
to the male sector. In the less skilled jobs in the male sector,
the wage gap was also narrow. But more than 90% of the long
term low income workers are women.
In a comparison of husbands and wives incomes, 15 per cent
of women earn more than their husbands. When husbands earn
less than $15,000, 82% of women earn more than their husbands.
Dr. Hartman also discussed how changes in Social Security
would be particularly critical for women. Women depend more
heavily than men do on Social Security for their income in
retirement. Women earn less. They therefore have less opportunity
to accumulate private funds and Social security provides proportionally
higher benefits for lower incomes. In addition, since women
live longer, the money has to last longer and private annuities
are lower. Spousal benefits (which include widow’s benefits)
are also important to working women, since husbands usually
earn more. She said about 90% of women receive some sort of
spousal benefit during their lifetimes.
In answer to one of the questions, Dr. Hartman commented
that even though American economists did not generally accept
the concept, comparable worth was becoming accepted in a lot
of other countries.
Additional information and details can be found on the Institute
for Women’s Policy Research website, www.IWPR.org Of
particular interest is the May 2004 report, Still a Man’s
Labor Market: The Long-Term Earnings Gap by Stephen Rose,
Ph.D. and Heidi Hartmann, Ph.D. This report can be found by
clicking “View more pdfs” below “Latest
IWPR Research.” On the home page of the IWPR website,
there is also a section “IWPR Resources on Social Security
and Women” with an article Privatizing Social Security
Would Hurt Women, Research-in-Brief.
www.liwomen.com
May 2005
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