If You Play Fair, They Should Pay Fair: Why the Women's Wage Gap Persists

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http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/blog/2010/09/23/fair-womens-wage-persists


There’s a lot of talk this week about the Paycheck Fairness Act (PFA) and its chances for passage as Congress is set to adjourn, and head home for campaign season. The act is a necessary next-step piece of legislation when it comes to protection against gender-based wage disparities, by simply strengthening – and updating - the existing Equal Pay Act. Indeed, the bill notes that “in many cases the pay discrimination can only be due to continued intentional discrimination or the lingering effects of past discrimination.” Yet the misunderstandings and deliberate misinformation about the bill abound.

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It’s already passed the House of Representatives and is being shepherded, in the Senate, by Sens. Barbara Mikulski (D-MD), integral in the passage of the Lily Ledbetter Act, and Chris Dodd (D-CT). President Obama has been clear – if the Senate passes the bill, he will sign it. This past week, Depart of Labor Secretary Hilda Solis led a webinar, with Lily Ledbetter, about the act. Vice President Biden, in a recent speech advocating for passage of the bill said that senators “should get on the right side of history.”

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Women now make up almost 50 percent of the labor force yet still make only 77 cents for every one-dollar a man makes. This sharply decreases for women of color. Two working parents or a working single parent lead 70 percent of families in the United States. Single female-headed households are only on the rise – yet account for the poorest sectors of our society. Despite the assumption made by some that a pay equity governmental policy is pointless because most women are “opting out” when they have a baby, have a male partner serving their every financial whim, or are simply working less hours at a similar job to their male counterparts, the facts do not bear this out.

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So if this bill has the power to correct so many wrongs, why hasn’t it passed yet? Tejani told me, “Like so many important pieces of legislation, it’s been caught up in the partisan atmosphere. There’s a minority in Congress saying we won’t go ahead and vote.” This is despite the fact that some of the Republicans blocking a vote supported final passage of the bill’s companion, the Lily Ledbetter Act, with a similar premise.
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oh, please let it pass in the Senate.

[lumberjack_jeff]

1. Accepting the AAUW as a nonbiased source, the difference is 5%

If a woman and a man make the same choices, will they
receive the same pay? The answer is no. The evidence shows
that even when the “explanations” for the pay gap are
included in a regression, they cannot fully explain the pay
disparity. The regressions for earnings one year after college
indicate that when all variables are included, about onequarter
of the pay gap is attributable to gender. That is,
after controlling for all the factors known to affect earnings,
college-educated women earn about 5 percent less than
college-educated men earn. Thus, while discrimination
cannot be measured directly, it is reasonable to assume that
this pay gap is the product of gender discrimination.

http://www.aauw.org/learn/research/upload/behindPayGap.pdf

This compares to an 1100% disparity between the rates of workplace death for men vs women.

http://www.bls.gov/iif/oshwc/cfoi/cfch0008.pdf