Tips For Finding Work In An Equal-Pay Industry

If you’re among the 94 percent of a sampling of employed women who identified equal pay as the most important workplace issue in a recent AFL-CIO survey, you should know there may be a way to solve this pervasive problem.

Or there may also be a way to avoid the situation of being replaced by a man at twice your salary after you left your job because your boss refused to give you a raise.

The basic problem, of course, is that the average U.S. woman working full time still makes only 71 cents for each dollar earned by a man, according to research by the U.S. Bureau of the Census. In Chicago, women are at 65 percent. As bad as that gap is, it’s worse for minority women: The bureau reports African-American women earn 64.2 cents for every dollar men earn; Hispanic women earn 53.4 percent.

And what it adds up to in the long run is this, according to Barbara Reynolds, writing in Ms. magazine: “The average woman is cheated out of about $250,000 in wages over a lifetime.”

That’s a lot of money to be deprived of, and that’s why it’s so important to end the wage differential. I’ll settle for its complete disappearance as of yesterday.

Taking positive steps to do so are Judith Fields and Edward N. Wolff, research associates at the Jerome Levy Economics Institute of Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, N.Y.

They’ve made pay equity the subject of ongoing research.

Fields and Wolff report in a working paper that they believe they “have found part of the answer” to the persistent wage gap.

Three industry characteristics, the researchers report, “play an important role in explaining wage differentials.” And some firms are better than others:

Industries frequently targeted for affirmative action review or investigation have, on average, a more narrow wage gap.

In other words, if companies are being carefully scrutinized by the government for equal employment infractions, they’re more likely to offer female employees equal pay.

Industries that are fast-growing also tend to reduce the wage gap by offering women the same job opportunities and salaries as men.

Translation: There’s nothing like a labor shortage to reduce long-standing salary differences based on gender.

Industries with high profits tend to have a narrower wage gap.

That means some firms that can afford to do so are more likely to be non-discriminatory in their paychecks, but I wouldn’t count on it. It also implies they’ve figured out that equal pay will pay off in less turnover and higher productivity.

Now comes the challenge: How do you use the researchers’ conclusions to find a job with a level paying field?

Two answers always have been to join a union or get a Civil Service job. But in the wider world of private industry, the task may be more daunting. Here’s my advice on how to use the research to get the salary you deserve: Carefully follow news stories about companies that recently have lost major class-action suits pertaining to sex discrimination. While I acknowledge this advice is somewhat similar to the ghoulish suggestion that people looking for potential spouses should hang out at cemeteries , it’s merely a practical suggestion based on the researchers’ findings.

Research which industries are rapidly expanding and apply for a job. One of the fastest-growing businesses is anything involved with high technology.

After all, what’s equitable is equitable.

xxxx