Equal Pay Top Concern Of Working Women, Study Shows Intensity Surrounding Issue Much Greater Than Anticipated

Equal pay for equal work is the top concern of working women, according to a survey released on Thursday by the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations.

Of the sample of women polled nationwide, 94 percent said equal pay was very important to them - and more than one-third said they did not get it at their jobs.

Karen Nussbaum, director of the AFL-CIO Working Women’s Department, said she was surprised by the depth of the concern about equal pay, having expected the women to complain more about child care, the issue the union had planned to address.

“The intensity around the equal pay issue was much greater than I’d heard in past efforts to find out what bothers working women, and very unexpected,” Nussbaum said. “They unequivocally said ‘Fix my pay.’

“The women who talked about equal pay bundled together several different things: that they aren’t getting paid as much as men who do the same work, that they’re not getting paid enough for the skills and responsibilities they have on the job, that they’re being discriminated against in promotions, when they’re just not considered for the better jobs.”

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the median weekly pay of full-time working women was 75 percent of men’s median pay in 1996.

Despite their lower pay, most working women are important breadwinners for their families. Almost two-thirds of working women earn half or more of their family’s income, according to the telephone survey of 725 women conducted in July and August by Lake Sosin Snell Perry and Associates.

Even among the married women, 52 percent reported that they contributed half or more of their household incomes.

Bureau statistics show that working wives, on average, contribute about one-third of their total family income.

But the survey found that two out of every five working women were the sole heads of their households.

Of those women - single, divorced, separated or widowed - more than a quarter had dependent children.

Based on the survey results, supplemented by a questionnaire returned by 50,000 women and discussions with women nationwide, the group now plans to develop two new initiatives, one on child care and one on equal pay.

Nussbaum said that it was still too early to say what form the initiative would take, but that would be important to raise those issues in union negotiations and to change them “from a private hurt into public policy.”

The survey painted an especially bleak picture of the job situations of women who work part time, a group that accounts for one-quarter of all working women.

Among the part-timers, 40 percent bring home more than half their family’s incomes, but fewer than half of them get pensions, health insurance or paid sick leave.

Only 56 percent of the part-timers reported getting any paid vacation time.