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The Beginning Of It All
Women across the country began taking jobs in the war industries due to the start of World War II. The National War Labor Board strongly suggested employers to make “adjustments which equalize wage or salary rates paid to female with rates paid to males for comparable quality and quantity of work.."
Employers failed to follow this "voluntary" request and at the end of the war, most women were laid off of their new jobs to make room for the returning veterans.
Is this the beginning of it all? -
Introduction Of The Equal Pay Act
Just three years later in 1945, the U.S. Congress introduced the Women’s Equal Pay Act. The purpose of this law was that it was made illegal to pay women less than men for work of “comparable quality and quantity.” The proposition failed to pass even after numerous amount of campaigns to promote the law to pass. With that being said, little progress was made even in the 1950’s to lower gender wage gap. Photo: Peaceful protest for Equal Pay -
Newspaper Ads - Help Wanted
During this time period, printed newspapers were a hot commodity and up until the early 1960’s there were separate job listings published for men and women. In many cases, identical jobs were listed under both male and female - but the listing for the males had a higher pay scale. In the decade between 1950 and 1960, women with full time jobs earned fifty-nine to sixty-four cents for every dollar a male made for the same job. -
Equal Pay Act
In the 1960’s, women represented about forty percent on the United States workforce, but were still only making about three-fifths that of men on average. To help resolve this issue, President John F. Kennedy proposed the Equal Pay Act, which was passed by Congress on June 10, 1963. Within the decade, gradual changes were made, including awarding back wages totaling more than $26 million were paid to 71,000 women. Photo: President John F. Kennedy signing The Equal Pay Act of 1963. -
Schultz v. Wheaton Glass Co.
Wheaton Glass Co. female employees were underpaid in the 1970s, while the company argued that the positions were under different job titles (which is why women’s positions were paid differently), while evidence showed the two positions were merely the same. The Supreme Court ruled that “jobs need to be substantially equal but do not need to be identical” to be protected under the Equal Pay Act of 1963. In order words, an employer cannot change the name of the title to pay the woman less. -
Corning Glass v. Brennan (Description of Case)
“...Corning Glass Co. began paying women who worked during the day shift a salary equivalent to that of their male counterparts. In 1969, the company entered an agreement that would pay night shift workers the same salaries as day shift workers. An exception was that nightshift workers hired prior to 1969 were to receive higher salaries; majority of the employees working the night shift were men and it was complained that this was a form of discrimination.” (Equal Pay Act- Employment | Laws.Com) -
Corning Glass v. Brennan (The Ruling)
In a 5-3 decision the Supreme Court ruled that "equal work should be rewarded by equal wages." It was also declared that Corning had the right to pay night shift workers more if there was evidence that showed that the they deserve a higher salary because of the demands of the job, but Corning failed to provide solid proof. -
1980-1990: A Decade Of Rapd Growth?
The chart to the left shows the ratio of female to male earnings from 1950 to the year 2000. According to the Government Census, women's median yearly earnings relative to men's rose rapidly from 1980 to 1990 (from 60.2% to 71.6%). -
1990's: Slowing Convergence (Francine D. Blau and Lawrence M. Kahn)
Studies fine that change in human capital didn't entirely cause the slowdown, and occupational upgrading had a larger, greater effect on women's wages. "Evidence suggests that changes in labor force selectivity, labor market discrimination, and changes in favorableness of demand shift each many of contributed to the slowing convergence of the unexplained gender pay gap." -
College-Educated Men vs. College-Educated Women
This chart shows the gender wage gap of college-educated men and women from 1984 all the way through 2004. This statistic suggests that the gap is only growing and by 2004, college-educated women between 45-49 earn 38% less per year than their college-educated male counterparts. Photo: Authors analysis of of Current Population data survey -
Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Restoration Act
President Obama signed this Act, which states that victims of pay discrimination to file a complaint with the government against their employer within 180 of their last paycheck (previously only allowed 180 days from the date of the first unfair paycheck). Lilly Ledbetter was a former employee of Goodyear who allegedly only paid her less than 15%-40% off what the male employees made. Photo: President Obama signing the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Restoration Act, which was repealed the next day. -
Executive Orders
In April 2014, President Obama signed two executive orders as he was determined to eliminate gender wage gap. One order bans federal contractors from punishing workers who discuss their salary, while the other stated that the Labor Department was to create rules to submit salary information based on race and gender. Unfortunately, Senate blocked a vote on the Paycheck Fairness Act. -
2016-Now: What Has Changed?
According to the Census Bureau, in 2016 women on average in the United States still only make 79-84 cents of every dollar that a man makes. According to a Statistica article on the SLCC database, the largest margin per industry is the Financial Industries. The question is, it is now 2018 and the gender wage gap still exists, but what can we do to make it stop? -
Work Cited
