It has been more than five decades since the Equal Pay Act of 1963 was signed into law by President John F. Kennedy. At the time, Kennedy expressed a strong politically bipartisan view that wage discrimination was unhealthy for the American economy and democracy.
Times have changed and there is no doubt the wage gap has narrowed considerably, but we have fallen short of Kennedy’s goal. Kennedy noted in 1963 that women earned on average 60 cents on the dollar compared to the hourly wages of men. As the number of women in the work place has grown from 25 million in 1963 to 72 million in 2010, the national gender wage gap has dropped, but still persists. In NH, women earn 77 cents to a man’s dollar, which is below the national average of 82 cents.
Skeptics consider the 77-cent figure misleading, as it represents an average that includes all full-time workers across all occupations. They ask: What factors contribute to this number?
Others want to compare the gender gap by specific occupations. This parsing can provide more detail for study, and it is true that the gap varies by occupation, but the bottom line is: it still exists.
A 2014 wage report by the NH Women’s Foundation (NHWF) was sparked by more than 28 listening sessions from 2011 to 2012 in which the top issue for the more than 220 participants was that of equal pay for equal work.
The report, “Understanding Equal Pay in the Granite State,” states there are more women working in NH (65 percent) than the national average (58 percent), and NH produces a significantly higher number of female college graduates (52 percent versus 36 percent nationally).
So why does the gender wage gap persist? This is what we learned:
Women pick professions that pay less: As one listening session participant said, “I don’t think that women are attracted to jobs that pay less, I think that less pay is attracted to jobs that women have.” Whether a kindergarten teacher (97 percent female), health aide (74 percent female) or office administrator (74 percent female), data shows many women work in professions that pay less.
Women take time off to be a mom: While family roles are changing and more women than ever are in the workforce, women are still the primary caretakers. Women's diminishing opportunities upon becoming mothers is often called the “mommy track,” a negative frame for a personal and complicated decision to balance work and family made by both genders.
Women do not negotiate effectively, if at all: In many of the NHWF statewide listening sessions we heard about the lack of confidence or skills at negotiating salaries. Women often simply accept the salary offered. “A male colleague was making more money without a degree and with less work experience simply because I didn’t ask for it,” commented one woman.
And yes, discrimination still exists: The television series Mad Men highlights the more obvious sexism in the workplace from our not so distant past. Our challenge now is that discrimination is more subtle. Benevolent sexism exists because we carry ingrained stereotypes that are born from the traditional roles—male as breadwinner and female as caretaker—in our past. One listening session participant observed, “I was told I couldn’t get the promotion because I didn’t ‘need’ the money the same way my male co-workers did.”
The Way Forward
While recent policy changes have been made in the Granite State, including the 2014 bipartisan passage of the NH Paycheck Fairness Act, further work is needed to create an honest vocabulary and practical action about closing the gender wage gap.
In this staunchly self-reliant state, a hybrid of business initiatives and personal responsibility appear to be the next step. How can we champion open dialogue about the gender wage gap? How can we create a workplace culture where women can thrive? How can we balance work and family through workplace practices? And how can we teach women negotiation skills? It is time to think beyond policy. Let’s think creatively about how to champion women and girls as we break out of the lingering stereotypes that promote prejudice.
The quest for equal pay for equal work is nothing new. After all, it was Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower who said in his 1956 State of the Union address that “legislation to apply the principle of equal pay for equal work without discrimination because of sex is simple justice.”
Mary Johanna Brown is the chair of the NH Women’s Foundation and president and founder of Brown & Company Design in Portsmouth. For more information, visit www.nhwi.org.
Current Issue - May 2024