Compensating Differentials and the Male-Female Wage Gap: Evidence from the New York State Comparable Worth Study

Abstract

This article examines whether women are paid less than men because female-dominated jobs are characterized by more favorable working conditions than jobs dominated by men. We review evidence about whether differences in working conditions are responsible for a portion of the sex gap in wages, including pertinent data from a number of comparable worth studies. The heart of the article is an analysis of data on over 1,600 jobs in the New York State Civil Service System. Fourteen job-content indicators and 15 measures of working conditions are examined. Ourfindings are inconsistent with the expectations of the compensating differentials hypothesis. Prominent results include (1) both maleandfemale-dominated jobs are disadvantaged on a similar number of working-conditions indicators; (2) in general, neither men nor women receive wage premiums for working in unfavorable conditions, once other compensable characteristics are taken into account; (3) if female-dominated jobs had the same working conditions that characterize white male-dominated jobs, the sex gap in wages would grow slightly; and (4) femaledominated jobs would slightly improve their relative position if all wage penalties associated with working conditions were assigned a zero score. A power-based model of intraorganizational wage determination is discussed as an alternative to the neoclassical economic paradigm.