Public Support for Comparable Worth in Georgia

Abstract

Women's groups and some labor unions are increasingly pressing public personnel systems to pay women as much as men not only for equal but for work of comparable worth.' The State of Washington performed first important comparable worth study in 1974. The study estimated that male-dominated occupations paid 20 percent more than female-dominated occupations requiring similar knowledge and skills, mental demands, accountability, and working conditions.2 Since 1982, at least 35 state legislatures and U.S. Congress have considered or conducted comparable worth-related studies of their own personnel systems.3 Those states that have completed studies have uniformly found pay gaps between maleand femaledominated occupations of seemingly comparable worth -gaps ranging from 5 or 6 percent in North Carolina to 28 percent in New Jersey.4 Correcting these gaps could be very expensive. A recently overturned court decision, based on Washington State study, could have cost that state up to $1 billion in raises, back pay, promotions, and pension increases.5 Estimates for economy as a have gone as high as $320 billion, although comparable worth plans actually implemented have been much less costly.6 Comparable worth advocates claim that women have been segregated into a limited number of occupations through pressures of socialization and decisions of employers,7 and that work identified with women is always considered less valuable than that done by men, regardless of its difficulty or contribution.I They argue that public pay systems reflect this undervaluing of by uncritically accepting wages set in a discriminatory market, by allowing societal biases against women to distort whole evaluations, or by letting sexism creep into even most quantitatively sophisticated point factor evaluation systems.9 Remick defines comparable worth as the application of a single, bias-free point factor job evaluation system within a given establishment, across job families, both to rank-order jobs and to set salaries.' Although this definition is far from universally accepted, use of a quantitative job evaluation system rather than market to set wages is central to any comparable worth solution. Comparable worth opponents dispute claim that female-dominated occupations are underpaid, arguing that women's occupations pay less because their workers are less productive or because they offer non* What does public think of proposed policies of comparable worth for public employees? In a telephone survey we asked 558 Georgians their opinions on whether female-dominated occupations are underpaid because of discrimination and whether a comparable worth policy for public employees is feasible and desirable. Two findings emerge from these survey responses. (1) Proponents of comparable worth outnumber opponents by a ratio of three to one. (2) Inconsistencies in responses suggest that most citizens do not have strong and stable opinions about policy.