The Wage War
The National Partnership for Women and Families reports that the women of South Carolina are increasingly responsible for the economic security of their families, but where wages are concerned, they still fall behind men.
The report says 69 percent of working mothers in the state bring in more than a quarter of their families' income and 255,140 households in South Carolina are headed by women, yet 34 percent of women-headed households in South Carolina live below the poverty level. The study suggests that eliminating the wage gap would provide critical income to 87,768 families living in poverty.
According to the Institute for Women's Policy Research, South Carolina ranks 40th in the nation when it comes to women's earnings. African-American women earn a little more than half of their white male counterparts in the state and are half as likely to hold a four-year college degree as white women.
"Men even earn more than women in traditionally female-dominated occupations. For example, full-time female registered nurses earned an average of $1,035 per week, whereas men earned $1,090," writes Mariko Chang, author of Shortchanged: Why Women Have Less Wealth and What Can Be Done About It. "Researchers have found that even when differences in work experience, education, age, and occupation are held constant, women continue to earn less."
Twenty-nine percent less, says Jil Littlejohn, Executive Director of YWCA of Greenville. "Women are making less than men in the exact same position and same qualifications," she says.
Nationally, in 2009, women working full-time, year-round were paid only 77 cents for every dollar paid to men. African-American women were paid only 61 cents, and Latinas only 52 cents, for every dollar paid to white, non-Hispanic men.
The wage gap has been closing at a rate of less than half a cent per year since the passage of the 1963 Equal Pay Act, when women were paid 58.9 cents for every dollar paid to men.
Education is one of the factors studies cite as influencing the difference in wages, but according to Claude Lilly, Clemson University's Dean of the College of Business and Behavioral Science, more women are seeking higher education than ever before. "Thirty or 40 years ago, only 15 percent of the student population was female," he says. "The number of women in business schools across the country is now well over 50 percent."
The problem for South Carolina is that when young people graduate from college, they are typically drawn to larger cities like Charlotte and Atlanta, Littlejohn explains.
Women are losing the wage war when they chose to have children, according to an analysis of Census data by Reach Advisors, a consumer research firm in Slingerlands, N.Y. Young, childless women have surpassed their male counterparts when it comes to wage earnings in large cities, but once they decide to start a family, their earnings decline and men take the lead.
The American Community Survey indicates that for full-time, year-round workers in 2009, median earnings for women were 78.2 percent of men's earnings. Women's earnings were lower than men's earnings in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. In South Carolina, the study finds women were at 78.2 percent of men's earnings.
National Women's Law Center echoed those findings, and discovered that African-American women make only 62 cents and Hispanic women only earn 53 cents for every dollar earned by white, non-Hispanic males.
"Some of it is choice and some of it is not choice. Women are choosing occupations that allow them more flexibility or choosing occupations that are closer to home or closer to a daycare," says Claudia Goldin, Harvard Department of Economics and director of the National Bureau of Economic Research's Development of the American Economy program. She says women also tend to shy away from being competitive in the workplace, which hurts their potential for increase in pay.
Goldin and colleague Larry Katz conducted a study on Harvard women and found that the women earned about 30 percent less than the males. Super-Freakonomics author Steve Levitt cited their study in his book, saying that a variety of factors contributed to the difference in earnings. "Women are more likely to leave the workforce or downshift their careers to raise a family. Even within high-paying occupations like medicine and law, women tend to choose specialties that pay less (general practitioner, for instance, or in-house counsel). And there is likely still a good amount of discrimination. This may range from the overt — denying a woman a promotion purely because she is not a man — to the insidious." Goldin and Katz said weight and even oral hygiene can play a role in how much a woman is paid.
A lifetime of pay inequality in the workplace follows women into retirement and can account for up to two-thirds of the retirement income gap for women, mostly showing up in pensions and savings. Social Security has remedied some of the situation by providing spousal benefits which help offset wage discrimination.
In January of 2009 the United States House of Representatives approved the Paycheck Fairness Act which would have given fighting power to those who are targets of wage discrimination. The bill allowed employees to discuss salaries with coworkers; required employers to prove any pay differences exist job-related reasons not race or gender; created a negotiation skills training program for women and girls; recognized employers for excellence in their pay practices; provided assistance to businesses to help with equal pay practices; and enhanced the Department of Labor's and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission's abilities to investigate and enforce pay discrimination laws.
The bill failed to pass through Senate, but in March 2011 President Obama said he would continue to fight for equality in pay. A similar bill sponsored by Maryland Senator Barbara Mikulski to amend the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 is currently in committee.