Comparable Prices – Conditionally Constant Prices Essay Example

which was a gap that had not changed much in decades pay equity advocacy groups and individuals presumed that the earnings difference to the sexual segregation of the workforce. Because of this practice women were contained to such low paying jobs as nursing, retail sales, and clerical services.

Sexual discrimination discouraged or restricted women rom attaining higher pay jobs that were assumably male only professions. Employers were still able to circumvent the 1963 Equal Pay Act, because prevailing interpretations of the law through the 1960s and ‘70s stated that women must receive equal pay when the preform the same job. The federal courts of the 1980s found little or no merit for suits that would broaden the reach of the Equal Pay Act, which would force employers to apply comparable worth principles to compensation.

The courts decided that the pay disparities between men and women were a product of supply and demand rather than intentional employer discrimination. Advocacy groups for comparable worth have had more luck in legislation than in the court room. In 1973 “the state of Washington became the first state to conduct a study of its own workforce to test for unequal compensation rates between sex-segregated jobs. ” (answers. com). 10 years later in 1983 Minnesota became the first state to pass legislation to change the pay of all its employees, providing equal pay for comparable work.

By the late 1980s only four states had undertaken no comparable worth action at all, including data collection, task forces, job evaluation studies, or salary adjustments, while twenty states were in the process of implementing pay equity plans based on comparable worth principles.

References:

1. Comparable worth. (2008). In Encyclopedia
   

Britannica. Retrieved September 13, 2008, from Encyclopedia Britannica Online: www. britannica. com/EBchecked/topic/129611/comparable-worth