HD5 - A Report of the Virginia Commission on the Status of Women on Pay Equity
Executive Summary: The study of pay equity, completed by the Virginia Commission on the Status of Women, has found that: 1. There is an earnings gap between men and women, with full-time working women earning, on the average, 62 cents for every dollar earned by full-time working men. 2. This earnings gap is caused by a number of factors, including the segregation of half of women workers into 20 of 427 occupations. These 20 occupational groups generally have lower paying salaries than the occupations in which men predominate. 3. Occupational segregation is leading to the "feminization of poverty." It has been projected that if the proportion of the poor who are in female-headed households continues to increase at the present rate, by the year 2000 only women and children will live below the poverty line. 4. The federal Equal Pay Act has successfully eliminated most of the differences in pay between men and women in identical jobs, but has not been able to address the problems of occupational segregation and the undervaluing of women's jobs. 5. Virginia's (and other states') equal pay policies have also been unsuccessful in addressing the problems of the earnings gap between males and females. 6. Many organizations, from private companies to state and local governments, are moving toward study and implementation of pay equity policies. 7. Pay equity is a concept which has come to encompass both equal pay for identical work and equal pay for work requiring comparable skill, effort and responsibility. The Commission has concluded that eradicating extant sex-based wage discrimination requires a threefold approach. First, women and men must be paid equally for identical work. Second, women must be assured access into non-traditional jobs, including managerial and other traditionally male positions. Third, and the approach that would affect the most women in accomplishing pay equity, is that women and men must be paid equally for work requiring comparable skill, effort, and responsibility -- work of comparable value. The first two steps both have a place in federal and state law, and have enhanced women's opportunities for equity in important ways. The third step, however, is essential to women's attainment of economic equality, and pay equity. The Commission thus recommends that the Commonwealth make a decisive commitment to the principle of equal pay for comparable worth and take steps necessary to achieve pay equity. As initial steps toward that goal, the Commission requests that: 1. The Governor appoint a task force to study and make recommendations for: 1) a specific pay equity policy for the Commonwealth; 2) models for correcting wage inequities in local governments; and 3) ways in which the private sector can implement the Commonwealth's pay equity commitment; and 2. The General Assembly authorize the Commission to conduct a second phase of its pay equity study. The second phase would consist of compiling data and information of a technical nature on job evaluation, classification, and compensation systems, with the goal of developing a plan to implement pay equity within state government. |
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