Heidi I. Hartmann

Women's Work, Men's Work. Sex Segregation on the Job.

Even though women have made substantial progress in a number of formerly male occupations, sex segregation in the workplace remains a fact of life. This volume probes pertinent questions: Why has the overall degree of sex segregation remained stable in this century? What informal barriers keep it in place? How do socialization and educational practices affect career choices and hiring patterns? How do family responsibilities affect womens work attitudes? And how effective is legislation in lessening the gap between the sexes? Amply supplemented with tables, figures, and insightful examination of trends and research, this volume is a definitive source for what is known today about sex segregation on the job.

Computer chips and paper clips : technology and women's employment

1 Front Matter 2 I. Overview Technology, Women, and Work: Policy Perspectives 3 II. Case Studies of Women Workers and Information Technology The Technological Transformation of White-Collar Work: A Case Study of the Insurance Industry 4 Machines Instead of Clerks: Technology and the Feminization of Bookkeeping, 1910-1950 5 New Technology and Office Tradition: The Not-So-Changing World of the Secretary 6 Integrated Circuits/Segregated Labor: Women in Computer-Related Occupations and High-Tech Industries 7 III. Technology and Trends in Women Women 8 Recent Trends in Clerical Employment: The Impact of Technological Change 9 Restructuring Work: Temporary, Part-Time, and At-Home Employment 10 IV. Policy Perspectives Employer Policies to Enhance the Application of Office System Technology to Clerical Work 11 New Office and Business Technolgies: The Structure of Education and (Re)Training Opportunities 12 The New Technology and the New Economy: Some Implications for Equal Employment Opportunity 13 Managing Technological Change: Responses of Government, Employers, and Trade Unions in Western Europe and Canada 14 Biographical Sketches of Contributors

Comparable worth : new directions for research

Comparable worth--equal pay for jobs of equal value--has been called the civil rights issue of the 1980s. This volume consists of a committee report that sets forth an agenda of much-needed research on this issue, supported by six papers contributed by eminent social scientists. The research agenda presented is structured around two general themes: (1) occupational wage differentials and discrimination and (2) wage adjustment strategies and their impact. The papers deal with a wide range of topics, including job evaluation, social judgment biases in comparable worth analysis, the economics of comparable worth, and prospects for pay equity.

Notes on the NAS Study of Equal Pay for Jobs of Equal Value

he problem of comparable worth, or equal pay for jobs of equal value, or pay equity, arises because of the large and continuing differential in mens and womens L ^ ^ l earnings and the persistent segregation of men and women in the labor market. The earnings gap has remained at approximately 40 percent for practically as long as statistics have been kept; that is, women who work full time, year round earn on average 60 percent of what full-time, year-round male workers earn. Women are increasingly expressing their dissatisfaction with their wage rates and, in particular, claim that it is the traditionally womens jobs that are underpaid. Many of these jobs, e.g., nurse, librarian, require several years of specialized education. To these women, the earnings gap may be especially apparxad ent. More generally, in 1978, among full-time, year-round workers, black and white women with college educations earned less than white men with eighth-grade educations, giving rise to widespread feelings among women that they are underpaid. In recent years, increasing emphasis has been placed on the prevalence of job segregation as an explanation for the earnings gap. The index of segregation, 1 an overall measure, inxad dicates that almost two-thirds of women or men would have to change occupations in order for women to have the same occupational distribution as men across the detailed occupations of the census classification, and this has been the case since at least 1900. Further, the more an occupation is dominated by women, the less it pays. In 1970 (the latest year for which comprehensive data are available), those occupations that were performed solely by women on the average paid less than half as much as those occupations that were performed solely by men. Overall, 3 5 4 0 percent of the wage gap between men and women can be attributed

Computer Chips and Paper Clips: Technology and Women's Employment

Owen uses his aggregate time series data to estimate the effects of real wages and other independent variables on labor input per capita. The results indicate that changes in the provision of social security benefits have accelerated the decline in the labor input of older men. Changes in pension provisions, however, have had little effect on the labor supply of middle-aged men. Owen argues that the increasing costs of raising children (especially educational outlays) have had an important effect on the labor supply decisions of middle-aged men, slowing the reduction in their labor input. For women, large increases in the real wage, combined with moderate increases in their wage relative to men, have reduced both time spent in leisure and time in home production and have increased time in the labor market. Although variables influencing the supply of labor have clearly had significant effects on labor force patterns, Owen argues that changes in the demand for labor also have played an important role. Noteworthy factors include the transition from primary to tertiary industries (and the concomitant decline in the importance of physical labor and strength) and changes in the organization of work, study, and training. For example, as the number of small familyrun businesses has declined and the number of large corporations has increased, much jobrelated training has shifted to the schools. Owen suggests that these major transitions jointly have increased the demand for womens labor relative to that of younger and older men. He fails, however, to discuss the effects that affirmative action legislation may have had on the labor input of American women during this period. Owen adds to the literature with his treatment of labor input per capita and especially with his close examination of longrun changes in the labor supply of men. The book contains an appendix thoroughly describing how the data are constructed. Though Owens empirical analysis supports his major hypotheses, the econometric models are not the primary contribution of this work. Still, test-statistics for these models (especially DurbinWatson and F-statistics) would have been instructive. Overall, Owens description and analysis of the major long-run trends in the labor supply of American men and women will be a useful addition to the libraries of economists interested in the labor force. Because of the books accessible style, it can be appreciated by undergraduate economics majors and noneconomists.

From Sky Girl to Flight Attendant: Women and the Making of a Union@@@High Pressure: Working Lives of Women Managers@@@Women, Work, and Wages: Equal Pay for Jobs of Equal Value

The article presents reviews of three books, “From Sky Girl to Flight Attendant: Women and the Making of a Union,” by Georgia Panter Nielsen, “High Pressure: Working Lives of Women Managers,” by Cary Cooper and Marilyn Davidson, and “Women, Work, and Wages: Equal Pay for Jobs of Equal Value,” edited by Donald J. Treiman and Heidi I. Hartmann.