William P. Bridges

Legalizing gender inequality : courts, markets, and unequal pay for women in America

List of figures and tables Acknowledgements 1. Law, markets, and the institutional construction of gender inequality in pay Part I. Theory and Method: 2. Legal theories of sex-based pay discrimination 3. Toward an organizational theory of gender inequality in pay 4. Methodological approach: law cases, case studies, and critical empiricism Part II. The Case Studies. Section A. Public Sector Organizations: 5. Paternalism and politics in a university pay system: Christensen v. State of Iowa 6. Bureaucratic politics and gender inequality in a state pay system: AFSCME v. State of Washington Section B. Private Sector Organizations: 7. Corporate politics, rationalization, and managerial discretion: EEOC v. Sears, Roebuck & Co. 8. The financial institution as a male, profit-making club: Glass v. Coastal Bank Part III. Conclusion: Legalizing Gender Inequality: 9. Rethinking the relationship between law, markets, and gender inequality in organizations Appendix: court documents and case materials used in case studies References Index.

Markets in Hierarchies: Organizational and Market Influences on Gender Inequality in a State Pay System

A pivotal issue in sociological theories of labor markets, as well as legal and policy debates on pay equity, is the relative importance of market and organizational forces in determining pay differences between jobs held predominantly by men and those held predominantly by women. This article develops two models of the market organization relationship-an administered-efficiency model and a bureaucratic-politics model. Quantitative analyses of individual and job-level data in a state government pay system indicate that the administered efficiency model does not adequately explain malefemale earnings differences. Documentary, testimonial, and interview data strongly suggest the significance of bureaucratic politics in the pay-determination process. We conclude that market forces influence wage rates but are heavily mediated by organizational factors unrelated to efficiency considerations in the type of organization studied here.

Rethinking gender segregation and gender inequality: Measures and meanings

It is often assumed that occupational segregation by gender is readily interpretable as an index of inequality between men and women in the labor force. Although this view has been challenged, the development and dissemination of analytic tools that could test this assumption have been limited. This article reviews two methods for identifying invidious and noninvidious components of gender segregation and develops a third approach that overcomes some limitations of the other two. Each method is applied to a data set that consists of observations from 22 countries covered in the International Social Survey Program. The results are compared and contrasted, and several conclusions emerge. First, occupational segregation is not completely interpretable as occupational gender inequality. Second, the methods differ in how large they estimate the invidious (vertical) component to be. Third, each method produces measures of invidious and noninvidious segregation that can be predicted statistically from other characteristics of the countries in question. The article ends with suggestions about the circumstances under which the various approaches may be the most useful.

Explaining racial disparities in access to employment benefits

Abstract This research examines disparities in access to pension and health insurance plans between white, blacks, Latino and Asian workers in the American labour force. Using data from the 2006 March Supplement of the Current Population Survey, the analysis reveals that Latino workers are the most disadvantaged and white workers are the most advantaged. The entire gap in likelihood of receiving benefits between whites and Asians, and a substantial portion of the gap between whites and blacks, can be accounted for by socio-demographic and employment-related variables, but only a small portion of the gap between whites and Latinos can be attributed to such variables. The findings suggest that reliance on earnings for estimation of inequality underestimates the economic gap between racial groups. Explanations for disparities in access to employment benefits are offered and the relevance of the findings to other societies is discussed.

Age and the Labor Market

Americans are legitimately concerned about the changing nature of employment relationships in our society. One focus of this concern is whether opportunities for productive work will continue to be available to successive cohorts of workers as they begin to reach old age. For the generation of American workers who are already close to or beyond traditional retirement ages, this issue plays out in their day-to-day experience as well as in the pages of the daily press and in business periodicals. However, despite the apparent level of popular interest in this subject, academic researchers have yet to produce uncontested evidence that changes in the labor market are as dramatic as those described in recent press reports. This is particularly true with regard to the fate of older workers in a restructuring economy For example, the suspicion that employer cutbacks disproportionately affect older workers is a widespread belief and a thesis advanced in some academic literature (Calasanti and Bonanno 1992; Sum and Fogg 1990). However, existing empirical studies and reviews provide conflicting evidence and less than overwhelming support for this assertion. And there are other missing pieces in the recent empirical literature on the changing nature of job security in our society. There is little systematic information on how trends in older workers’ employment situation compare to those of younger people, and even less is known about how trends in perceptions of job security differ between older and younger workers.

Law, Markets, and the Institutional Construction of Gender Inequality in Pay

1 The pay equity movement won its largest legal victory in 1983, when Judge Jack Tanner of the federal District Court of Western Washington found that the State of Washington had discriminated against workers in predominantly female jobs and awarded the plaintiffs a

Racial Discrimination in Chicago's Storefront Banks

400 million judgment. The AFSCME decision (so named because the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees brought the lawsuit) catapulted the pay equity issue into instant prominence. In its immediate aftermath, the number of states conducting pay equity studies doubled to thirty-four, and the number of articles on pay equity in leading newspapers quadrupled (McCann 1994, 54–59). The victory was shortlived, however. In 1985, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the AFSCME decision. Then judge, now justice, Anthony Kennedy pronounced, “Neither law nor logic deems the free market a suspect enterprise. . . . Title VII does not obligate [the State of Washington] to eliminate an economic inequality it did not create” (AFSCME, 1407). According to Justice Kennedy, the plaintiffs not only lacked a legal basis for redress, but the very nature of their thinking – their logic – was wrong. The Ninth Circuit authoritatively denounced plaintiffs’ theory of gender-based wage inequality as inconsistent with a core institution of American society – the free market. The reversal of the AFSCME decision had a devastating effect on the pay equity movement. Other courts followed the AFSCME precedent in rejecting similar claims. Reform activity in states and municipalities slowed to a trickle. Media coverage of pay equity matters fell by more than one-half (McCann 1994, 54–59). Some wage reforms were won through state legislation and collective bargaining, but even these garnered only mixed results. The conventional view among the press, policy makers, and academics was that comparable worth was essentially dead

The Sexual Segregation of Occupations: Theories of Labor Stratification in Industry.

A multiple regression analysis of survey data was carried out to evaluate the extent and form of price differentials in Chicago currency exchanges. These institutions, which are partially regulated by the state, cash checks, write money orders, and remit utility payments in return for small service fees. The results showed that there were price differentials for obtaining financial services of small value (under

Legalizing gender inequality

200), with higher prices being charged in Latmo and Black neighborhoods. The inclusion of interaction terms for ethnic composition, however, demonstrated that the form of the pricing function was relatively constant across neighborhoods.