Fair and Square - Equal Payment for Male and Female Employees

Marc Adams

Document Type

Article

Journal/Book Title/Conference

HR Magazine

Publisher

Society for Human Resource Management

Publication Date

1999

Abstract

When Congress passed the Equal Pay Act (EPA) more than 35 years ago, the goal was to ensure that women would be paid comparable to men for performing similar work. Today, as we approach the end of the century, it's only fair to ask: "Has it worked?" The reviews are mixed. In the race for equal pay, women are gaining on men, but the gap is still substantial. Since 1960 - three years before the EPA was passed - women's median wages have climbed from 60.7 percent of men's median wages to today's ratio of 76.7 percent, according to government data. That upward trend may be encouraging, but it still leaves a shortfall of more than 23 cents on the dollar for women. And that's an issue that deserves HR's attention for several reasons.

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Originally published by the Society for Human Resource Management. HTML fulltext available through remote link via BNET.

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