Robbing each working woman of $2 million

By Edie Koch

Although the global recession has had serious impact on working men and women alike, women in the United States and throughout the world have suffered most because of long-standing discrimination.

At first, the recession was felt in work done primarily by men, such as finance, manufacturing and construction. Now, however, the impact has shifted to other areas of work, including service work, where women generally are dominant. Of course, when men lose their jobs, women have to support their families. That is a very real burden for women. Although they do essentially the same work as men, or the equivalent of it, women in all countries earn substantially less than men, typically 30% to 40% less. In the United States, women average only 77 cents for every dollar earned by men.

The pay gap exists, in part, because we still find many more women than men taking up low paying jobs either because this is the only type of job made available or because they need to find employment that allows them to balance work and family responsibilities. This is usually not the case for men.

Not only in the U.S. but everywhere, we need equal treatment for working women. We need to pay women the same, and treat them the same, as men doing comparable work. The Equal Pay Act of 1963 has never delivered on its promise to guarantee women equal treatment on the job. The long-stalled Paycheck Fairness Act should be enacted to close loopholes in the Equal Pay Act that have made it easy for employers to discriminate against women in pay and other work issues.

The New Center for American Progress (CAP) estimates that if US women were granted equal pay, they could each earn as much as $2 million more over the whole of their working lives. It’s estimated as well that equal pay would reduce the number of families living in poverty by as much as half.

In addition to paycheck fairness, the CAP report called for worldwide updating of basic labor standards “to recognize that most workers have family responsibilities and need predictable and flexible work schedules, family and medical leaves and paid sick days.” Such standards would ensure that women “who stay employed to support their families” won’t end up unemployed because of “family-work conflicts.”

A recent poll cited in the CAP report showed that “a large majority of Americans support new, more family-friendly workplace policies.” Eight-five percent said, “Businesses that fail to adapt to the needs of modern families risk losing good workers.” Businesses that fail to adapt will be furthering the mistreatment of working women that’s gone virtually unchecked for far too many years. No matter what the recession or its end brings, we will not have a truly healthy economy until working women are guaranteed their full rights. Amen to that!

Back to Home