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From: smb@achilles.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.women
Subject: Re: 59 cents
Message-ID: <617@achilles.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 21-Sep-83 16:37:15 EDT
Article-I.D.: achilles.617
Posted: Wed Sep 21 16:37:15 1983
Date-Received: Fri, 23-Sep-83 03:26:26 EDT
References: cca.5742, <5895@unc.UUCP>
Organization: Bell Labs, Murray Hill
Lines: 22

Byron is right; the differences are quite real (although I believe the
original submitter stated the conditions incorrectly; see below).  For
example, the Labor Department compared salaries for male and female
scientists, controlling for differences in education, experience, etc.
The result:  on the average, women earned about 80% of what their male
colleagues with *similar backgrounds* earned.  I saw this written up in
Science News about 4 years ago; I can probably dig up the exact citation
if necessary.

As for the exact figures:  my recollection is that the $.59 number is an
average for all women, as compared with all men, and hence does not take
into account education and experience.  It also does not take into account
the sexual differentiation of the job market -- it can be hard to compare
women and men in the same job categories, because most jobs are predominatly
female or predominantly male.  (A new goal of the feminist movement is "equal
pay for equal value", which is an attempt to equalize wages among different
job categories that are nevertheless equally valuable to the employer.)
But -- as I mentioned above -- when all these factors are controlled for,
women still earn far less than men.  And on the average -- a female college
graduate earns less than a male high school dropout....

		--Steve Bellovin