SOCIAL TOPICS (Archive): EQUITY

Published, November 2000

       According to national public opinion data, the biggest challenges facing women at work today are balancing work and family priorities and receiving equal pay. Women comprise over 45 percent of the U.S. labor force and their numbers are growing. The Hudson Institute’s book, Workforce 2020: Work and Workers in the 21st Century, indicates that 62 percent of new entrants to the U.S. workforce between now and 2005 will be women. Although women are slowly gaining economic parity with men, gaps in wages and struggles with work-life benefits still exist. These inequalities compel us to examine the workplace divide and what we can do to bridge it.

       According to the 1999 Census Bureau report, women, on average, earned 75.7 cents for each dollar earned by a man. The wage gap is related, in part, to women’s concentration in lower-paying occupations. In 1999, 57.4 percent of all employed women worked in technical, sales, service, and administrative support/clerical jobs. Minimum wage workers, 60 percent of whom are women, barely make more than $10,000 annually. But even adjustments for professional, economic and educational status do not eliminate the difference in wages. And while the wage gap has decreased over the last five years, critics argue that this shift can be attributed largely to men’s wages falling in certain job categories rather than women’s wages rising. Government regulations seek to bridge the gap, most notably the Equal Pay Act of 1963, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the amendment to Title VII in the Civil Rights Acts of 1991. These rules have led to a number of high-profile legal victories for women, including this year’s award of $3.1 million in back pay and salary adjustments to female employees of Texaco. Damages in a wage-based sex discrimination settlement against Merrill Lynch are still pending. And Kodak, responding to internal complaints, recently agreed to pay women employees retroactive raises, totaling several million dollars.

       Meanwhile, further government regulation is being considered. Two equal-pay measures are currently mired in Congress: the Paycheck Fairness Act and the Fair Pay Act. The Paycheck Fairness Act would forbid employers from penalizing workers who share salary information with one another. The Fair Pay Act prohibits wage discrimination based on race and national origin as well as gender. Concurrently, the White House has called for an extra $14 million to enforce existing laws.

       Money isn’t the panacea for gender imbalances in the workplace. Over the past 40 years, the number of working women with preschool children has quadrupled. Today nearly two-thirds of American mothers with children age three or less are working. These women want to be able to have families but also remain committed to their careers.

       Achieving a work-life balance is growing in importance, and now rightly includes the needs of all employees, including working fathers, single parents, caregivers, and childfree and low-income workers. In fact, over the past year men comprised 42 percent of applicants requesting leave under the Family and Medical Leave Act, which provides full-time employees with up to 12 workweeks of unpaid, job-protected leave.

       Businesses are discovering that work-life initiatives such as flexible work scheduling, dependent care services, time-off policies, financial assistance, health and wellness programs, and concierge services are linked to real business goals. In today’s tight labor market, companies have to make themselves as attractive as possible to secure the best and brightest of workers. Furthermore, work-life programs have been shown to improve overall job performance by enhancing productivity, reducing absenteeism and turnover, attracting and retaining talented workers, and enhancing employee commitment. In 1997, a Hewlett-Packard Financial Services processing center sharply increased its productivity when some workers chose to work four 10-hour days. The center began completing 252 transactions a week versus 185 transactions previously.

       Some work-life initiatives, however, like part-time work, remain inadequate. Part-time work typically does not offer pension or health insurance benefits. Working women whose spouses earn high salaries and who have greater family assets are more likely than others to work part-time. This suggests that for the majority of families, part-time work is not a viable financial strategy for balancing work and family responsibilities.

       Wage regulations and work-life balance offerings come in tandem with a growing recognition that wage inequities impact not only women but their families as well. Worldwide, women make up three-fifths of all adults living in poverty. In the United States, 53 percent of all families living in poverty are headed by single women.

       Clearly, if women were paid equitably, families would benefit directly. Organizations have worked to quantify this argument. A study for the Institute for Women’s Policy Research and the AFL-CIO revealed that the average family loses $4,229 annually due to the wage gap. The study predicts that poverty rates would drop by more than 50 percent if women received equal pay.

       Still, management looks at women and sees moms. When Pepsi-Cola Co. North America chief executive Brenda Barnes resigned in September 1997 in order to spend more time with her family, her story hit the prime-time media. Notes Working Woman, “[It was] funny that when she got the top job … no video crew was on hand to capture the moment. After 22 years of corporate life, Barnes was famous coast-to-coast not for her professional achievements, but for being a mother.” Increasingly, men are in the spotlight for similar reasons.

       Walden recognizes that workplace inequalities are not an issue exclusively about women, but about families and society. Without fair pay, women and families lose. Lower lifetime earnings translate into lower pensions. The fact that women on average live longer than men only increases the loss of income for women in their lifetimes.

       Walden strives to bring these issues to the forefront of public awareness and company board agendas. Annually, we survey our major domestic holdings to review employment data to understand better their hiring and promotion practices. In 2000, Walden filed several resolutions related to gender in the workplace. We filed one resolution with commercial printer, R.R. Donnelley, to request a review of wage equity issues and withdrew one with MBNA when the company agreed to provide, for the first time, a diversity report. We also take a stand through proxy voting and routinely vote against board slates without women. Our Community Development Investment Service enables clients to support directly organizations led by and focusing on women. Meanwhile, Walden continues to collaborate with nonprofits and other social investors to educate and act on issues related to gender diversity and workplace inequalities. Given women’s significant role in the workplace and in families, there is, without a doubt, a need for action.