Legalizing
Gender Inequality: Courts, the Institutional
Construction of Markets, and Unequal Pay for Women
Robert
L. Nelson and William P. Bridges
Abstract
This paper is the concluding chapter of a book that
analyzes the relationship between markets, organizations, and sex-based
wage inequality. The cornerstone of the analysis is a set of four
case studies of organizations that were sued for sex discrimination
in pay, and which included data on between-job wage differences.
Here we summarize the results and discuss the implications for theory,
policy, and law. The empirical results lend support to an organizational
inequality model of gender-based pay differences. Despite significant
differences across organizational settings and between the public
and the private sector, we find that large organizations mediate
between market prices and internal pay levels in ways that contribute
to gender-based pay inequality.
The findings have significant policy implications. We suggest that
neither the free market nor comparable worth will achieve gender
inequality in pay without serious disadvantages. After discussing
the experience of various attempts at reform, we propose several
changes in law and regulation that will encourage organizations
to adopt pay practices that are more rational and fair. Finally,
we assert that the fate of the cases we studied reveals the limitations
of the law as a vehicle for redressing gender inequality in American
society. Plaintiffs made a critical error when they attacked between-job
wage differences on the basis that the market discriminated against
women, for they posed a false dichotomy between the market and antidiscrimination.
But the courts also failed to deal with the issue adequately. After
recognizing in principle that between-job wage differences could
constitute sex discrimination under Title VII, they then consistently
adopted the position that the market, rather than employer practices,
was the source of such wage differences. The courts thus gave legal
authority to one side of an empirical debate and effectively legalized
a fundamental aspect of gender inequality in the American occupational
system.
Robert L. Nelson, Department
of Sociology, Northwestern University
William P. Bridges, Department of Sociology, University
of Illinois at Chicago
To Order:
Hard copies of IPR working papers cost $5.00 each (international orders are $10 each). We only accept checks drawn on U.S. bank and payable in U.S. funds. Checks or
money orders should be made payable to Northwestern University and sent to
the following address:
Publications Department - WP Orders
Institute for Policy Research
2040 Sheridan Rd., Evanston, IL 60208-4100.
For information, call 847-491-8712 or email ipr@northwestern.edu.
Please note that we do not accept credit cards.
