WSJ: 'Comparable Worth' - Don't undermine the free-market system, by Linda Chavez

Wall Street Journal ^ | August 24, 2005 | LINDA CHAVEZ

[OESY]

...Comparable worth was intended to eliminate the gap between the earnings of men and women. Feminists argued that only hidden discrimination could explain the relatively lower wages in female-dominated occupations, like librarians, compared to male-dominated jobs, like electricians. Under comparable worth, employers would be required to rate jobs according to abstract notions of intrinsic value based on years of education required for a given job, the level of responsibility it entailed, and working conditions involved. In a free market, however, wages -- like prices -- are set primarily by supply and demand. Diamonds are not intrinsically more valuable than water (which is necessary to sustain life). But diamonds are in short supply relative to demand, which is why a one-carat solitaire costs a whole lot more than a bottle of Evian. Similarly, it may seem "unfair" that tree-trimmers earn more than day-care workers, but the relative supply of the former compared with the latter explains the differential.

Comparable worth is no mere variant of equal pay for equal work, which has been the law since 1963. It is illegal for an employer to pay a woman less than a man to trim a tree or to hire a male day-care worker at a higher salary than a female; it is also illegal to bar women from tree-trimming or men from day-care work.... The "remedy" is not to pay less for jobs that are dominated by men but to encourage more women to become electricians or tree-trimmers. This was the conclusion of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights after extensive research and public hearings in 1985 when I directed the agency. We opposed comparable-worth legislation and lawsuits, arguing that such efforts would actually discourage women from breaking out of sex-stereotyped roles and undermine the free market system....

[OESY]

Ms. Chavez, president of the Center for Equal Opportunity, directed the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights during the Reagan administration.

[penowa]

In a previous life (a very early one) I had a job as a Child Welfare supervisor working for the state. One of the supervisors from another county told me I had to attend a meeting being held to promote unionization of social workers, said I could not skip it. When somebody got up to speak about comparable worth, I laughed out loud until I realized everyone was looking at me and it was not a joke. I guess I am just a born conservative capitalist! It was little things like that meeting that made me realize I should find some other line of work quickly.