COMPARABLE WORTHin wages between male-dominated and female-
dominated occupations—such as that female-domi-
nated occupations have greater nonmonetary com-
pensations (such as vacation, sick leave, flexibility
in working hours) (Jencks, Perman and Rainwater
1988) or that they are more accommodating to
intermittent careers (England 1982)—have not
been supported by empirical studies.
The conclusion of J.S. Mill in 1865, as quoted
by Edgeworth in 1922—‘‘The remuneration of the
peculiar employments of women is always, I be-
lieve, greatly below that of employments of equal
skill and equal disagreeableness carried on by
men.’’—is similar to the conclusion reached by the
National Research Council/National Academy of
Sciences committee report in 1981:
‘‘[Such] differential earnings patterns have
existed for many decades. They may arise in
part because women and minority men are
paid less than white men for doing the same
(or very similar) jobs within the same firm, or
in part because the job structure is substantial-
ly segregated by sex, race, and ethnicity and the
jobs held mainly by women and minority men
pay less than the jobs held mainly by non-
minority men’’ (Treiman and Hartmann
1981, p.92).
The evidence is fairly conclusive that occupa-
tional-level wage discrimination exists—that is, that
skills and requirements are less well rewarded in
jobs held primarily by women than they are in jobs
held primarily by men. Comparable worth advo-
cates argue that applying job-evaluation methods
is a viable method for reducing this form of wage
discrimination. This is clarified in Helen Remick’s
proposed working definition of comparable worth
as ‘‘the application of a single, bias-free point
factor job evaluation system within a given estab-
lishment, across job families, both to rank-order
jobs and to set salaries‘‘(1984, p.99).
Job-evaluation methods are well established
and have been used for decades to establish
equivalencies across jobs. Actual methods of job
evaluation differ, but the usual approach is to start
by describing all jobs within a given organization.
Next, a list of important job requirements is devel-
oped and jobs are rated on each requirement. For
example, one requirement could be the use of
mathematics. In this case each job would be rated
from ‘‘low’’ (e.g. addition and subtraction of whole
numbers) to ‘‘high’’ (e.g., the use of differential
equations). Most job-evaluation methods include
job requirements such as level of education, skills,
level of responsibility, and the environment in
which the work is performed. Some job-evaluation
methods also include such characteristics of job
incumbents as average education, training, and
experience. More complex job-evaluation systems
also consider how jobs rank with regard to fringe
benefits (e.g. sick leave), hours (e.g. shift work),
training and promotion opportunities, hazards,
autonomy (e.g. can leave work without permis-
sion), authority (e.g. supervises others), and or-
ganizational setting (e.g. organizational size) (see
Jencks et al. 1988). After each job is rated and
given a certain number of ‘‘points’’ for each re-
quirement, the points are then added into an
overall ‘‘score’’ for each job. These scores are then
weighted based on the importance assigned to a
particular job attribute. Each job then receives a
total number of points based on all of the appropiate
factors in order to compare the value to the firm of
different jobs. These composite scores are then
used to rank jobs in order to help determine
appropriate wages (Blau and Ferber 1986). This
makes it possible to compare wages paid for jobs
with very different—but comparable—content. In
addition to considering the training and work
requirements for jobs within the firm, systems of
job evaluation often also take into account whatev-
er information is available on prevailing wages for
different types of labor. The use of job evaluation
is neither new nor unusual, and currently job
evaluation is often used to determine pay scales by
governments and by many businesses. Job evalua-
tions are primarily used when employers cannot
rely on the market to establish wages. (See Spilerman
1986, for a discussion of the types of organizations
that determine wages based on nonmarket mecha-
nisms.) Employers must determine wages, for ex-
ample, when positions are filled entirely from
within an organizational unit (e.g. through promo-
tion of an existing workforce) or when they fill jobs
that are unique to a particular firm. In these cases,
‘‘going rates’’ for all jobs are not always available in
local labor markets.There are at least two critical limitations to
using job-evaluation methods in establishing com-
parable worth. First, it is difficult to eliminate the
effects of past practices on the identification and
the weighting of important job characteristics.