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Welcome to HR 101. Class is now in session. Today’s discussion will focus on the history of the battle to close the gender pay gap.
But first: Hey, Alexa, play “The Man,” by Taylor Swift.
The history. Women’s fight for equal pay is centuries old. An 1869 New York Times letter to the editor questioned why female employees of the federal government were not being paid the same as their male colleagues. The letter’s author noted that, at the time of publication, the Treasury Department employed about 500 women, all of whom were earning half as much as their male colleagues.
“Whatever arguments may be urged, with more or less force against the theory of woman’s political equality with man, very few persons deny the justice of the principle that equal work should command equal pay without regard to the sex of the laborer,” the letter’s author wrote. “But it is one thing to acknowledge the right of a principle and quite another to practice it.”
The following year, Congress passed an amended bill that promised equal wages to all future federal clerks, regardless of gender. The proposed amendment was met with fierce backlash, according to Politico.
One House member objected that it “will finally place the whole administration of government under female management.” The horror.
As more women joined the workforce amid both WWI and WWII, the fight for equal pay amplified. In 1945, the Women’s Equal Pay Act was brought before Congress, but failed to pass.
Over the course of the next 17 years, many similar measures would meet the same fate, notes the the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, until 1963, when the Equal Pay Act was passed by Congress and President Kennedy signed it into law.
But its passage didn’t create immediate change: By 1964, women were still earning an average of 59 cents for every dollar men made, according to the National Committee on Pay Equity—the same as in 1963.
The Equal Rights Amendment, which would guarantee protection against discrimination for women, passed both houses of Congress in 1972, but was not adopted by enough states before a 1982 deadline.
Fast-forward. In 2022, women earned about 82 cents for every dollar a man earned, according to Pew Research—and that’s without considering the effect that factors such as race and sexual orientation have on pay: Black and Hispanic women, for example, earned 70 and 65 cents, respectively, Pew Research found.
If progress continues at its current pace, women won’t achieve equal pay until 2056, notes The Center for American Progress.
Pay transparency laws have encouraged some employers to take steps to close the gap by offering greater pay transparency. Almost two dozen metropolitan areas in the country have shrunk the pay gap for women under 30 thanks to pay transparency initiatives.
The work continues.