Global Women Talk: Evelyn Murphy, "Bridging the Gap on Gender Wage Disparity"
In 2006, American women earned an average of 77 cents for every dollar earned by their male counterparts. "If this were all about merit, there would be no wage gap," Evelyn Murphy, author of Getting Even—Why Women Don't Get Paid Like Men and What to Do About It, said. The Fletcher School event, entitled, "Bridging the Gap on Gender Wage Disparity" was hosted by Fletcher’s Global Women club and co-sponsored by the Office of Career Services on April 9. Emphasizing that the wage gap is not inevitable and must not be passed on to the next generation of women, Murphy provided an energetic assessment of the current state of this inequality in the workplace. Further, she provided practical suggestions for women to use to assertively address this disparity and implement changes. The talk was followed by a networking reception with Fletcher alumnae, as part of the new Global Women mentoring initiative, the Fletcher Women's Network.
"Discrimination happens all along in a woman’s career," Murphy began. Excuses for the wage gap vanish "once you understand that the wage gap has been stuck for close to fifteen years…All the excuses—just wait awhile, all that meritocracy talk—is gone."
Murphy spent eight years researching Getting Even, which was published in 2005. The book charts the existence of wage discrimination forty years after it was first litigated against. Using examples of companies who all lost in litigation based on their discriminatory practices, Murphy discussed the various types of discrimination that women face in the workplace. This ranges from not being hired based on gender, to difficulty in being promoted, to outright harassment.
Murphy found through her research that once women are hired, they find it harder to get promoted, compared to men. Pregnancy further complicates things, as pregnant women find their responsibilities taken from them in anticipation of an assumed departure. Murphy said that sexual harassment is a major impediment to fair working conditions and outnumbers all other cases of discrimination combined. When considered simply in monetary terms, women lose money when they are forced to leave a job in order to get away from their aggressor.
Saying that "professions don’t discriminate but employers do," Murphy introduced a concrete method that can be implemented to deal with the gender wage gap: employers can pay for the job. The state of Minnesota implemented this through a simple ranking system. Enacted through state law in the 1980s, the state of Minnesota ranks every state job based on objective criteria such as level of danger and amount of authority. Instead of considering certain jobs as traditionally male or female, remuneration was based on the job, rather than who was doing it. Under this system, the state of Minnesota comes close to wage equity, with female state employees earning 97 cents for every dollar earned by a male employee. Because the ranking methodology is inexpensive, Murphy believes that every company can implement this technique.
Using a hypothetical example, Murphy starkly illustrated the effect of the gender gap on a woman graduating from high school in 2006. At the female student’s high school graduation, the male student standing next to her will make $700,000 more than she will during his lifetime. If she goes on to attend college, the male standing next to her at graduation will make $1.2 million more over his career. With a graduate degree in hand, the man with the same qualifications will make an estimated $2 million more in his lifetime than she will. These statistics are borne out by the fact that at each step of the way, a woman may be subjected to differential pay. The affect of this over a lifetime is compounded losses. The gap only widens over the years, so Murphy implores women "to be vigilant every step of the way."
Speaking to an audience comprised of many second year Fletcher students who will soon be re-entering the work force, Murphy discussed key strategies that are integral to eliminating the wage gap. Rather than coming forward alone, women should have allies—both female and male. While people are hesitant to openly discuss salaries, communication is a key part of the strategy for building alliances. Murphy has been instrumental in setting up wage clubs throughout the country, which are administered through the Wage Project (found on the Internet at www.wageproject.org). Wage clubs are designed to bring together interested women to discuss how they have benchmarked salaries. The main idea behind wage clubs, Murphy said, is "to get working women to talk about this."
Murphy also advised researching metrics and using negotiation when approaching a new job. First, women should consider an appropriate job title, and then utilize Internet sites that provide benchmark salary ranges. Second, women should use negotiation to reach a salary range with which they are happy. Such negotiation should not require "stepping out of character," Murphy said, but rather negotiation strategies should be chosen according to what the person is comfortable with.