The gender wage gap is an issue that plagues more than 50% of the population in the United States. According to the Economic Policy Institute, this gap widened by 22.2% in 2022, even though more women are more likely to graduate from college and earn graduate degrees. In Massachusetts, Hispanic women make just 52 cents for every dollar earned by men. For white women, it is 80.6 cents. If current trends continue, women in Massachusetts will not see equal pay until 2056. A new state law to increase transparency in pay may help, but it does not go far enough. Without addressing two critical root causes - implicit bias, and lack of diversity in leadership, the system will continue to perpetuate itself.
The new pay equity bill (S. 2721), an amendment to the Massachusetts Equal Pay Act (MEPA) requires that employers disclose the pay range for any open position. Any employee who violates this requirement will be given a laughable $500 fine per violation. On the positive side, MEPA further protects employees’ rights to discuss their wages, and importantly, bars employers from asking about an applicant’s salary history. Most importantly, it requires that an employer provides equal pay for comparable work. However, the bill's language allows for “variation” in wages due to “quality” of work, among other loopholes. Ultimately this will lead to inadequate results since it allows for the implicit bias of the largely homogenous group of white male employers to set wages.
Real change requires a real change in mindset. Mandatory implicit and/or unconscious bias (UB) training must be implemented in private and government institutions, and several organizations are taking these steps. The Massachusetts Board of Registration in Medicine now requires implicit bias training to gain and renew existing physician licensure. In some studies, this type of training has been shown to lower scores on the Implicit Association Test (IAT).
A more comprehensive approach to UB training made an even bigger impact. At the University of Wisconsin in Madison, several departments implemented an approach to UB training called “prejudice habit breaking”. In this training, attendees were given the Implicit Association Test and then taught strategies on how to counteract bias. The training was conducted over a period of two years. When used to reduce gender bias in certain departments at UW, the proportion of female faculty hired rose from 32% to 47%. In departments that had not received UB training, the hiring of women did not increase. Mandating this type of implicit bias training at the federal level, would help facilitate a work environment with less unexplained “variation” in wages, and amplify the opinions of marginalized groups.
Diversity in leadership positions is another critical piece to closing the gender wage gap. As of 2018, 68% of CEOs in the United States, were men, with an average age of 54 years. According to Commonwealth Magazine, women are 52% of the Massachusetts population, and women of color account for 26%. At the same time, women account for only 34% of board chairs, and women of color account for only 6%. Organizations, such as YW Boston, are looking to close this disparity in representation, and have introduced a bill to ensure gender parity and racial and ethnic diversity on public boards and commissions (S. 2077). Unfortunately, the bill has been sitting in the Way and Means Committee since December 2021. When probed, Senator Jason Lewis’s staff assured me the bill would be filed again this session (third time's the charm?). Nonetheless, on average, a bill takes six years to pass, partly due to how much energy there is behind a bill, one of around 10,000 filed a session. If this was not discouraging enough, there is also concern from some members of the Senate that they will not be able to find enough folks to fill the board positions and achieve the parity that the bill requires. A self-perpetuating cycle.
Even if this was a valid concern, it is easy to see how society got here. When women achieve as much as their male counterparts, they are doing it largely without recognition of the historical exclusion and continuing gender bias that they’ve had to confront. With a gender pay gap averaging 66 cents on the dollar, and the current poverty rate of employed women at 6.7%, it is impossible for this pay equity bill to close the gap alone. Add in the homogeneity and unchecked biases of CEOs, and it is not hard to see how we got to a place where there is “concern” that there may not be enough women and minorities with the qualifications to fill corporate board seats. Salary transparency is an important step toward pay equity, but until we force those in power to understand their own biases, and ultimately elevate a more diverse group of people to positions of power, equity will still be out of reach.
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