POLICY OPTION BRIEF
To: Tiffany Boiman, Director, Office of Policy and Programs, US DOL Women’s Bureau
From: Shawn (Yu Xiang) Hu
Re: Gender Inequality and the “Glass Ceiling”
Date: October 8, 2015
Problem: Gender Inequality and the “Glass Ceiling”
Women have been active role players in the economy and workplace in the modern societies.
Johns (2013) investigated changes of the role of women in the economy and workplace
spamming last four decades. Significant facts discussed in her study are as follows. Women are
deemed as the chief household purchasers, making more than 85 percent of household
spending decisions, accounting for 4 trillion dollars annually in spending. The gap between men
and women in education attainment has been eliminated. Women now represent 60 percent of
all bachelor degrees conferred annually, an increase of 20 percent since 1970. As a result, more
job opportunities are open to qualified educated women. The proportion of women in the
workforce has grown from one third in 1970 to almost a half in 2012. At the same time, the gap
between women and men in earnings has shrunk in the past three decades. Since 1979, the pay
for full-time employed women has increased 31 percent compared to 2 percent for their male
counterparts. A solid study from the U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO) found that after
controlling for variables that may affect earnings, such as demographic characteristics, past
working experience, and labor market activity, the pay gap reduced from 44 percent to 21
percent over the period 1983-2000 (Johns, 2013).
Despite a dramatically growing presence in the workplace, the pay gap is still large, and women
remain underrepresented in senior and executive positions. Women working full-time and yearround earn only 77 percent as much as their male counterparts. And there are a huge amount
of women who are working part-time and thus overall women earn significantly less than the
male counterparts (Johns, 2013). As of January 2013, only 21 CEOs, 4.2% of them, in Fortune
500 companies are female. The top five female wage earners per firm make 68% of the
compensation of men who are doing the same job (Kotrba & Trautlein, 2013).
Conventionally, it is generally accepted that the main cause of the gender inequality in the
senior and execution positions is the “glass ceiling.” This term firstly appeared in Wall Street
Journal in 1986 and is a metaphor for the invisible and artificial barriers that block women from
advancing up the corporate ladder to senior and executive positions (Johns, 2013). In order to
remove the barriers inhibiting the advancement of women in their careers, the U.S. Congress
enacted the Glass Ceiling Act in Title II of the Civil Rights Act of 1991 and established the Glass
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Ceiling Commission. The commission identified three main sources contributing to the “glass
ceiling”: social barriers, internal structural barriers, and governmental barriers.
Societal barriers are those outside of the direct control of business. Women are
overrepresented in low-wage occupations, in part-timer and seasonal jobs and lack the
opportunities to advance to higher positions. Stereotype and prejudice also exist that men have
better leadership skills and competencies than women. A deficiency theory describes that
women lack qualities necessary for leadership (Morrison & von Glinow, 1990). Many
corporations, especially those in the male-dominated industries, have formed the corporate
culture that senior and executive positions should be filled by white men. A woman stepping
into the board would make her counterparts uncomfortable.
In contrast, internal business barriers are within the direct control of business. Corporations
may not equally reach or recruit men and women in their outreach and recruitment practices.
In addition, corporate climates may not promote the inclusion of women in the senior and
executive positions. The Federal Glass Ceiling Commission reported that many middle- and
upper-level white male managers perceived that the inclusion of women in management was a
direct threat to their own chances for advancement (U.S. Glass Ceiling Commission, 1995). In
order to remove the internal business barriers, corporate leaders should be aware of the fact
that the goal of corporations is to maximize the profitability by hiring the right persons
regardless of gender.
Governmental barriers also worsen gender inequality in the career advancement. Title VII of
the Civil Rights Act of 1964 protects individuals from discriminating based upon sex. This law
makes it illegal for an employer to discriminate against individuals because of their sex in hiring,
firing, and other terms and conditions of employment, such as promotion, raises, and other job
opportunities (Workplace Fairness, 2015). However, the Glass Ceiling Commission reported that
the effectiveness of law enforcement in equal employment opportunities would be weak if no
government monitoring or sanction was in place (U.S. Glass Ceiling Commission, 1995).
Few people can deny the existence of “glass ceiling” in today’s business world. However,
nowadays the mainstream tends to believe that women underrepresenting in the senior and
executive positions can only be partially explained by “glass ceiling.” Since the barriers in
education and employment have been largely eliminated for women, “glass ceiling” is no longer
a major cause to gender inequality in the leadership and management practices in business.
Instead, influenced by their personal and family factors, women are stuck in the “sticky floor,”
women’s self-imposed career blocks that keep women stuck near the bottom half of the ladder
(Modell, 2013). Alice Eagly, a psychology professor at Northwestern University, argues that
gender inequality in the workplace has been profound misleading because the challenges that
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women face in having successful careers are not just at the top, but exist all the way along the
career (Big Think, 2011).
Women are stuck in the “sticky floor” mainly due to the motherhood. Women are distracted
from their careers by the need to stay at home and rear children. Despite of the equal
opportunities to education and employment, more women choose to participate in nonmarket, unpaid household activities, while more men involve in market, paid activities outside
of the household. Such a division of labor complies with the culture and customs in most of the
societies. Economists also argue that such a division of labor can achieve specialization by men
and women utilizing their comparative advantages. By assuming the major responsibilities
within the household, women who are working full-time find themselves struggle in keeping
work-life balance.
The lack of role models makes the floor even sticker. Kanter (1977) claimed that managerial
women were only tokens, representing female employees in their workplace. A very small
portion of women is placed in the high-level positions just to generate a symbolic effect. These
representatives, or tokens, function to give the appearance of gender equality within a
workforce. In such a case, the discrimination practices against women are hidden. There are too
few successful women who can support and advocate other women to advance their careers.
“Leaky pipeline” is also frequently used to describe the phenomenon that women drop out of
the STEM fields at all stages of their careers. The metaphor of “leaky pipeline” can be a
reflection of both “glass ceiling” and “sticky floor.” Women in the STEM fields suffer more overt
and covert discrimination compared to those in other fields. It has been proved that both male
and female faculty tends to recruit male laboratory managers and men have a statistically
significant higher pay than women in the STEM fields (Moss-Racusin et. Al, 2012). Highly ranked
women are even much rarer in the STEM fields. They become anomalies, lack support from
colleagues and face antagonism from peers and supervisors (Lips, 1988).
From the perspective of economics, women are very important human capital and currently
they are under-utilized. The most critical consequence of blocking women to step in the senior
and executive positions is a waste of human capital. Given that nowadays women have equal
opportunities for education and employment, they also have comparable competencies to lead
corporations to succeed. The current condition that capacities and knowledge of qualified
women are not fully utilized causes a gap between actual GDP and its potential level. The
American Humanagement Association has proven that the “glass ceiling” is not only unfair but
also costly. An audit of a Fortune 500 utility company revealed that the company’s hidden costs
of gender bias could amount to as large as $15.3 million (Stuart, 1992).
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Policy Options
Policy adjustment are necessary to reduce gender inequality in the senior and executive
positions. This section will provide several policy options that may sooth the problem identified
in this paper as follows: pass the Paycheck Fairness Act; pass the Fair Pay Act; and improve
childcare benefits and career training.
Pass the Paycheck Fairness Act
The Paycheck Fairness Act (PFA) is a proposed law that aims at strengthening the law
enforcement to the Equal Pay Act (EPA) of 1963. The goal of the PFA is to reduce the income
disparity in the United States between men and women. Therefore, the PFA reflects the same
belief imbedded in the EPA: “Equal Pay for Equal Work.” But the PFA would add significant
burdens on employers to demonstrate that wage differentials are based on factors other than
sex. It also prohibits retaliation against workers who disclose their own wages, and strengthens
penalties for equal pay violations, exposing employers to the possibility of unlimited damage. In
addition, the proposed PFA responds to the critics on the poor law enforcement and low
efficiency of the government agencies. It directs the Department of Labor to assist employers
and collect wage-related data. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission staff will be
provided additional training and support so as to better identify and handle wage disputes
(ACLU, 2013; Paycheck Fairness Act, 2013).
It is worth noted that the PFA does not amend the EPA’s “equal work” standard. Siniscalco,
Damrell, and Nabity (2014) argue that the “equal work” standard is of little use to solve the
“glass ceiling.” The work in the senior and executive roles are rarely “equal” for the purpose of
the EPA. Many courts have also recognized that the EPA is the wrong vehicle for litigating wage
disparities among high-level professional and executives (Siniscalco, Damrell, and Nabity, 2014).
The Southern District of New York rejected an EPA claim premised on differences in pay among
professionals with the same job title (EEOC v. Port Auth. Of N.Y. & N.J., 2012). In this case, EEOC
alleged that female Port Authority attorneys were paid less than male colleagues despite
performing the same work. The court granted the Port Authority’s motion for judgment on the
pleadings, finding that relying primarily on attorneys’ job titles along with broad generalities
about attorneys’ skills and training is “simply not a sufficient basis in which to premise an EPA
claim.” Another illustration is from a Wisconsin district court. In this case, despite sharing some
similarities, the differences between a city’s treasurer and its comptroller precluded the
plaintiff’s EPA claim (Campana v. City of Greenfield, 2002). The district court granted that both
officials led city departments and managed city finances. However, the roles were “comparable,
‘counterpart’ positions,” not equal positions, which is not enough to prevail on an EPA claim.
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Pass the Fair Pay Act
Unlike the PFA and EPA, the proposed Fair Pay Act (FPA) is to require employers to provide
equal pay for work of equal value, instead of “equal work.” The FPA, introduced to Congress
since 1995 but never passed, goes beyond the EPA with its underlying “comparable worth”
theory. Under such a theory, employers should provide equal pay for men and women not only
in “comparable” jobs, those that “may be dissimilar, but whose requirements are equivalent,
when viewed as a composite of skills, effort, responsibility, and working conditions” (Fair Pay
Act of 2013). Compared to the EPA, FPA is better-suited for non-standardized, high-level jobs,
beause such positions do not, almost by definition, require equal skill, effort, and responsibility,
performed under equal working conditions (Siniscalco, Damrell, and Nabity, 2014). FPA appears
to be a better option to address the “glass ceiling.”
However, FPA also has its flaws. Whether the jobs are comparable is subjective. At any given
time, individual employers have their own values and judge whether jobs are comparable and
deserved for equal pay. When dispute arises, the decision made by judges and juries also
dominates objective criteria. To standardize the decision-making process, the government will
have to collect sufficient data, and posit each of job features, skills, and working conditions in a
scale system. Each specific job will be graded and assigned a score based on such features,
skills, and working conditions it requires. Such massive work sounds impractical and very
expensive. The biggest issue underlying such a system is that it will distort the labor market and
intervene the market-oriented economy in the U.S.
Improve Childcare Benefits and Career Trainings
When the gender equality advocates push the government to strengthen antidiscrimination
laws, discrimination may not be the main source of gender inequality suggested by the cause
analysis in the Problem Session of this policy brief. “Sticky floor” and “leaky pipeline” can also
induce gender segregation and the pay gap. Besides safeguarding the workers’ rights, there are
additional initiatives that the government could introduce to promote gender equality.
The government can provide more generous childcare support to those in need. As reflected by
the 2010 OECD study, the United States offers far less childcare support and parental leave
benefits than other OECD countries (Siniscalco, Damrell, and Nabity, 2014). With more
resources at hand, mothers can have a more flexible budget to raise their children as well as go
out to work. Equal parental leave benefits for both fathers and mothers can also significantly
change the structure of labor supply. When a child is newly born, both parents can in turn
utilize their parental leave benefits to raise the child. The time leaving the workforce due to
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child care will not burden on the only one side. As a result, women’s career path will become
smoother.
The government could also improve training to reduce gender segregation in the workplace.
The Institute for Women’s Policy Research (IWPR, 2013) found that a government training
program funded by Workforce Investment Act (WIA) may in fact deteriorate gender segregation
and the pay gap. The IWPR finds that currently more than two million Americans are receiving
such training services annually. However, both men and women are inclined to receive training
services for the jobs dominated by their own gender. Since the traditional male-dominated jobs
are higher paid, such a program design not only contributes to gender segregation but also the
pay gap. The IWPR suggests that more proactive career counseling may encourage women to
enter higher earning fields. The government could also offer negotiation skills training to girls
and women. In fact, PFA already has a provision to implement such training. But the
government needs not to implement it until the bill is signed into law (Paycheck Fairness Act,
2013). Equipped with better negotiation skills, women can understand their rights and know
how to negotiate for better benefits in the workplace.
To what extent the government offers childcare benefits and improved career training
programs is subject to the budget constraints. Further research will be required to quantify the
effect of such childcare benefits and career trainings on reducing the gender gap in the
workplace.
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References
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