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Gender-Related Pay Equity by State and Industry

Received: 18 February 2022     Accepted: 7 March 2022     Published: 12 March 2022
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Abstract

The purpose of this quantitative nonexperimental comparative study was to examine whether and to what extent there are differences in gender-related pay equity in the public sector, among states, and among industries in the United States. The theoretical framework for this study was provided by John S. Adams’s equity theory. The study was conducted with archival data from The American Community Survey. The analyzed dataset included 1,834 cases, with data for gender-related pay equity (measured as a percentage of females’ pay relative to males’ pay), state (51 states (including D.C.)), industry (five major industries), and subindustry (36 subindustries). District of Columbia lacked data from two subindustries. The data for the dependent variable had been aggregated from an original sample 2,145,639 survey participants. Two research questions addressed the differences in gender-related pay equity among the 51 states and among the five industries. The results of two one-way ANOVAs showed a significant difference in the gender-related pay equity among the 51 states (including D.C.), F(50, 1740) = 1.69, p = 0.019, and among the five major industries, F(4, 1735) = 17.00, p < 0.01. The study findings point to the national scope of pay equity problem, across states and across the major industries. These empirical findings provide a basis for the development of policies needed to address pay inequity, which negatively affects 74.6 million female American workers in the public sector only.

Published in Journal of Human Resource Management (Volume 10, Issue 1)
DOI 10.11648/j.jhrm.20221001.14
Page(s) 22-29
Creative Commons

This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, provided the original work is properly cited.

Copyright

Copyright © The Author(s), 2022. Published by Science Publishing Group

Keywords

Pay Inequity, Pay Equity, Inequality, Wage Equity, Gender-Related Pay Equity, Gender Pay Gap

References
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[2] American Psychiatric Association. (2020). Gender pay gap contributes to increased rates of depression and anxiety among women. Workplace Mental Health. http://workplacementalhealth.org/Mental-Health-Topics/Depression/gender-pay-gap-depression-rates.
[3] Blau, F. D., & Kahn, L. M. (2017). The gender wage gap: Extent, trends, and explanations. Journal of Economic Literature, 55 (3), 789-865.
[4] Burn, I. (2018). Not all laws are created equal: Legal differences in state non-discrimination laws and the impact of LGBT employment protections. Journal of Labor Research, 39 (4), 462-497. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12122-018-9272-0.
[5] Cortés, P., & Pan, J. (2019). When time binds: Substitutes for household production, returns to working long hours, and the skilled gender wage gap. Journal of Labor Economics, 37 (2), 351-398. https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/700185.
[6] Dennis, G. (2016). Gender pay disparity among women. Exceptional Children, 85 (2), 124. https://doi.org/10.1177/0014402918811447.
[7] DeWolf, M. (2017). 12 stats about working women. U.S. Department of Labor Blog. https://blog.dol.gov/2017/03/01/12-stats-about-working-women.
[8] Fuller, S. (2018). Using American community survey estimates and margins of error U.S. Census Bureau, Decennial Statistical Studies Division. https://www.census.gov/en.html.
[9] Geoghegan, F. J. (2018). The gender wage gap: How paid family leave affects women of childbearing age (Master’s thesis, Georgetown University). ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global. (2039410428).
[10] Goldin, C. (2017). The expanding gender earnings gap. American Economic Review, 107 (5), 110-114. http://www.econis.eu/PPNSET?PPN=1011787970.
[11] Lobel, O. (2020). Knowledge pays: Reversing information flows and the future of pay equity. Columbia Law Review, 120 (3). https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3373160.
[12] Obloj, T., & Zenger, T. (2020). The influence of pay transparency on inequity, inequality, and the performance-basis of pay in organizations. SSRN Electronic Journal. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3523828
[13] Pabayo, R., Fuller, D., Lee, E., Horino, M., & Kawachi, I. (2018). State-level income inequality and meeting physical activity guidelines: Differential associations among U.S. men and women. Journal of Public Health, 40 (2), 229-236. https://doi.org/10.1093/pubmed/fdx082.
[14] Phillips, A. N. (2018). Promulgating parity: An argument for a states-based approach to valuing women's work and ensuring pay equity in the united states. Tulane Law Review, 92 (3), 719-743. https://www.tulanelawreview.org/.
[15] Platt, J., Prins, S., Bates, L., & Keyes, K. (2016). Unequal depression for equal work? How the wage gap explains gendered disparities in mood disorders. Social Science & Medicine, 149, 1-8. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2015.11.056.
[16] Rosado, O. M. (2018). Trends in gender wage gaps: A qualitative study [Doctoral dissertation,
[17] Northcentral University]. ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global. (2051466225).
[18] Schulze, E. (2018). Closing the gender pay gap could have big economic benefits. CNBC. https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/08/closing-the-gender-pay-gap-could-have-big-economic-benefits.html.
[19] Smit, B. W., & Montag-Smit, T. (2019). The pay transparency dilemma: Development and validation of the pay information exchange preferences scale. Journal of Applied Psychology, 104 (4), 537-558. https://doi.org/10.1037/apl0000355.
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Cite This Article
  • APA Style

    Ronald Sowadski. (2022). Gender-Related Pay Equity by State and Industry. Journal of Human Resource Management, 10(1), 22-29. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.jhrm.20221001.14

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    ACS Style

    Ronald Sowadski. Gender-Related Pay Equity by State and Industry. J. Hum. Resour. Manag. 2022, 10(1), 22-29. doi: 10.11648/j.jhrm.20221001.14

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    AMA Style

    Ronald Sowadski. Gender-Related Pay Equity by State and Industry. J Hum Resour Manag. 2022;10(1):22-29. doi: 10.11648/j.jhrm.20221001.14

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  • @article{10.11648/j.jhrm.20221001.14,
      author = {Ronald Sowadski},
      title = {Gender-Related Pay Equity by State and Industry},
      journal = {Journal of Human Resource Management},
      volume = {10},
      number = {1},
      pages = {22-29},
      doi = {10.11648/j.jhrm.20221001.14},
      url = {https://doi.org/10.11648/j.jhrm.20221001.14},
      eprint = {https://article.sciencepublishinggroup.com/pdf/10.11648.j.jhrm.20221001.14},
      abstract = {The purpose of this quantitative nonexperimental comparative study was to examine whether and to what extent there are differences in gender-related pay equity in the public sector, among states, and among industries in the United States. The theoretical framework for this study was provided by John S. Adams’s equity theory. The study was conducted with archival data from The American Community Survey. The analyzed dataset included 1,834 cases, with data for gender-related pay equity (measured as a percentage of females’ pay relative to males’ pay), state (51 states (including D.C.)), industry (five major industries), and subindustry (36 subindustries). District of Columbia lacked data from two subindustries. The data for the dependent variable had been aggregated from an original sample 2,145,639 survey participants. Two research questions addressed the differences in gender-related pay equity among the 51 states and among the five industries. The results of two one-way ANOVAs showed a significant difference in the gender-related pay equity among the 51 states (including D.C.), F(50, 1740) = 1.69, p = 0.019, and among the five major industries, F(4, 1735) = 17.00, p  The study findings point to the national scope of pay equity problem, across states and across the major industries. These empirical findings provide a basis for the development of policies needed to address pay inequity, which negatively affects 74.6 million female American workers in the public sector only.},
     year = {2022}
    }
    

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    T1  - Gender-Related Pay Equity by State and Industry
    AU  - Ronald Sowadski
    Y1  - 2022/03/12
    PY  - 2022
    N1  - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.jhrm.20221001.14
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    UR  - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.jhrm.20221001.14
    AB  - The purpose of this quantitative nonexperimental comparative study was to examine whether and to what extent there are differences in gender-related pay equity in the public sector, among states, and among industries in the United States. The theoretical framework for this study was provided by John S. Adams’s equity theory. The study was conducted with archival data from The American Community Survey. The analyzed dataset included 1,834 cases, with data for gender-related pay equity (measured as a percentage of females’ pay relative to males’ pay), state (51 states (including D.C.)), industry (five major industries), and subindustry (36 subindustries). District of Columbia lacked data from two subindustries. The data for the dependent variable had been aggregated from an original sample 2,145,639 survey participants. Two research questions addressed the differences in gender-related pay equity among the 51 states and among the five industries. The results of two one-way ANOVAs showed a significant difference in the gender-related pay equity among the 51 states (including D.C.), F(50, 1740) = 1.69, p = 0.019, and among the five major industries, F(4, 1735) = 17.00, p  The study findings point to the national scope of pay equity problem, across states and across the major industries. These empirical findings provide a basis for the development of policies needed to address pay inequity, which negatively affects 74.6 million female American workers in the public sector only.
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Author Information
  • College of Doctoral Studies, Grand Canyon University, Arizona, the United States

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