The Gender Wage Gap and Pay Equity: Is Comparable Worth the Next
Step? Publication Date: April 2003 Publisher(s): Library of
Congress. Congressional Research Service Women’s participation
in the labor market has undergone considerable change in the
last few decades, with more than half of all women and of all
married women now in the workforce. In addition, starting in the
1980s, the labor market qualifications of employed women
increased compared to those of employed men. And, since the
1960s, both legislation and regulations have prohibited
discrimination against women in employment and compensation.
Although women’s pay relative to men’s has increased over time
so that today women earn more than 76 cents for every dollar
earned by men, the persistence of the wage gap despite these
changes has prompted concern in some quarters about the equity
or fairness of the market’s wage-setting process (hence the
terms “pay equity” and “fair pay”). Studies have estimated that
perhaps one-half of the observed wage gap