The Difference That Sex Makes

Now that the husband of Businesswoman Lady Bird Johnson has promised to seek out more women for federal jobs, the spotlight has been focused on a force in the U.S. economy that is growing in numbers and importance: women workers. One in every three U.S. women works--half again as many as 15 years ago--and one in every three workers is a woman. The number of women in the labor force, which stands at 25 million, is growing by 2.5% a year, compared with a 1.4% gain for men. Last week several steps were afoot to open still more jobs to women.

The civil service, which has begun to give preference to women in hiring, is conducting a drive to find more who are "qualified." The new tax bill encourages mothers to work--60% of all women workers are married--by liberalizing the deductions that they may take for child care. On Washington's orders, all Government agencies have turned in reports about what they are doing to eliminate job and pay discrimination. Twenty-two states have put through equal-pay laws for women, and Congress has passed a law that in June will start guaranteeing that most women workers throughout the U.S. will get the same pay that men do in the same job.

More rewarding. Pay-check discrimination does exist, notably in banks, insurance and telephone companies, but women tend to overrate it. While the average woman worker earns much less than a man (about $3,300 a year v. $5,500), the gap is due not so much to discrimination as to the fact that more than three-quarters of the women workers have jobs in which men get relatively low pay--as clerks, secretaries, service workers, factory operatives, teachers. But the number of women in the more rewarding professions has risen 41% since 1950. The proportion of women among U.S. doctors has increased from 5 1/2% five years ago to 6 1/2%. Wall Street now has 1,800 women brokers--ten times as many as in 1946--and Madison Avenue has at least 600 women advertising executives, two-thirds of whom earn more than $10,000. One of the ad gals, Kay Daly, vice president of Revlon, Inc., earns $100,000 or more--which could make her the highest-paid U.S. businesswoman.

Because of some basic changes in the nation's economy, society and technology, more and more married women are going back to work; the median age for women workers has risen to a high 41 years. On average, today's American woman marries at 20, has only two or three children, and can expect to live to the age of 73--which leaves her 30 useful years after her children grow up. She usually returns to work not because she has to make ends meet but because she wants to live better, buy a second car, take a European vacation, or bankroll her children through college. The automation of factories has actually opened more places for her, since no brawn is needed to press a button.

Nimble Fingers. Women perform best in jobs that require stoic patience, an eye for detail, and nimble fingers. Atlanta's Scripto Inc. employs women to put together its small pencils; the personnel chiefs at Burroughs Corp. believe that women can tolerate the tedious routine jobs that would drive men up the walls. The monotonous, repetitive jobs in the textile and garment plants are held almost wholly by women, and one-third of the nation's electronics gear is wired and assembled by them.

But men need not fear that their own jobs will be grabbed away. Instead of contributing to unemployment, women have tended to take the kind of jobs that men seldom strive for. In fact, the new U.S. equal-pay law may cost women some of their jobs because--other things being equal--many companies prefer to hire men. Many women prove reluctant to take on heavy responsibility or to boss men on the job. Supervisors complain that they have a higher absenteeism rate than men--6.5 days a year v. five days--partly because men do not have babies. Some labor leaders are also cool to women workers; only 14% of them join unions, and those who do tend to vote down proposed pension plans. Predictably, they do not want the security of pensions, but the joy of more cash to spend immediately.

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