Situation Report

PRIMARILY because so many women have started working over the past 15 years--and have taken jobs at the lower end of the wage scale--the difference between men's and women's pay has actually widened. In 1955 the average female employee earned 64% of the wages paid to similarly employed men; in 1970 she took home only 59% as much.

The gap is even greater within broad occupational groupings. Women in sales work, for example, in 1970 averaged only $4,188 v. $9,790 for the typical salesman. The difference in part reflects built-in job discrimination. Retail outlets are far more likely to assign women to sell low-ticket items such as greeting cards and candy, while men are trained to sell high-priced goods like major appliances, often on commission. The pay differential narrows at higher job levels. Women professional and technical workers, including school principals, laboratory workers and computer programmers, earn on the average 67% as much as men in the same field. But only 7% of women at work earn $10,000 or more v. 40% of the men.

The work of housewives is un-salaried and thus not counted in the U.S. gross national product. Based on the usual wage rates of housekeepers, cooks, dieticians, practical nurses and other persons who get paid for doing wifely chores (but not those of gainfully employed sexual partners), economists at Chase Manhattan Bank estimate that the U.S. housewife holds the equivalent of a 99.6-hr, job paying $13,391.56 a year. Her remuneration for all that work in the form of food, clothing, rent and just plain fun varies widely according to domestic arrangements. Other pertinent statistics:

WOMEN MEN

Number working 30.4 49

(in millions)

full time 22.7 45.1

part time 7.7 3.9

Median annual income $5,323 $8,966

of full-time employees

Proportion who are

clerks 33.9% 6.7%

professional and 14.5% 13.7%

technical

managers and 5% 14.6%

proprietors

unemployed 5.5% 4.2%

(January 1972)

Proportion of workers

in managerial and

proprietorial jobs

1960 5% 13.4%

1971 4.9% 14.6%

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