Gender Discrimination in Employment: Wage Inequity for Professional and Doctoral Degree Holders in the United States and Possible Remedies

Gender discrimination and wage inequity remain problems worldwide. In the United States and Canada, where equal rights and protective legislation have been in place for nearly 40 years, glaring disparities in salaries and job opportunities remain. Similar problems have been studied in the United Kingdom, leading to enactment of the 1975 Sex Discrimination Act and the Equal Pay Act. Paradoxically, data from the 2000 U.S. Census show that the more education women achieve, the worse the salary gap becomes, especially for women with advanced degrees. Legislation that has increased educational opportunity, funding, and access for women such as Title IX is coming under attack as being biased against males. This attack is occurring even though Title IX has not yet accomplished the equitable treatment it was intended to achieve. Strategies to address pay equity include support of new legislation, such as comparable worth measures like those that have been implemented in the United Kingdom, and support and strengthening of existing legislation (Title IX, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Equal Pay Act of 1963). Tools that empower women to address these problems and urge employers to correct inequities in employment from points of first access, preparation for pursuit of merit awards, to pursuit of promotion, and internal and external networking are highlighted in this article. (Contains 74 footnotes.)