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•·S) Barriers Facing Women in the Wage-Labor Market and the Need for Additional Remedies: A Reply to Fischel and Lazear MARY E. BECKER FISCHEL AND LAzEAR [in their critique ofcomparable worth] I perceive a world in which women 'sjobs pay less than men'sjobs either because women face barriers to entry into male occupations or because women choose jobs that pay less. They believe that barriers to entry can effectively be eliminated by direct remedies, especially Title VII and the Equal Pay Act. Were these perceptions shared by all, comparable worth would not be the hot issue it is today. Fischel and Lazear suggest that women may "choose" lower paying, more flexible, less skilled, jobs because of their specialization in non-wage labor.2 Although this theory seems intuitively plausible, it is not likely to explain, for example, why tree trimmers are paid more than nurses.3 Other more precise empirical studies4 suggest that this choice, or human capital theory, does not explain sexual segregation of the wage-labor market and the associated wage gap.5 Women with less continuous employment experience are about as likely to be in male fields as women with more continuous employment experience, and the depreciation rates associated with temporary withdrawal from the wage-labor market are not significantly higher for malejobs than for femalejobs.6 Skill differences explain little of the gap in pay because the manual skills of many predominantly male jobs are negatively correlated to earnings, and male and female jobs are "nearly equal" in demands for the skills positively correlated to earnings.7 Single women are only slightly (l %) more likely to be in nontraditional fields than are married women, and the probability of a woman being in a nontraditional field actually increases with the number of children (0.4% per child).8 There is a more basic flaw in Fischel and Lazear's narrow description of discrimination : the neoclassical models they use are inherently incapable of describing many of the barriers women face in the wage-labor market. Fischel and Lazear present the lWo models developed by neoclassical economics--discrimination caused by a taste for discrimination and discrimination based on statistical differences--augmented by an occasional reference to discriminatory socialization. But, sexual segregation of labor :;3 U. Chi. L. Rev. 934 (1986). Copyrighted Material 697 698 I MARY E. BECKER and the subordinate status of women did not begin with capitalism. Capitalism developed in societies in which women were regarded as less important than men, were subordinate to men, and performed different tasks than men. Any economic system which develops in a society in which power and opportunities are differentially allocated on the basis of sex is likely to operate in a manner that will perpetuate those differentials, regardless of the particulars of economic theory. For example, opportunities and wages may be allocated on the basis of productivity and potential in a capitalist economy , but productivity and potential are assessed by those with the ability to pay. As a result, the preferences, values, biases, and blind spots of the powerful determine the allocation ofwages and opportunities, and the meaning of "productivity" and "potential ." Thus, neoclassical models of discrimination cannot describe many of the barriers women face in the wage-labor market. Equally troubling is Fischel and Lazear's characterization of discrimination based on accurate statistical differences between men and women as "non-invidious.''!!... I. Efficient Discrimination: "Non-invidious?" According to Fischel and Lazear, women are treated differently from men in a "noninvidious " way when male sex is an accurate statistical proxy for such factors as productivity , attachment, and commitment to wage labor.l° Anti-discrimination legislation should not unnecessarily prohibit efficient discrimination;ll comparable worth should, therefore, be rejected. Thus, if the pay gap between men and women is the result of employers paying less for women's jobs because the incumbents are predominantly women (and women as a group have been less attached to the wage-labor market in the pastY discrimination is "non-invidious" and should be legal. This view-that, ideally, anti-discrimination legislation should not prohibit efficient discrimination-deprives equality of opportunity of all meaningful content by equating it with the norm of efficiency. But equality of opportunity (whatever it means) 13 is a quite different norm from efficiency. Using gender as a proxy for desirable attributes denies equal opportunity in every sense to women who would prefer nontraditional roles. "Efficient" statistical discrimination is a vicious circle, perpetuating the subordinate status of women in the...

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