Introduction
Currently, women in the United States have made enormous achievements on multiple fronts. Women have caught up with men in college attendance, gained positions in the Senate and large businesses, and have narrowed the gender wage gap. In the recent years, the number of women working and participating in the labor force has also equalized to the number of men. However, these gains for women in education and in the labor force have not yet “translated into wages and income equity.” Based on national pay statistics, a woman today earns 80.5 cents to a dollar that a man earns. This pay gap is perpetuated by the glass ceiling and the concentration of women in low-paying jobs and occupations. The glass ceiling prevents qualified women from advancing to the senior positions in the professional ladder and often pushes women into lower paying positions. Therefore, the struggle for pay equality has been ongoing for more than a century since women first entered the labor force and the efforts to ensure pay equality for women are burning to this day.
The gender wage gap is a significant issue because the earnings of women are vital to the economic securities of their families. Since women have initially entered the labor force in order to help provide for their families, women are now the primary or co-provider in about half of families with children under 18. Yet, the gender wage gap greatly reduces the lifetime earnings of women, making it more difficult for them to provide for their family and puts “many women and their families in poverty.” If women workers were paid the same as comparable male workers in terms of age, education, and seniority, the poverty rates for women would decrease by half. In order for women to achieve economic achievement and equity, the gender pay gap must be narrowed.
In the past few centuries, there have been many factors leading up to the development of equal pay for women, beginning with the evolution of the female labor force. Because the evolution of women in the labor force led to the development of equal pay legislation, this paper will analyze that development through the research question: How has the historical integration of women into the labor force helped develop the movement towards equal pay in the United States? The paper begins by discussing the historiography of this topic. Then, it will discuss the issues and ideas that arise regarding women’s work. Next, the paper will examine the integration of women into the labor force through four major periods, the American Revolution, the Civil War, World War I, and World War I. Throughout this discussion, the paper will discuss how women and other groups began to fight for the principle of equal pay. Finally, the paper will conclude by summarizing the research findings, discussing its significance, and addressing the areas for future research.
Historiography
There were very few works regarding the history of women and work in the U.S. until the late 1960s. The majority of the literature about this topic emerged after 1968 when scholars were stimulated by the “reemergence of feminism and the activism of the New Left” and inspired by their concern for issues about class, gender, and work. Most historians researched about the women’s role in the labor force, how women participated in protests and movements, how industrialization affected women, and how the labor market became segregated by gender. More specifically, historians looked at industrialization in order to research how women transitioned from home to the factories and how that contrasted with women being confined to the domestic sphere.
Because most historians focused on women in industrial work, very few researched about agriculture and service occupations. From the 19th century until the post-World War I era, most African American and Hispanic women primarily worked in the agriculture industry. As a result, very few historians talked about women of color or compared the racial and class hierarchies that existed between the different groups of women. Women’s labor history was generally white, and it only included women of color in their discussions “when they held the same jobs as white women.”
Furthermore, although there were many major periods in which women became integrated into the labor force and active in the movement for protective labor legislation and equal pay, most of the literature on women and their labor organizations focused on the period from 1880 to 1920. This period consisted of the Knights of Labor, the first national scale labor organization that advocated for women and admitted them, the development of unions of unskilled laborers, and the formation of the American Federation of Labor. Organizations of middle-class women, the women’s club movement, and the women’s suffrage movement were also on the rise at this time.
Some major works and monographs by historians include Out of Work by Kessler-Harris in 1982, The Economic History of Women in American by Matthaei in 1982, and Understanding the Gender Gap by Goldin. Kessler-Harris explores the transformation and historical integration of women into the labor force, the relationship between family roles and wage labor, and the implications of the societal perceptions of women. Similarly, Golden and Matthaei examined the economic status of role of women in the labor force. They looked at the gender differences in the economic spheres, the women’s struggle for pay equality, and the past achievements of women. Although Kessler-Harris attempts to explain the class and racial patterns that were occurring at the time, she primarily focused on whether they had access to the industrial economy and when they began to work in the factories.
Overall, most of the historians had similar concerns and a general consensus about the historical integration of women into the labor force, women’s work, and the gender pay gap that existed due to many factors, including the segregation of the labor market. Only recently in the past few decades have scholars began looking at women of color and how the labor market has impacted them. Furthermore, while most scholars currently focus on gender discrimination as a major reason for the pay gap, some argue that it is a result of women’s decisions to enter lower-paying jobs, leave the labor market for family, or “neglect to advocate for themselves in salary negotiations.”
Ideas and Issues About Women’s Work
Women’s work and compensation were largely determined by prevailing ideas, societal constructions, norms, and expectations of them. Since the earliest days, many theories have been constructed in order to perpetuate the idea of women as an inferior status. These theories are used to “deny women of opportunity and compensation” and implied to show that women are inferior to men because they have not achieved as much as men. This leads to the belief that the work that women perform is not worth as much as men’s work, justifying the reason for paying women less than men.
As efforts to legitimize wage work for women began, the employers that were eager to hire women as workers “demonstrated how work reinforced the prevailing ideas about women.” Many of the positions that women began to work in were basically an extension of what they had done in the home. In jobs such as shoe-making, sewing, retail sales, and clerical work, women exhibited tolerance for tedious tasks and their “nimble fingers suited them for the tasks at hand.” It was also assumed that their desire for marriage and family perpetuated their low wages because employers did not want to pay women a decent wage when they would have to leave the workplace for their family and become dependent on their working husband. These prevailing ideas regarding women’s weakness and vulnerability helped determine their place of work, their jobs, and their relationships with employers. Ideologies also helped structure the nature of women’s work in occupations such as retail sales, clerical jobs, and domestic work. The “social constructions of femininity” ultimately determine the work that women perform and the value that is attached to it.
Thus, employers saw many benefits to employing women as they entered the labor force. With America’s lack of supply of workers and demand for cheap labor during industrialization, many employers saw advantages to hiring women because they could pay them lower wages. In addition to women’s vulnerability, many of them did not have direct ties to property, and thus, their labor could be purchased at a low cost. Furthermore, employers benefited from discrimination against women because it allowed them reducing their costs with a cheaper labor force and reserve the better paid jobs for men, whom were believed to be more productive. By maintaining lower wages for women, employers created a pool of cheap, female labor for their traditionally low-paid positions.
Evolution of the Female Labor Force: Overview
The transformation and integration of women into the labor force evolved in several phases: the American Revolution in 1775, the Civil War in 1861, World War I in 1914, and World War II in 1939. In the 1920s, there was a large expansion in the employment of single women, and soon after, the employment of married women. From the 1920’s to the 1940’s, the number of women in the labor force grew slowly, and it accelerated after World War II. For every decade after 1940, the percentage of married women in the labor force rose by 10 percent.
Transition of Women from Home into Wage Labor
The development of industrial capitalism after the American Revolution in 1775 had many effects on family and women’s work. Prior to industrialization was the family economy, where families “owned, managed, and worked” in their business, which was a family farm in most households. Women primarily spun, knitted, and wove in the home. As the economy developed expanding markets, family businesses became restricted by its labor force and limits to production in the home. Eventually, as firms developed their labor force and technology, they outgrew the household and labor began to transition into the factory, resulting in the decline of household manufacturers. Technology also increased the speed and quantity of household goods. The process of manufacturing items such as linen and cotton eventually became cheap enough that purchasing them was cheaper producing them at home. By 1810, approximately one-third of the fabric in the U.S. was made outside the home, and “new technology and economic pressures” resulted in the end of household manufacturers.
Industrial expansion required an efficient labor force that could be trained and willing to use the new machinery. The expansion of manufacturing diminished work conditions for both men and women, however, only men were given opportunities for economic advancement. Many urban women were in poverty and there was an increasing number of young rural women who were no longer needed in their households, which offered a starting point for firms. Although women were to remain in the domestic sphere, America’s lack of a supply of labor and persistent demand for cheap labor required women to join the labor force. The development of the factories and expansion of domestic labor also altered societal perceptions of the value and potential of women.
As a result, many women were encouraged to move into the labor force with “pleas of patriotism and by injunctions to render useful service.” Women also had fears of idleness and dependency, which compelled them to participate in the labor force in order to take care of their family. In every family, women who still remained at home took advantage of the new technology and machinery to reduce their work. Other women who entered the labor force performed tasks such as “making textile goods in the spinning mill instead of at home.” Many of the women’s jobs were primarily an extension of the tasks that they had performed in the home, such as textile manufacturing.
One major business that provided work for women outside of the home was the Lowell Textile Mills in Massachusetts. As the mills faced pressures of competition, the work conditions of the workers declined drastically. Wages were reduced and the labor intensity within the mills increased. Most women did not accept these conditions and changes without protesting. In 1834 and 1836, women organized a strike to protest wage reductions, and in 1843-1848, they started petition campaigns aimed at decreasing the labor hours in the mills. During their strike, about 800 women marched to numerous mills to persuade others to join them. Overall, the strikes were brief and unsuccessful in reversing the wage reductions. However, this strike was significant because it was one of the first major strikes that took place in which women protested for higher wages and better work conditions. In an era where women had to overcome barriers in order to work, their overstepping of boundaries and participation and in a public protest and strike is remarkable.
Civil War (1861-1865) – World War I (1914-1918)
The Civil War had demands for greater productivity, providing women more opportunities to enter the labor force and to reevaluate their condition. These demands encouraged manufacturers to hire female employees, recruit workers from overseas, and accelerate the pace of work in order to aid industrial expansion. The large combination of women seeking work and the demand for rapid production ultimately resulted in a disorganized labor market where wage-earning women experienced economic hardship and diminished work conditions.
Thus, wage-earning women complained and looked to the public community, trade unions, and the government for support and remedies. They also resisted and fought for better wages, hours, work conditions, and safety regulations. During the period of the Civil War to the depression in 1873, women participated in “widespread protests and organized extensively in trade unions and production cooperatives.” One of the first forms of protest during the Civil War period was the participation of wage-earning women in petition campaigns to state legislatures in order to ask male legislators for protection. These campaigns and techniques have been adopted from the 1830’s, where women first became extensively involved in the antislavery movement. Ultimately, these activities demonstrated how women are beginning to alter and reevaluate their conditions outside of the domestic sphere, in which they work for wages outside of the family.
The rapid increase of women participating in the labor force during the Civil War outpaced the additional work that was available. New inventions and technology after the Civil War ended, such as the sewing machine that was invented in 1850, began replacing hand sewing, reducing the number of workers needed. Consequently, immediately after the Civil War ended, work conditions got worse and wages decreased since the new machinery and technology allowed for employers to have greater control of the workers. Wage-earning women responded to these declining wages and deteriorating conditions by creating more petition campaigns. Although there was little hope for legislative action, the petitions served as talking points for organizational meetings and attracted “public attention to the widespread distress” that was taking place. The petitions basically stated the needs and requests of the wage-earning women, such as higher wages and better work conditions.
In exposing the deteriorating working conditions and wages for women, the “Civil War gave them the right to protest and unionize.” It also provided men, who often feared competition with women, a chance to join them. The labor press also recognized the needs and conditions of women, especially those who lost their husbands in the war and needed to find jobs. One major action that attracted the widespread attention of the press was the letter that women clerks collectively wrote to the editor of the New York Times in 1869 concerning their employment as government clerks. The arguments in the letter drew attention to how women were performing the same jobs as men, were just as productive, and yet, they were paid about half as much as men do. The letter also recognized the achievements and responsibilities of women, such as how well they were performing their tasks in the workforce, how they have families to support, and how they have “given to the country’s cause” by raising sons and husbands.
Soon after the Civil War ended, the struggle to establish the principle of equal pay for equal work began to emerge. In 1868, the National Labor Union Convention was the first national and organized group to demand federal and state governments to “pass laws securing equal salaries for equal work” for all women in government jobs. Afterward, Congress passed a legislative appropriation bill to give female employees in the federal government the same compensation as males when they perform the similar services. Accordingly, one of the first major employers to establish the principle of equal pay was the federal government. Furthermore, in the late 1880s and early 1990s, women had increasing membership in unions that represented their concerns regarding their relations with their jobs and their work conditions. The Knights of Labor—one of the first national large-scale labor unions—admitted women and advocated for equal pay in the private sector in 1878. Its peak union membership was approximately 500,000 in 1886.
World War I (1914-1918) – World War II (1939-1945)
During another wartime economy when World War I began in 1914, the principle of equal pay gained greater recognition, states began adopting their own equal pay laws, and wage-earning women entered the labor force at even increasing numbers. In the beginning of the war, the U.S. Employment Service published a list of positions that were suitable for women, which encouraged men to switch to occupations that supported the war effort. Since women would be performing the same jobs as men in the industrial workforce, the National War Labor Board asserted that they should be compensated the same as men and applied the principle to over 50 industrial dispute cases. Afterward, women increasing entered the workforce and took advantage of the wartime opportunities to fulfill men’s jobs and challenged physiological and societal assumptions about them. Their ability to work surprised many employers who had previously turned them down under the assumption that they were not capable of working.
Regardless, employers in most industries continued to pay women 25 to 50 percent less than the wages of men even when they transitioned into men’s jobs.
As the equal pay principle received more support, the absence of a federal policy requiring employees to enforce equal pay led women’s organizations and labor unions to fight for equal pay legislation on the state level. The U.S. Women’s Bureau, founded in 1920, pursued issues and promoted legislation regarding women’s work environment, hours, wages, and safety. They played a leading role in the equal pay movement by actively sponsoring the equal pay principle and by formulating a “model state equal pay bill.”
Among individual states, Montana and Michigan were the first states to adopt equal pay legislation in 1919. Then, Illinois and Washington enacted equal pay laws in 1943. In the next couple years, New York, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, and New Hampshire passed similar equal pay laws. Although not every organization and union agreed to the terms of the equal pay legislation, they all universally supported the equal pay principle and believed that legislation was the most optimal way to achieve this objective. Unfortunately, there were many loopholes that allowed employers to get around the equal pay laws. For instance, employers could enact minor changes positions that have both women and men and claim that it is no longer equal work. Thus, states also determined that equal work is constituted as work that “is of the same general type, requires comparable skills, and results in approximately equal productivity.”
World War II (1939-1945) – Present
Similar to World War I, even more women entered the labor force, transitioned into men’s jobs, and attitudes regarding women’s work began to change. As male employees went into the army, employers encouraged women to work in more jobs that were traditionally performed by men, such the aircraft industry and ammunition factories. Although women had been denied by employers and struggled to participate in the labor market during the Great Depression in the 1930s, World War II led to a huge influx of five million women between 1940 to 1944 into the heavy industries that have previously excluded them. In mid-1942, only 29 percent of women in the U.S. were employed, which was not enough, given the labor shortage during the war. As a result, the War Manpower Commission resorted to many ways of mobilizing women to work, including recruitment campaigns, using Rosie the Riveter to signify that women can make history and work to support the war effort, and more. By 1945, wartime production reached its peak with about 19.5 million women in the labor force, which was an 80.5 percent increase.
As women increasingly left the domestic sphere for wage work, questions and tensions emerged regarding their role. When women first entered the labor force, it was out of financial necessity and responsibility for their family. Now, the war started to focus attention to women’s positive contributions to the needs of the labor force. In addition to entering the workforce for financial reasons, many women began entering the labor force because they found happiness within work, wanted to escape the restrictions of child-rearing and family life, and wanted to experience the “relative independence and responsibility of wage-earning.”
Despite wartime necessities requiring women’s labor, women’s jobs were only temporary and ended after the war was over. As a result, women’s participation in the labor force decreased and there was a lot of ambivalence that surrounded women’s work. The number of women in the workforce began to rose again as women resorted back to fighting for equal pay on the grounds of equity since many women were working in jobs that were traditionally performed by men. There was little response to the wage-earning women’s struggle for equal pay, but by the end of World War II, some trade unions and about nine states have already accepted the principle of equal pay.
Federal interests in women’s rights eventually became enough to promote equal pay legislation in the early 1960s. They advocated for women’s work and equal pay by persuading President Kennedy to appoint Eleanor Roosevelt as the Chair of the President’s Commission on the Status of Women in order to further “the causes of feminism and equality.” This allowed the Commission to demolish the barriers that were keeping women from participating in the labor force. With members represented in Congress, different professions, and businesses, the Commission endorsed legislation for equal pay in 1962. They argued that in addition to considering “equal pay as a matter of justice,” equal pay also provides women and their families with decent living standards and contribute to the expansion of the economy.
In 1962, the House of Representatives and the Senate passed two different versions of equal pay legislation. The Kennedy administration also prohibited discrimination in federal civil service. The House and the Senate didn’t agree on a final bill until 1963, when equal pay protection was linked to the Fair Standards Labor Act as an amendment, which made equal pay legislation more acceptable to both political parties. The Equal Pay Act was finally enacted in 1963, prohibiting wage discrimination on the basis on sex. The Bill also declared that wage differentials “depresses wages and living standards,” “prevents the maximum utilization available labor resources,” causes labor disputes, burdens commerce, and “constitutes an unfair method of competition.”
Although the Equal Pay Act of 1963 has been a prominent and important achieve in the U.S. towards ensuring equal treatment of women in the workplace, the bill had many loopholes and the language of the bill indicated that it was written to protect men’s jobs even if it gave women equal pay. For instance, the bill prohibits wage discrimination for jobs with similar conditions and responsibilities, except where wages different “based on any other factor other than sex.” This factor allowed employers to not be liable for wage differentials and fabricate other reasons for wage disparities. Furthermore, the bill was primarily written to protect men because many women were working in men’s jobs. Paying women below the prevailing wage for the job would undermine the job’s value and “threaten men’s wage scales when men returned to reclaim their jobs.”
While the Equal Pay Act has not achieved economic equity for women, a lot of progress has been made towards eliminating discriminatory pay practices. For the past five decades since the Equal Pay Act was passed, the gender wage gap narrowed substantially. However, during the last fifteen years, there has not been much progress towards equal pay for women. Although there has not been another major piece of legislation in the recent decades, President Obama attempted to strengthen existing anti-discrimination laws against women to narrow the gender pay gap. The Obama administration proposed the Paycheck Fairness Act—an amendment to the Equal Pay Act—in order to shift to a more “aggressive enforcement of the existing pay discrimination laws and regulations.” In addition to including the language from the Equal Pay Act, the Paycheck Fairness Act also provides remedies to victims of wage discrimination and addresses how women continue to earn lower wages for the same work as men. Unfortunately, the Act fell two votes short from proceeding on to a Senate vote, and thus, it has not passed.
Conclusion
Overall, significantly economic progress has been made for women since they first neglected the domestic sphere to enter the labor force. Major wars such as the American Revolution, the Civil War, World War I, and World War II, encouraged the participation of women in the labor force as there was a shortage of male workers. As women integrated into the workforce, they began to challenge the societal and physiological perceptions of them that justified their inferior status and discrimination. Although women initially entered the labor force out of financial necessity and responsibility, they began to focus on their positive contributions to the labor force and how they viewed wage work as independence and an escape from the restricted domestic sphere.
As women entered the labor force, they also began to struggle for better work conditions and decent wages through protests, petitions, strikes, and appeals to the press. Eventually, the principle of equal pay begins to emerge towards the end of the Civil War as women exposed their deteriorating work conditions and low wages. The equal pay principle received more support as women gained representation in labor unions. As women began performing men’s jobs starting in World War I and World War II, labor groups and women’s organizations started advocating for legislation regarding women’s work conditions, hours, wages, and more. Federal interest groups also promoted equal pay legislation, and in 1963, the Equal Pay Act was passed.
Although significantly progress in narrowing the gender pay gap has occurred since the passage of the gender pay gap in past five decades, there has not been much progress recently in closing the pay gap. This is significant because the gender pay gap reduces women’s lifetime earnings, making it more difficult for them to succeed economically and leaves many women and their families in economic hardship. By understanding the historical integration of women into the workforce and how that has helped develop the movement for equal pay in the U.S., scholars, legislators, and activists can use this knowledge to determine what is the best way to proceed with equal pay and anti-discrimination legislation.
Lastly, there are many areas for future research regarding the movement in achieving equal pay for women. Because the majority of the literature regarding women’s labor history focuses women’s transition out of their homes into industrial work, most of the analysis is about white women. Thus, one area for future research is how women of color became integrated into the industrial labor force and how they faced even greater wage disparities than white women. Another area of research is the specifics of the integration of women into the labor force. This would include the differences of participation in wage-labor between married women and single women. Finally, it is important to research the reasons why the gender pay gap still exists, how anti-discrimination laws have not been as effective, and other programs or methods that could be used to address and eradicate the gender pay gap.
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