Battle of the sexes wages on over wages

Back in the 1970s, if you saw a woman wearing a button that read "62 cents," you knew that it stood for the fact that women made 62 cents for every $1 earned by a man.

Sadly, not much has changed in the last 30 years.

A new study by the Institute for Women's Policy Research found that while states have narrowed the gap between what men and women are paid for fulltime, year-round jobs, it will be another 50 years before there is parity between the sexes.

The study was based on Census figures from 2000 data and information from the 2002-2003 Current Population Survey, which is another survey by the Census Bureau and Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The study found that median wages for women in 2002 were 76.2 percent of what men made in the workplace, up from 68.5 percent when the group first began surveying in 1996 (using 1989 data).

Women in Wyoming had the lowest wage ratio at 66.3 percent of what men earn. Washington, D.C., women came the closest at 92.4 percent. In Tennessee, women earned 75.1 percent of what men make. (To see all the comparisons for Tennessee, visit www.iwpr.org/States2004/TN.htm.)

Some criticize such wage gap statistics as inaccurate because they maintain that women's work patterns may lead them to take jobs that value flexibility and benefits over a hefty paycheck. And in many cases that is true. Women are most likely to be the primary caregiver in the home, plus deal with a majority of the domestic issues. However, time has marched on from the 1950s when dads went to work and moms stayed home.

Others point out that women have traditionally gravitated to lower paying jobs, but that too is changing.

Some states have considered or are considering mandating wage disparity studies to see independently where they stand on the difference in wages between men and women. Tennessee should consider one.

But ultimately a law can't cure cultural aberrations. Women must individually demand competitive salaries when their jobs are equal to a man's. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.