This website uses cookies.

By clicking the "Accept" button or continuing to browse our site, you agree to first-party and session-only cookies being stored on your device to enhance site navigation and analyze site performance and traffic. For more information on our use of cookies, please see our Privacy Policy.

  1. Home
  2. Journals
  3. Journal of Economic Perspectives
  4. Winter 1989
  5. Does the Market for Women's Labor Need Fixing?

Journal of Economic Perspectives

ISSN 0895-3309 (Print) | ISSN 1944-7965 (Online)

Does the Market for Women's Labor Need Fixing?

  • Barbara R. Bergmann
Journal of Economic Perspectives
vol. 3, no. 1, Winter 1989
(pp. 43–60)
Download Full Text PDF
(Complimentary)

Abstract

I will start by reviewing the evidence that discrimination against women is currently serious and has important consequences for their pay and status. Some of this evidence is of a variety that economists do not commonly examine or take account of. On the assumption that at least some readers will agree that some remedies might be called for, I go on to look at the virtues and defects of the remedies most commonly proposed—affirmative action and administered wage realignment under the rubric of "pay equity" or "comparable worth."

Citation

Bergmann, Barbara R. 1989. "Does the Market for Women's Labor Need Fixing?" Journal of Economic Perspectives 3 (1): 43–60. DOI: 10.1257/jep.3.1.43

JEL Classification

  • 917 Economics of Minorities; Economics of Discrimination
  • 826 Labor Markets: Demographic Characteristics
  • 813 Labor Force--General