IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/ilrrev/v54y2001i4p806-815.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

An Experimental Study of Job Evaluation and Comparable Worth

Author

Listed:
  • E. Jane Arnault
  • Louis Gordon
  • Douglas H. Joines
  • G. Michael Phillips

Abstract

The doctrine of comparable worth rests on an assumption that each job possesses an inherent worth independent of the market forces of supply and demand. Implementation of comparable worth further requires that inherent job worth be measured with reasonable accuracy. This paper reports the results of an experimental study of comparable worth. Three commercial job evaluation firms rated the same set of 27 jobs in an actual company. Statistical analysis of the experimental data indicates that the three evaluators differed in which job trait, or constellation of traits, they used to evaluate inherent job worth, implying that at least one of them failed to measure inherent job worth accurately. These results suggest that any attempt to implement comparable worth may be quite sensitive to the evaluator chosen to measure job worth.

Suggested Citation

  • E. Jane Arnault & Louis Gordon & Douglas H. Joines & G. Michael Phillips, 2001. "An Experimental Study of Job Evaluation and Comparable Worth," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 54(4), pages 806-815, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:ilrrev:v:54:y:2001:i:4:p:806-815
    DOI: 10.1177/001979390105400403
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/001979390105400403
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/001979390105400403?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Mark R. Killingsworth, 1987. "Heterogeneous Preferences, Compensating Wage Differentials, and Comparable Worth," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 102(4), pages 727-742.
    2. Sorensen, Elaine, 1986. "Implementing Comparable Worth: A Survey of Recent Job Evaluation Studies," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 76(2), pages 364-367, May.
    3. Macpherson, David A & Hirsch, Barry T, 1995. "Wages and Gender Composition: Why Do Women's Jobs Pay Less?," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 13(3), pages 426-471, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Martin, Daniel & Wiley, Donna & Legree, Peter, 2006. "Ethnocentrism and Internal Compensation Structuring: An Experimental Examination of Point Factor Job Evaluation," MPRA Paper 28683, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Michael Baker & Nicole M. Fortin, 2000. "Does Comparable Worth Work in a Decentralized Labor Market?," Working Papers baker-00-02, University of Toronto, Department of Economics.
    2. Ruzzier, Christian A. & Woo, Marcelo D., 2023. "Discrimination with inaccurate beliefs and confirmation bias," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 210(C), pages 379-390.
    3. Havet, Nathalie, 2004. "Écarts salariaux et disparités professionnelles entre sexes : développements théoriques et validité empirique," L'Actualité Economique, Société Canadienne de Science Economique, vol. 80(1), pages 5-39, Mars.
    4. Christie, Pamela & Shannon, Michael, 2001. "Educational attainment and the gender wage gap: evidence from the 1986 and 1991 Canadian censuses," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 20(2), pages 165-180, April.
    5. François Rycx & Ilan Tojerow, 2004. "Rent sharing and the gender wage gap in Belgium," International Journal of Manpower, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 25(3/4), pages 279-299, April.
    6. Tugce, Cuhadaroglu, 2013. "My Group Beats Your Group: Evaluating Non-Income Inequalities," SIRE Discussion Papers 2013-49, Scottish Institute for Research in Economics (SIRE).
    7. Daniela Andrén & Thomas Andrén, 2015. "Gender and occupational wage gaps in Romania: from planned equality to market inequality?," IZA Journal of European Labor Studies, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 4(1), pages 1-27, December.
    8. Sheree Gibb & David Fergusson & L. Horwood & Joseph Boden, 2014. "The Effects of Parenthood on Workforce Participation and Income for Men and Women," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 35(1), pages 14-26, March.
    9. Alena Bicakova & Stepan Jurajda, 2014. "The Quiet Revolution and the Family: Gender Composition of Tertiary Education and Early Fertility Patterns," CERGE-EI Working Papers wp504, The Center for Economic Research and Graduate Education - Economics Institute, Prague.
    10. Cohen-Zada, Danny & Krumer, Alex & Rosenboim, Mosi & Shapir, Offer Moshe, 2017. "Choking under pressure and gender: Evidence from professional tennis," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 176-190.
    11. Michael Baker & Nicole M. Fortin, 2001. "Occupational gender composition and wages in Canada, 1987–1988," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 34(2), pages 345-376, May.
    12. Fisher, Jonathan D. & Houseworth, Christina A., 2013. "Occupation inflation in the Current Population Survey," Journal of Economic and Social Measurement, IOS Press, issue 3, pages 243-261.
    13. William J. Carrington & Kenneth R. Troske, 1998. "Sex Segregation in U.S. Manufacturing," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 51(3), pages 445-464, April.
    14. Mora, Toni & Ferrer-i-Carbonell, Ada, 2009. "The job satisfaction gender gap among young recent university graduates: Evidence from Catalonia," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 38(4), pages 581-589, August.
    15. Mehrotra, Santosh & Parida, Jajati K., 2017. "Why is the Labour Force Participation of Women Declining in India?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 360-380.
    16. Isabell Koske & Jean-Marc Fournier & Isabelle Wanner, 2012. "Less Income Inequality and More Growth – Are They Compatible? Part 2. The Distribution of Labour Income," OECD Economics Department Working Papers 925, OECD Publishing.
    17. Jaume Garcia Villar & Pedro J. Hernández & Ángel López-Nicolás, 2002. "An investigation of the relationship between job characteristics and the gender wage gap," Economics Working Papers 627, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra.
    18. Apps, P. F. & Rees, R., 1996. "Labour supply, household production and intra-family welfare distribution," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(2), pages 199-219, May.
    19. Joni Hersch & Jean Xiao, 2016. "Sex, Race, and Job Satisfaction Among Highly Educated Workers," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 83(1), pages 1-24, July.
    20. Mona Said, 2003. "The Distribution of Gender and Public Sector Pay Premia: Evidence from the Egyptian Organised Sector," Working Papers 132, Department of Economics, SOAS University of London, UK.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:ilrrev:v:54:y:2001:i:4:p:806-815. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.ilr.cornell.edu .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.