Blau: New Policies Needed to Jumpstart Stalled Gender Equity in Labor Market

The United States is at a crossroads in the path toward gender equity in the labor market, according to Fran Blau ‘66, Frances Perkins Professor of ILR and professor of economics, emeritus, at the ILR School.

After decades of progress, Blau explains in her latest research that gains in labor force participation, occupational attainment and pay have slowed or stalled for women and will unlikely improve without policy interventions to ease work-family conflicts and reduce discrimination.

Blau’s paper, “Gender Inequality in the Labor Market: Continuing Progress?” is forthcoming in the ILR Review and draws on her years of research with various collaborators, especially Lawrence Kahn, emeritus ILR economics professor, Anne Winkler and the late Marianne Ferber.

“This paper can be seen almost as a capstone of my work,” Blau says. “In 2022, I had this great opportunity to give the Cook-Gray Lecture, and it gave me a chance to reflect back on my work, the important research done by others, and the current labor landscape. Tracing back 50 years on the progress that women have made, you find a very mixed picture.

“I don’t want to understate the progress, which has been enormous since post-World War II, but what we have seen is that following these big gains, progress has slowed, or in some cases, stalled.”

The paper begins by outlining the labor market journey women have experienced that transformed gender roles following World War II. Blau indicates that the changes were not the result of dramatic social upheaval, but rather the steady incremental and mutually reinforced gains spanning labor force participation, education, occupations and wages.

Rising market opportunities, wages, anti-discrimination laws and changes in social attitudes played major roles in transforming women’s work in the United States and abroad.

Blau added that “home” factors, such as declining birthrates, more predictable fertility and technological changes that have made housework less onerous and time-consuming, have contributed to closing the gender gap.

A Slowdown Follows Improvements

Beginning in the 1990s, however, women's progress slowed or stalled, especially in the United States compared to other developed countries.

“We had this enormous increase in labor force participation that spanned from the late 1940s to the 1990s, and while we haven’t gone backward, we haven’t seen recent increases,” Blau says. “And we’re being left behind when compared to other developed countries.

“The way I see it, much of what was fueling the past progress has run its course.”

An example of this can be found in the narrowing of the gender wage gap. In the past, men’s wages were often higher because they were more attached to the labor force and more likely to have a college education. As women got more attached to the labor force and as more and more women received bachelor’s degrees, the wage gap narrowed.

“Reducing gender gaps in experience and education helped to narrow the wage gap, but now that the gender gap in experience is almost gone and women are more likely than men to graduate college, we can’t rely on these factors for future gains,” Blau says.

Likewise, while women have made considerable inroads in traditionally male professions (law and medicine) and management, they remain overrepresented in traditionally female jobs (elementary school teachers, nurses and administrative support) and underrepresented in STEM occupations and predominantly male blue-collar jobs.

Our lack of progress in raising women’s labor force participation may reflect women’s difficulties combining work and family without more supportive policies. Other factors impeding women – especially mothers – from working stem from increased working hours for skilled workers, and less flexibility and unpredictable schedules for less-skilled and less-educated workers.

Policies Offer Path to Improvements

“This is a matter of opinion, but looking at the trends, I have come to the conclusion that to jump-start further progress, we need policy intervention,” Blau says. “I see two dimensions – family-friendly policies and antidiscrimination – that could make a real difference.”

Family-friendly policies, such as parental leave, right to part-time employment, and subsidized childcare, in other countries are more generous, on average, than in the U.S.

“The state of child care in the United States is in crisis,” Blau says. “We’ve always lagged other industrial countries, but since COVID, we’ve seen a lot of child care workers leave their positions, plus rising costs, and we have these ‘child care deserts’ too.

“One thing Larry [Kahn] and I have found in our research is that parental leave is very complicated. If it’s very long, and taken almost exclusively by women, it can really get employers’ backs up. To address this, some Scandinavian countries have provided ‘father-only’ leave. So, a certain portion of leave is available only to dads and it’s meant to push more men into sharing childrearing responsibilities, It’s hoped that this would lessen the concern that mandated parental leave would lead employers to discriminate against women.”

Blau says that, in contrast to family-friendly policies, the U.S. has been a world leader in antidiscrimination policies with an “impressive list of laws and regulations,” including Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Another example Blau points to is Executive Order 11246 of 1965 that required federal contractors to reduce race and gender disparities in employment.

“That program has been studied and has been proven to be extremely positive for women and minorities,” Blau says. “Over time, it has been shown to have significantly increased opportunities and wages without resulting in less qualified people in those positions. Unfortunately, this Executive Order was recently rescinded by President Trump.”

Blau explains that while those policies have been historically important, more proactive new policies may be needed. Given the current political climate, the state-level may be most promising. She mentioned two newer policies that may be helpful – salary history bans and pay transparency.

Salary history bans prohibit employers from asking potential employees about their pay at previous jobs, possibly ending the cycle of chronically underpaying women and minorities from one job to the next.

Likewise, pay transparency laws are helpful because they help women – who research shows are less likely to negotiate for higher salaries – and current employees, as they can better judge if they are being underpaid compared to their co-workers.

“Both of these policies can lead to more equitable salaries,” Blau said.

“One of the broader problems is that the federal implementation of antidiscrimination laws has fluctuated with different administrations. The legal process is also very time-consuming. You have to wait for an employer to break the law and somebody has to be brave enough to bring a case, and the time spent in litigation may be very drawn out.

“These new policies are more proactive, and I find them very intriguing.”