Publisher's Synopsis
This book looks at the change in the relative pay and employment of women, and the effect and its extent, if any, of equal pay legislation. Satisfactory data on women's pay and employment are examined and show that the impact of legislation has been underestimated in the case of Britain and this makes this study, an important one for all those interested in these issues. During the 1970s women saw their relative pay increased by 15 per cent. The results of this research tend to suggest that this improvement cannot be attributed to shifts in female employment from low to high paying sectors of the economy, but is the result of genuine increases in relative pay within sectors. It cannot be explained by incomes policies, and has not been achieved at the expense of female employment. Indeed the main factor behind this remarkable increase in female pay is shown to have been the anti-discriminatory legislation passed in Britain during this period.
