the mother. That the total number of women affected one way or the other is probably small may account for the fact that liberalized child care arrangements have left no visible imprint on national fertility levels. Two countries which are often cited as examples of abundant child care facilities, Sweden and Israel,20 had gross reproduction rates in 1966 which were, respectively, much lower (1.15) and higher (1.89) than could have been expected on the basis of their level of socioeconomic development.21 The United States Revenue Act of 1954, instituting a tax deduction of up to $900 for childcare expenses, has apparently had such insignificant consequences as to have completely escaped mention by students of American fertility trends. The remaining discussion will focus upon measures which seem both practicable and efficacious. Fiscal Policy Governmental fiscal decisions often contain important, though unanticipated, consequences for women's work opportunities. For example, the sectoral allocation of governmental expenditures bears directly on the sex structure of employment opportunities. To the extent that disbursements and subsidies are directed disproportionately toward sectors and industries where male workers predominate-such as agriculture, oil extraction and refinement, transportation, and defensegovernmental policy implicitly discourages female employment. Expenditures on education, health, and communications have the opposite effect, but one would have to conclude that the present distribution of governmental expenditures provides a relative advantage for male workers. Full employment policy represents another area where governmental decisions often have important effects on the female work force. Because women are typically less closely attached to the labor force than men, their participation rates show greater sensitivity to fluctuations in unemployment levels; in times of recession,22 there is substantial net withdrawal of women from the labor force. Female employment is undoubtedly a secondary consideration in expenditure and stabilization decisions, but the presence of these relationships should not be totally neglected. Probably the most direct and effective mechanism for increasing the attractiveness of female employment is tax policy. It is recognized that prescriptions for changes in taxation are made in connection with virtually every social malady ever diagnosed, and that additional suggestions are in danger of receiving less and less attention. The proposal made here will attempt to reactivate a measure that, in a modified form, has already been a part of United States tax policy on two occasions. A closely related modification was also recommended by the Task Force on Social Insurance and Taxes of the Citizens' Advisory Council on the Status of Women (1968). The proposal is to permit an "earned income" allowance to be applied to earnings of the second (or lower) earner in a family in which both spouses are employed. In 1968, the wife was the second earner in 88.5 percent of families with working wives, husband present. 23 The effect of the proposed change would clearly be to reduce the tax burden of two-earner families relative to that of one-earner families and single persons. The logic of the proposal is that many expenses are incurred in connection with the employment of the second earner. Among these expenses are the journey to work, clothing, housecleaning arrangements, meals in restaurants, cleaning bills, and, most important, the valuable time which her employment requires. Unlike businesses, households cannot deduct these expenses before computing tax liability. In fact, the earnings of the second earner are often viewed as the "extra" or marginal earnings of the household. Thus, her earnings are taxed at an even higher rate than are the earnings of the husband under the graduated income tax applying to a joint return. In this regard, it is wise to keep in mind that working is not a "consumer good" for most married women: Only 16.3 percent of women taking jobs in 1963 offered the reason of "personal satisfaction," while 61.5 percent offered a financial reason.24 In effect, the proposed change would implicitly tax the extra leisure and extra production of household goods and services enjoyed by one-earner relative to two-earner families. Taxing these items directly (as suggested in a report to the Canadian Royal Commission on the Status of Women25) would prove quite impractical, but essentially the same result can be obtained by subsidizing or, more precisely, by reducing the tax rate on earnings resulting from the employment of the second earner. A direct subsidy to women workers would apparently conflict with laws prohibiting unequal treatment of the sexes in compensation. There are reasons why an earned income tax allowance should be extended to all earners, not just to second earners in two-earner families. Such a measure would also favor two-earner relative to one-earner families, assuming that the percentage allowance decreases with earned income, since the allowance would be applied twice.26 This measure would typically result in a much higher revenue loss, forcing a total overhaul of the tax rate structure. It would clearly not be as efficient in reaching the target group for fertility purposes. In any case, the proposal made here would attempt to redress existing inequities between one-earner and two-earner families, and not every supposed inequity or inefficiency in existing tax laws. Society may, in fact, decide that only two-earner families are worthy of special treatment, because of the exceptional adjustments required of them. The present proposal could take many specific forms. Details of a fairly complex form proposed by the Task Force to the Citizens' Advisory Council (in which the dollar deduction varies with wife's income and the proportion of family income earned by the wife) can be found in the Appendix. The cost of the proposed change would have been $34 billion in tax revenue in 1967. A simpler form, in which 10 percent of the first $2,500 earned by the second-earner and 5 percent of the next $2,500 is deducted directly from the household's tax liability (rather than from adjusted gross income), would have cost approximately $4.4 billion in 1967.27 It would have raised the after-tax income of the working wife in 1967 by an average of $223. Such a change in earnings would, according to the responsiveness of fertility to female earnings estimated by Cain-Weininger and Preston, reduce completed family size by about .06 children.28 This figure indicates that the responsiveness of fertility to female employment opportunities is not strong enough to secure by itself the elimination of all fertility above replacement level under any feasible tax law changes. The proposed change would penalize single persons and single heads of family relative to two-earner families, thereby presumably encouraging marriages in which both partners plan to work. The fertility effect of such encouragement, itself weak, is probably insignificant. The incentive only operates if both parents are employed, and pregnancy normally interferes with the wife's career. A couple could plan to both take advantage of the tax law change and have a child only if outside child care is acceptable to them. An alternative to the earned income allowance is the elimination of the joint return. Canada, for example, taxes the income of husbands and wives separately. Under this system, husbands, wives, single persons, and married persons could be taxed at identical rates. The effect of the change in most cases, would be to reduce the effective tax rate on the earnings of wives, as illustrated in Table 2, even if the effective rate after the change was as high as that of single women presently. The change would also emphasize the role of adults as individual producers serving a market economy, rather than as members of a family exporting their labor in order to sustain what is largely a self-contained and even subsistence-level household economy. Its connotations are much different from those of a tax break for two-earner families, which affirms the sanctity of the household as a fundamental productive unit. It is surely possible that in the case of households, legal significance Midpoint of wife's earning bracket Table 2.—Marginal Tax Rates on Wife's Earnings under Two Tax Schedules has reinforced social norms and prompted behavior consistent with them. Job Equality Important gains have been made toward reducing job discrimination against women since the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Courts have ruled that state "protective" labor laws fashioned with regard only to women are in violation of, and superceded by, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act.29 Women have been active in filing complaints against employers, unions, and employment agencies (2,689 charges of sex discrimination were filed with the Equal Employment Opportunities Commission in the fiscal year 1969, the vast majority by women).30 "Equal pay for equal work” laws are now in effect in 36 states.31 Nevertheless, the momentum of change could be substantially advanced in a number of ways. First, laws prohibiting sex discrimination in employment should be extended to groups not presently covered. At present, Title VII covers only employees of firms in which at least 25 persons are employed.32 A large proportion of workers in firms with fewer than 25 employees are female. Moreover, Title VII does not cover discrimination in promotion practices,33 whereas this type of discrimination is alleged to be quite common. In regard to enforcement, the Equal Employment Opportunities Commission does not have the power to issue cease and desist orders nor to bring court action to enforce a clause in the Civil Rights Act. (It can mediate to secure voluntary compliance or advise individuals of their right to bring suit.)34 Laws of a few states are more rigorous, covering all employees (Minnesota), promotion practices (Pennsylvania), and permitting state officials to institute court action (Connecticut),35 Laws requiring "equal pay for equal work" have a limited scope for changing job opportunities available to women, however. Their limitation is a product of occupational sex-typing. Few women are employed in occupations where wages of males and females are readily compared within the same firm, because most women are simply not hired for positions which are customarily dominated by men. In 1960, 73 percent of working women were employed in occupations where a majority of workers were women.36 Such figures do not necessarily imply that employers actively discriminate against women, of course. They appear to represent predominant expectations, on the part of both employers and women themselves, that women are suited for a relatively narrow range of jobs. A survey conducted by National Office Managements Associates indicated that top management, in 65 percent of the surveyed firms, had qualms about appointing a woman to supervise a department with males in it,37 and such demurrers have been confirmed elsewhere.38 The prevalence of such pre-judgments clearly jeopardizes the maintenance of nondiscrimination against women, repeatedly defined by the Equal Employment Opportunities Commission in the following manner: "The principle of nondiscrimination in employment requires that applicants be considered on the basis of individual capabilities and not on characteristics generally attributed to a group."39 Women themselves often demonstrate low aspirations about the type of jobs which they seek. A survey of June 1961 college graduates (on the average, women in this group ranked higher academically then men) found that women represented 78 percent of those planning careers in nursing, medical technology, and physical therapy; 68 percent in social work; 59 percent in elementary and secondary education; and only 6 percent in medicine, 7 percent in physics, and 10 percent in business and administration.40 In the case of medical schools, at least, there appear to be few remnants of sex discrimination in admission.4 Only 18 percent of a sample of 1957 women graduates planned "to have a career," while 58 percent planned to work for only a short time after marriage or to stop working when they had children.42 41 Women's limited expectations about work appropriate for them are probably reflected in the remarkably low number of charges filed with EEOC alleging sex discrimination in hiring, despite the unquestionable prevalence of such practices. Only 250 such charges were registered in the fiscal year 1969. This number represents only about one charge for every 120,000 working women in the country, compared to one charge of racial discrimination in hiring for every 7,000 working members of racial minorities.43 Women in general appear to accede willingly to employers' preconceptions that they are ill-suited for a wide range of occupations. A portion of occupational sex-typing may be amenable to treatment by direct legislation. In particular, indications of sex preferences in classified advertisements should be eliminated, except insofar as sex is a bona fide occupational qualification (for example, women for modelling women's clothes). The EEOC has vacillated on the issue, and currently permits sex preferences to be indicated on classified ads. The potential impact of their elimination is dramatized by events following a change in U.S. Civil Service regulations in 1961. Beginning in January 1962, agencies making personnel requests were required to include a statement of their reasons for specifying one sex only. The percentage of requests from the Washington office for certification by Federal Service Entrance Examina tion of positions specifying males only declined abruptly from 45 percent to 2 percent, while the percentage with no sex specified rose from 48 percent to 98 percent. The percentage of women appointed to all positions rose from 14.9 percent for the year ending October 1961, to 17.3 percent for the calendar year 1962.44 The problem runs deeper, of course, than the level of classified advertisements. Sex-typing of occupations is only one manifestation of sex-typing of virtually all social and economic activities. A basic dilemma facing American society is whether it wishes to relinquish whatever advantages accrue from nourishing complementarity between the sexes in order to insure that equal opportunities in all spheres are available to all of its citizens. As long as girls are encouraged to view their adult success almost exclusively in terms of their families, gainful employment will inevitably remain a secondary consideration for them, and women will be systematically excluded from positions requiring continuous employment over an extended period. It is clear that modes of socialization are largely impervious to legislative incursions, but a few inroads are available. State standards for textbook publishers could include requirements for the attractive presentations of women working outside as well as inside the home. FCC standards could preclude the exploitative characterization of women as sexual objects in advertisements. Governmentally sponsored training programs for guidance counselors could be forced to stress the productive potential of women workers. At base, however, the dilemma will have to be resolved within the American home. SIDE EFFECTS OF PROPOSED CHANGES It follows from the previous discussion that the changes proposed here would produce two major consequences: reduced discrimination against women workers, and a change in the relative status of males and females. Reduced Discrimination The proposals mentioned above-a change in tax laws, extension of equal employment opportunity regulations, prohibition of sex labelling in classified ads, and so on, would merely serve to reverse existing inequities facing women workers and job seekers. No "compensatory" measures were proposed that would offer them advantages over males in response to any injustices that may have produced their currently lower occupational status. It might be mentioned that compensatory measures recommended by the Canadian Commission on the Status of Women include the payment of salaries well above the private-sector level for nurses, dieticians, home economists, librarians, and social workers employed in Federal service.45 Instead, the recommendations appear to embody the philosophy of equal employment opportunities that has been expressed in the Equal Pay Act of 1963, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Executive Orders prohibiting discrimination in Federal employment and by Federal contractors, and state equal employment opportunity laws. The general thrust of the proposals is also similar to that of recommendations of the President's Commission on the Status of Women (1963) and those of various state commissions. In sum, the proposals appear to advance a generally accepted national goal, that of equal employment opportunities for all citizens. A Change in Relative Status It is a misconception to view all female employment gains as accruing at the expense of males. There is no fixed "wage fund" or "job fund" for which the two sexes compete. It is certainly not obvious that the American economy has reached the stage where rapidly diminishing returns to the use of additional units of labor are driving down average earnings of the employed population. In fact, an increase in female participation rates would undoubtedly serve to raise per capita national income, partly because current measures of income contain no component representing the value of leisure or home work. However, if status is viewed only in relative terms, the gains of one group must occur at the expense of another. The group most likely to be affected adversely by increased job opportunities for women are married men, who in some instances may feel threatened by a greater financial and perhaps emotional independence of their wives. Circumstantial evidence of pathological disturbances in the family as a result of increased job opportunities for women is offered by analysts of the early stages of the industrial revolution in England46 and of American Negroes in the 1950's.47 More concrete evidence is provided by studies which have uncovered greater dissatisfaction and conflict in American marriages in which the wife is employed, although the causal relationship has not been firmly established.48 However, the satisfaction which one group derives from another's dependency on it does not make a very just or convincing argument for perpetuating that dependency. Similar arguments could obviously have justified the continuation of any form of human servitude, and no longer appear acceptable to a majority of Americans. They should not pose a serious impediment to measures designed to increase women's employment opportunities. |