Doing Justice, Doing Gender by Susan Ehrlich Martin Nancy Jurik

Author:Susan Ehrlich Martin, Nancy Jurik [Susan Ehrlich Martin, Nancy Jurik]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781412927215
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Published: 2006-10-27T00:00:00+00:00

Gender Differences in Income

There are also consistent differences in the income of men and women lawyers that can only partially be accounted for by factors other than discrimination. Differences in the type and size of the firm in which they work, legal specialty, and partnership status each also contribute to these income differences. After the JD (2004), a national study of lawyers admitted to the bar in 2000, reveals a significant difference in the earnings of men and women at the earliest stage of their career. Women’s median salary in their first job as a lawyer is $66,000, compared to $80,000 for men (i.e., women make 83 cents per each dollar made by a man). The difference is not attributable only to the practice setting. In law offices of 251 or more lawyers, there is a $15,000 difference in men’s and women’s salaries. Large gaps also are found in pay in corporate law departments.

Sociologists Nancy Reichman and Joyce Sterling (2004) used Colorado Bar Association survey and interview data collected in 1993 and in 1999 to investigate changes in the gender pay gap over the legal career. They report that the gender gap in pay decreased from 1993 to 1999 for lawyers with 1 to 3 years of experience (women earned 82 percent of men’s income in 1993 and 92 percent in 1999) and for those with four to nine years of experience (women earned 86 percent of men’s income in 1993 and 96 percent in 1999). However, the differential between earned income of men and women lawyers grew slightly for those in the group with less than one year of experience (women made 96 percent of men’s income in 1993 and 92 percent of their income in 1999) and for those with 10 to 20 years of experience (women made 76 percent in 1993 and 74 percent of men’s incomes in 1999; Reichman & Sterling, 2004, p. 10–11). Controlling for type of position provided mixed results. Women partners in 1999 narrowed the pay differential, but the gap grew for women associates, who had made 94 cents to the dollar earned by male counterparts in 1993 but only 65 cents to the dollar in 1999.

Huang’s (1997) study of the gender wage gap compared 950 lawyers who graduated from four law schools in the classes of 1969–1971, 1980, and 1990. The study found evidence of occupational segregation by legal specialty and by sector; women disproportionately are found in low-status specialties and in the public sector and suffer a negative income effect for this, as do men, but to a lesser extent. However, differences in the earnings structure of the legal profession over time and across graduating groups explained most of the gender gap in wages. Within each sector, the men graduates in the first two groups surpassed the women graduates in those groups in terms of promotions and earnings increases. Those women who did become partners got smaller income premiums on their advancement than those received by men. In addition, men were

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.