Equal Pay and Gender: Implications of Court Cases for Personnel Practices

Over 150 court cases alleging violations of the Equal Pay Act and/or the Bennett Amendment of Title VII were reviewed.Pay differences between sexes averaged approximately 15 percent.Evidence submitted by the majority of litigants concerning job worth involved individual testimony, with few litigants submitting the results from a job evaluation.Pay differences may be defended only by personnel practices applied in a sex-blind manner.Job evaluation should become more common in industry as a defense against pay discrimination.