Intersectionality & Equal Pay from 2000-2021: The Limits of Lawsuits

• In Event: Poster Session: American Politics Research & Ideas and Institutions in American Political Thought
  In Poster Session: Poster Session: American Politics Research

Abstract

In 2022, women who worked full-time earned 83 cents for every dollar their male counterparts made (Institute for Women’s Policy Research [IWPR] 2023). The wage gap was even larger for women of color as Black women and Latinas earned just 67.4 percent and 61.4 percent of what white men earned (IWPR 2023a). When the Equal Pay Act was enacted in 1963, women earned only 59 cents for every dollar that comparable men made. Thus, the gender wage gap has closed over time, but progress in closing the wage gap has stalled significantly in the last two decades (Kochar 2023; National Committee on Pay Equity 2020). The Institute for Women’s Policy Research (2022) estimates that it will be another 40 years, or until 2059, before the wage gap closes. For women of color, the wait could be even longer (IWPR 2022). Together these data suggest that closing the wage gap requires equal pay enforcement mechanisms that can provide restitution for intersectionally marginalized women of color.
Building on those data and insights, this paper uses text analyses and logit models to examine how intersectionally marginalized women fared in 1,368 federal wage discrimination cases from 2000 to 2021. Between 2000 and 2021, 460 (33.6%) of federal wage discrimination cases were intersectional, focusing on female plaintiffs who made complaints-based gender and on ability status, age, gender identity, race, ethnicity, nationality, sexual orientation, and/or pregnancy. One hundred and 29 cases (10.8%) mentioned 3 or more intersecting identities, 153 (12.8%) focused on the intersection of gender and race, ethnicity, or nationality; 92 (7.7%) focused on the intersection of gender and age, 54 (4.5%) addressed gender and ability status, 24 (2.0) were related to the intersection of gender and pregnancy, and only 5 (0.4%) dealt with gender and sexual orientation. Logit analyses reveal that plaintiffs also significantly less likely to win when they filed intersectional cases, controlling for timing, important issues related to the legal arguments contained in the decisions, prior EEOC involvement with the case, the type of court that heard the case, and whether victims represented themselves in pro se cases. Female plaintiffs and plaintiffs who file one-dimensional cases are both predicted to win 26 percent of the time, while plaintiffs who are men and plaintiffs that file intersectional cases are both only predicted to win 20 percent of the time. These results indicate that 30 years after Crenshaw (1989) identified challenges related to intersectionality in the legal system, intersectionality marginalized women continue to struggle when they seek restitution in court, underscoring the need for reform in American equal pay enforcement policy.

Author

• Ashley English, University of North Texas