Gender Differences in Comparisons and Entitlement: Implications for Comparable Worth

Journal of Social Issues, Vol. 45, No. 4, 1989, p p . 99-115

Gender Differences in Comparisons and Entitlement: Implications for Comparable Worth

Brenda Major State University of New York at Buffalo

This article addresses the role of comparison processes in the persistence of the gender wage gap, its toleration by those most disadvantaged by it, and resistance to comparable worth as a corrective strategy. I t proposes that the gender segregation of jobs and the underpayment of women and women’s jobs lead women and men to use different comparison standards when evaluating what they are entitled to receive in terms of pay for work. I argue that gender differences in entitlement contribute to toleration of injustice among underpaid female workers, foster cultural beliefs regarding what is appropriate pay for male and female workers, and serve as sources of potential bias in job evaluation plans. In addition, a variety of structural, cognitive, and affective factors encourage individuals to compare within groups, to regard ingroup members as the most relevant and legitimate comparative referents, and to inhibit the outgroup comparisons that lie at the heart of the comparable worth strategy.

“Justice depends on expectations, and expectations, in the long run, on actualities. What is, is always becoming what ought to be.”

(Homans, 1976, p. 244)

The proposition that jobs of comparable value should receive equal pay, popularly known as comparable worth or pay equity, is a response to two well- documented, persistent, and interrelated phenomena: a gender gap in wages received by working women and men, and the pronounced gender segregation of the labor force. Comparable worth advocates argue that the current distribution

Correspondence regarding this article should be addressed to Brenda Major, Department of Psychology, State University of New York at Buffalo, Park Hall, Buffalo, NY 14260.

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0022-4537/8911200-0099$06.00/ I 0 1989 The Society for the Psychological Study of Social Isrues

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of pay across jobs reflects discrimination on the basis of sex of the typical job occupant. Specifically, they argue that “women’s jobs” (jobs done primarily by women) are paid less than comparable “men’s jobs” (jobs done primarily by men), and further, that this occurs because the former jobs are done by women (Treiman & Hartmann, 1981). Although there are many aspects to the debate over the comparable worth strategy, a central issue is whether the current distribution of jobs and pay to women and men is just or unjust, and whether comparable worth is a fair and reasonable strategy for changing this distribution. Thus, comparable worth, like the earlier strategies of “equal pay for equal work” and affirmative action, is fundamentally concerned with both distributive justice, i.e., the fairness of the distribution or allocation of rewards across individuals, and procedural justice, i.e., the fairness of the procedures by which reward allocation decisions are made.

Social psychologists have long been concerned with social justice and the conditions that lead an individual or group to perceive that their rewards are unjust. The most well-known social psychological theories of distributive justice are equity theory (Adams, 1965; Walster, Walster, & Berscheid, 1978) and relative deprivation theory (cf. Crosby, 1976, 1982). Both equity theory and relative deprivation theory predict that when outcomes are perceived as unjust, a variety of cognitive, affective, and behavioral reactions ensue, ranging from psychological justifications of the injustice to behavioral attempts to redress it. The comparable worth movement is one such reaction. But what are the conditions that lead individuals to perceive that their outcomes are unfair?

Although a number of versions of relative deprivation theory exist (see Crosby, 1976, and Taylor & Moghaddam, 1987, for reviews), recent attempts to sharpen the theory propose that a person will feel personally deprived if he or she does not have a valued outcome that he or she feels entitled to receive (Crosby, 1982). Perceived entitlement can be viewed as an expectation with normative force that is derived from comparisons with a variety of referents (including the outcomes received by another person or group, what one received in the past, what one expects to receive in the future, or awareness of the norms governing the situation-cf. Crosby, 1982; Mark & Folger, 1984; Singer, 1981).

Equity theory (Adams, 1965) also proposes that people feel unfairly treated when they do not receive what they deserve. According to equity theory, people determine what they deserve, or are entitled to receive, by comparing their own ratio of inputs (e.g., time, effort) to outcomes (e.g., pay) with the input/outcome ratio of others. Equity theory is more precise than relative deprivation theory in its statement of the justice equation, but is also narrower in scope by its re- striction of comparative referents to social comparisons with others in the relatively immediate environment. Despite these differences, equity and relative deprivation theories share the assumptions that (1) it is the subjective evaluation of outcomes (such as pay) rather than their objective status that determines

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whether one feels fairly or unfairly treated, satisfied or deprived; and ( 2 ) these subjective evaluations result, in part, from a comparison process in which inputs (contributions or investments) and obtained outcomes (rewards) are compared to those of a referent.

This paper addresses the role that comparison processes play in the persistence of the gender wage gap, its toleration by those most disadvantaged by it, and resistance to comparable worth as a strategy for overcoming this gap. Specif- ically, I propose that the gender segregation of jobs and the underpayment of women and women's jobs leads women to have access to and to use different comparison standards than men when evaluating what they deserve. As a result, women and men differ in their sense of what they are personally entitled to receive in terms of pay for work. I hypothesize that these gender differences in entitlement contribute to the toleration of injustice among underpaid female workers, foster cultural beliefs regarding what is appropriate pay for male and female workers, and serve as sources of potential bias in job evaluation plans. This process is outlined in Fig. 1.

Most strategies aimed at reducing discrimination focus on comparisons between groups (e.g., between women and men, or between women's jobs and men's jobs). The comparable worth strategy, for example, proposes that the wages paid to women's jobs should be equal to that paid to comparable men's jobs. It is argued here, however, that a variety of structural, cognitive, and affective factors encourage individuals to compare within groups (i.e., with similar others), and to regard ingroup members as more relevant and legitimate comparative referents than outgroup members when evaluating jobs or pay. Further, it is argued chat these same factors discourage the outgroup (i.e., dis-

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Fig. 1. Potential causes and consequences of sex differences in comparative referents for pay.

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similar) comparisons that lie at the heart of the comparable worth strategy, and lead to resistance to this strategy.

Gender Differences in Comparative Referents

A central premise of this paper is that as a result of differences in the degree to which different groups of people (e.g., men and women, blacks and whites) are valued and monetarily rewarded in our society, members of advantaged and disadvantaged groups have access to and use different comparison standards to estimate what they deserve (cf. Major, 1987). This premise is indicated in Fig. 1 by the link between inequalities in social structure and sex differences in comparison standards. This paper focuses on the causes and consequences of gender differences in comparative referents, although similar processes are expected to apply for other groups (e.g., different racial groups). As illustrated in Fig. 1, at least four social structural inequalities contribute to gender differences in comparative referents. These include the gender segregation of work, the underpayment of women workers, the underpayment of women’s jobs, and unequal opportunities and responsibilities for male and female workers. These inequalities in social structure, in turn, affect four types of comparative referents: social comparisons (comparisons with other people or groups), self-comparisons (comparisons with one’s own past outcomes), normative comparisons (comparisons based on what is typical in a situation), and feasibility comparisons (comparisons with what is realistically attainable)-(see Fig. 1). The evidence with regard to gender differences in each of these comparative referents is discussed below.

Social Comparisons

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Selective social comparison processes are an important source of gender differences in comparative referents. Surveys of management students’ pay expectations (Major & Konar, 1985; McFarlin, Frone, Major, & Konar, 1989) reveal that comparably qualified and trained women and men differ in their social comparison standards (i.e., their perceptions of what others in their field earn). Furthermore, laboratory studies of perceived entitlement for pay have con- sistently revealed gender differences in entitlement when social comparison standards are absent, but not when similar comparison standards are provided (Ma- jor, McFarlin, & Gagnon, 1984; Major & Forcey, 1985; Major & Testa, 1989).

Why do women’s and men’s social comparisons differ? Both field and laboratory research (cf. Oldham et al., 1982; Suls & Miller, 1977) indicate that people are more likely to compare themselves and their outcomes with ingroup members (i.e., others similar to themselves) than with oufgroup members (i.e., others who are dissimilar). This implies that women are more likely than men to compare their outcomes with other women or other people working in female-


dominated jobs (most of whom are also underpaid). At least three major factors may underlie and account for this tendency to make ingroup comparisons (cf. Crocker & Major, 1989).

The first factor is structural, and could be termed a “proximity effect.” Because the labor market is profoundly sex segregated both across and within occupations and organizations (Bielby & Baron, 1984), most women work with co-workers who are also women. Furthermore, because jobs done predominantly by women are paid less than jobs done primarily by men, most women work with co-workers who are also receiving relatively lower wages (Treiman & Hartmann, 1981). The greater proximity, visibility, and accessibility of same-sex co-workers and of others doing the same job makes both same-sex and same-job others more likely to be chosen for pay and job comparisons. Several field studies have confirmed this preference for comparing jobs and pay with same-sex and/or same-job others (Crosby, 1982; Goodman, 1974; Oldham et al., 1982; Patchen, 1961).

The second reason why women are more likely than men to compare with others who are disadvantaged with regard to pay is based on the “similarity principle” (e.g., Festinger, 1954; Goethals & Darley, 1977). According to this principle, women are more likely to compare their pay with other women or others also working in “women’s jobs” because these individuals are assumed to be more similar to themselves on attributes related to pay-e.g., qualifications, type of job held, abilities, or family constraints-and hence more appropriate for accurate appraisal of their outcomes.

The operation of the similarity principle in social comparisons of abilities, performances, and opinions is well established (cf. Suls & Miller, 1977, and Wood, 1989, for reviews). Recent research has also extended this principle to comparisons of outcomes (Major & Forcey, 1985; Major & Testa, 1989). For example, Major and Forcey (1985) found that, when given the opportunity to see the wages paid to other groups of students, the majority of men and women chose to see the pay of a same-sex and same-job group first, even though the combined- sex wage was equally accessible and thus just as proximal.

Often proximity and similarity go together, such as when work is segregated by race or sex. But what happens when they work in opposite directions, such as when women work in an occupation dominated by men? Crosby (1982) observed that women working in high-prestige, male-dominated occupations were more likely than other groups of women to compare their jobs with men, thus demonstrating the influence of proximity, or structural factors, on comparison choices. Nonetheless, the majority of these high-prestige women still were more likely to compare with women than with men, thus demonstrating that similarity is also an important determinant of comparisons. It is noteworthy that those women who did compare with men rather than women were least satisfied with their jobs (Zanna, Crosby, & Loewenstein, 1987).

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Self-protective concerns may be a third reason why women and men differ in their choice of social comparisons. Specifically, those who are disadvantaged (e.g., women or those doing women’s jobs) may deliberately avoid comparing their pay with others, particularly with advantaged others (e.g., men or those doing men’s jobs), because they suspect or know that such comparisons would illustrate the extent to which they are relatively deprived (cf. Brickman & Bulman, 1977). Wills (1981) suggests that social comparisons motivated by self- protective concerns are particularly likely when the comparer is in a situation that involves “frustration or misfortune . . . that is difficult to remedy through in- strumental action” (p. 145). This is a situation in which many working women find themselves. One might speculate that when disadvantaged individuals believe there is a possibility of change, they may be motivated to make comparisons that are unfavorable to themselves or their group. Such comparisons may then act as a lever for change (Patchen, 1961; Singer, 1981).

Almost no research has addressed the extent to which the selection of outcome comparisons is motivated by self-protective concerns. Some evidence consistent with this process, however, was obtained by Major and Testa (1989, Experiment 2). In that experiment, men and women were assigned to one of three jobs, performed the job, and were asked to estimate a fair wage for their work. Prior to making this judgment they were allowed to acquire information about the pay of up to 48 (bogus) others who had presumably worked on the three jobs. The jobs differed only in the comparison information they provided about the amount paid to other men and women. Results revealed that both men and women acquired more social comparison information overall when the comparisons were advantageous for them personally or their group (i.e., members of their own sex were overpaid), and less information overall when it was unfavorable to them personally or their group (i.e., when their own sex was underpaid), compared to when the information revealed that the sexes were paid equally. These data suggest the interesting speculation that women, since they are more apt than men to be in a job where they are underpaid relative to the other sex, may be less likely than men to seek out comparison information that might further apprise them of their underprivileged situation.

Self-comparisons

Individuals also evaluate their current outcomes.against their past outcomes. It is well documented that women are paid less than men for their work. Full- time working women are concentrated in lower paying jobs than men, and women are paid less than similarly qualified men doing comparable or even equal work. This difference holds even when women and men are matched on numerous job characteristics that typically covary with sex (Treiman & Hartmann, 1981). This gender gap in wages begins relatively early in life, with


“boys’ chores” being paid higher wages than “girls’ chores,” and boys frequently being given larger allowances than girls. According to adaptation-level theory (Helson, 1964), this should result in women developing a lower expectation level for their pay than men. Consistent with this hypothesis, Major and Konar (1984) and McFarlin et al. (1989) found that female business school students expected to earn less at career-entry and at career-peak than did comparably qualified male business students in the same specialty areas.

Normative Comparisons

Singer (1981) suggests that people’s awareness of the norms governing a situation also are comparative referents that affect what they expect and feel entitled to receive. Until passage of the U.S. Equal Pay Act of 1963 and the U.S. Civil Rights Act of 1964, it was considered appropriate to pay women less than men since men were judged to need higher pay in order to support their families (Kessler-Harris, 1982). According to this perspective, awareness of what is a socially acceptable or appropriate reimbursement level for women or those doing “women’s work” creates the expectation that this is what one is entitled to receive for doing this work. Consistent with this hypothesis, Major and Forcey (1985) found that men and women assigned to a gender-neutral job labeled as “women’s work” (i.e., characterized as requiring stereotypically feminine skills and done primarily by women) expected to earn less prior to doing the job and thought that the pay they subsequently received was more fair and satisfactory than did individuals assigned to the identical job labeled as “men’s work.” These differences occurred even though the jobs were explicitly described as comparable in difficulty and as requiring the same qualifications to do well. McArthur and Obrant (1986) also found that observers in the role of job evaluators regarded a job done by a woman incumbent as having less monetary worth than an identical job done by a male incumbent.

Feasibility Comparisons

A fourth factor that may depress women’s comparison standards relative to men’s is the perceived feasibility of obtaining higher pay. Specifically, because of sex discrimination in employment opportunities (cf. Blau, 1984) and greater home responsibilities (cf. O’Neill, 1985), women may not perceive a job with a high salary to be as realistically attainable as men do. As Thibaut and Kelly (1959) pointed out, evaluations of existing conditions are based on comparison levels for alternatives, as well as on absolute comparison standards. Evidence that women’s employment expectations reflect perceived constraints on their occupational attainment is provided by studies indicating that women’s aspirations exceed their expectations to a greater degree than men’s do (Marini &

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Brinton, 1984), and that girls more often perceive their sex as a barrier to fulfilling their occupational aspirations than do boys (Bachman, Johnston, & O’Malley, 1980).

To summarize, there is substantial evidence that women’s comparison standards for pay for work generally are lower than men’s. These lower comparison standards are a by-product of cognitive and affective preferences for comparing with similar or ingroup others, a sex-segregated labor market, and the lower pay for women and women’s jobs than for men and men’s jobs.

Gender and Entitlement for Pay

These gender differences in comparison standards have important implications for women’s and men’s perceptions of their own entitlement. In particular, working women may not feel entitled to high pay for their work to the same degree that men do (a) relative to what they expect based on the people with whom they compare (primarily other underpaid women), (b) relative to their own past pay, (c) relative to what people doing women’s jobs are typically paid, and (d) relative to what is realistically attainable given their restricted job opportunities and greater home responsibilities. This relationship is illustrated in Fig. 1 by the link between sex differences in comparison standards and sex differences in perceived entitlement for pay.

Several lines of research are consistent with the hypothesis that men and women differ in their sense of personal entitlement for pay. A finding that has appeared with some regularity in the social psychological literature on distributive justice preferences is that women and men allocate rewards differently between themselves and others (for reviews, see Kahn & Gaeddert, 1985, and Major & Deaux, 1982). Specifically, when asked to divide a joint reward between themselves and a co-worker, men tend to take more of the reward for themselves, and give correspondingly less to the co-worker, than do women having the same performance level.

Although this pattern may reflect women’s greater concern for the feelings of others (cf. Sampson, 1975), several recent studies suggest that women’s lower self-allocations are not restricted to situations where they must choose between rewarding themselves and rewarding another. Callahan-Levy and Messe (1979, Experiment l), for example, examined how women and men allocate rewards to themselves and to others when these decisions are independent, i.e., noncon- tingent. They found that men and women did not differ in the amount of money they paid to others, male or female. They did, however, differ in how much they paid themselves. After working on the same task for the same time period, women paid themselves less money and reported that less money was fair pay for their work than men did.

Two studies by Major et al. (1984) provide further evidence that women and men differ in their personal entitlement for pay for work. In our first study, male


and female undergraduates worked individually on a sex-neutral task for a fixed amount of time, and then paid themselves privately, from a $4.00 pot, what they thought was fair pay for their work. One-fourth of the subjects made this self- payment in the absence of any social comparison information. The remaining subjects were given bogus information indicating how much money other subjects had presumably paid themselves for equivalent work on the same task. When no social comparison standards were available, women took an average of $1.95, whereas men took an average of $3.18. Women in this condition also reported that less money was fair pay for their work than did men. In contrast, no gender differences in self-pay occurred when social comparison cues were present; everyone in these conditions matched their self-pay to the average comparison standard provided.

In our second study (Major et al., 1984, Experiment 2) we explored the corollary hypothesis that if women and men feel differentially entitled to pay for work, then women should work longer and do more work for a fixed amount of money than men when no social comparison standards are salient. To test this hypothesis, male and female university students were recruited for pay via adver- tisements, and they participated individually. Prior to beginning work, they were paid $4.00 and asked to do as much work as they thought was fair for the amount of money they were paid. They were told that the $4.00 was theirs to keep regardless of how long they worked or how much work they did. As predicted, women worked significantly longer, did more work, completed more correct work, and worked more efficiently than men both when they believed their work was monitored and also when they believed it was unmonitored. In subsequent studies we have replicated the finding that women estimate a lower fair pay for their work than men do when social comparison standards are absent (Major & Forcey, 1985), but not when social comparison standards are present (Major & Testa, 1989).

Implications of Gender Differences in Personal Entitlement

Gender differences in perceived personal entitlement are hypothesized to have important social and personal consequences, including toleration of injustice, cultural devaluing of the worth of women’s work, the introduction of bias into job evaluation plans, and gender differences in preferences for allocation between self and others, discussed above. These relationships are illustrated by the third arrow in Fig. 1.

Toleration of Personal Injustice

As noted above, people feel unjustly treated when they do not obtain a valued outcome that they feel entitled to receive. One might expect, then, that most working women would feel unjustly treated, since they typically receive

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less than men do of a valued resource (pay) for doing similar or highly comparable work. One implication of gender differences in perceived personal entitlement, however, is that because women do not feel as entitled to high pay for their work as men do, objectively underpaid women may not perceive their job situations as unjust. Evidence from field studies of job and pay satisfaction is consistent with this view. Most studies find little evidence that women are subjec- tively more dissatisfied than men with their pay or their jobs, despite their objective underpayment (cf. Dreher, 1981). For example, Crosby (1982) sur- veyed 345 male and female full-time workers, matched for occupational prestige, on a number of dimensions relevant to satisfaction at work. Consistent with earlier research, she found that the women in her sample were underpaid relative to men with similar prestige jobs. Paradoxically, however, she found that these women reported no evidence of personal deprivation or dissatisfaction with their own pay, jobs, or treatment, although they were aware of and aggrieved about the underpayment of women in general. This paradox is understandable if one considers the comparative referents for pay that men and women employ. As noted above, Zanna et al. (1987) found that those women who did compare their jobs with men were less satisfied than those who compared with women.

Cultural Beliefs About Women’s and Men’s Worth

Gender differences in perceived personal entitlement for pay also have implications for how women and men are perceived and treated by others, A striking finding of the studies by Major et al. (1984) was that both women and men believed other women would pay themselves less (Experiment 1) and work longer (Experiment 2) than would men in the same situation. That is, among college studies in general, it was commonly perceived that college females would “settle for less” (in terms of pay/work ratios) than would college males. This suggests the presence of shared cultural beliefs about women’s and men’s standards for judging the worth of their work. This perception may strongly influence the wage-setting process, given the importance to most firms of max-

‘Whether or not women meet the second precondition to personal deprivation (that they value high pay) is a matter of some debate and has been addressed in detail elsewhere (Jackson, this issue; Major, 1987). A number of authors have argued that women choose to enter certain lower paying occupations because these occupations offer other features more highly valued by women than high pay, such as more flexible hours, a shorter commute from home, less hazardous conditions, and less job responsibility (cf. O’Neill, 1985). Consequently, women are satisfied with their jobs despite their lower pay because they are receiving what they desire from their jobs (Crosby, 1982). Although gender differences in occupational preferences are well documented (cf. Marini & Brinton, 1984), this does not explain why jobs dominated by women are paid less than comparable jobs dominated by men. Furthermore, the evidence that women and men differ in the value they place on money is difficult to interpret, given the documented gender differences in occupational status, mobility, and attainability of high pay (Major, 1987; Nieva & Gutek, 1981).


imizing profits and minimizing costs. In a job simulation experiment, Major, Vanderslice, and McFarlin (1984) demonstrated that job applicants who communicated low salary expectations were offered significantly less money by pro- spective employers than were identically qualified applicants who communicated higher salary expectations. These differences in salary offers occurred even though the high and low expectation applicants were correctly perceived as similarly qualified and capable. Thus, akin to a “self-fulfilling prophecy,” cultural beliefs that certain types of individuals can be hired for less money may initiate a set of behaviors that make the initial belief come true, thereby per- petuating the belief as a social reality.

Implications for Job Evaluation Plans

Observed gender differences in perceived entitlement also have implications for job evaluation plans. As a number of authors have pointed out, the job evaluation process is inherently subjective, and hence is susceptible to a variety of forms of social judgment bias (Arvey, 1985; McArthur, 1985). The research outlined above illustrates the nature of several of these potential biases.

First, this research suggests that one potential sex bias in job evaluation is that male job incumbents will overestimate the worth of their work relative to the way that female job incumbents evaluate their work on the same features. Other research also suggests that women are less likely than men to engage in a variety of self-enhancing strategies. For example, relative to men, women tend to evaluate their own performances more harshly in the absence of feedback (Lenney, 1977), are less likely to take credit for their successes and more likely to accept responsibility for their failures (Deaux, 1984), and tend to underestimate how well they will perform in the future.

These self-perceptions mirror the ways in which male and female performances and tasks are valued in our society. Women’s performances are frequently regarded as less competent than identical performances by men (Deaux, 1976; Nieva & Gutek, 1981); successful performances by women often are attributed to external or unstable causes such as luck or temporary effort (Hansen & O’Leary, 1985); and a task or job labeled “feminine” is often seen as requiring less effort and ability, and as worth less, than an identical job given a masculine label (McArthur & Obrant, 1986; Deaux, 1984). Thus, job evaluators in the role of observers may also succumb to the tendency to see women’s work as less compensable than men’s.

Second, this research demonstrates that applying a masculine or feminine label to a job can under some circumstances alter job incumbents’ (Major & Forcey, 1985) or job evaluators’ (McArthur & Obrant, 1986) perceptions of the job’s worth, with “women’s work” being devaluated relative to “men’s work” (but see Mount & Ellis, this issue). It is noteworthy that the people making these

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judgments in the study by Major and Forcey (1985) actually worked on the task so described, and hence they were all personally exposed to the exact same job for the same amount of time, and received the same performance feedback and wage.

Third, this research demonstrates that the social context within which individuals work affects the way in which job-related characteristics and outcomes are evaluated. For example, Major et al. (1984, Experiment 1) and Major and Testa (1989) demonstrated that individuals’ judgments of what they deserved to be paid for their work were highly susceptible to immediate and salient social cues, namely, the payments received by prior participants. Hence, to the extent that workers are exposed to social cues suggesting that their work is not highly valued, or is not high on “compensable factors,” their judgments of the job’s characteristics or worth may be depressed. Furthermore, to the extent that job incumbents are chronically exposed to similar others at work who invest high levels of education, effort, skill, etc., in return for relatively low pay (as many women are), they may come to see this as a normative standard for work behavior in both their current job and in different job situations. Similar processes may apply for job evaluators who are not job incumbents (McArthur, 1985). In short, the above research indicates that identical work can be valued quite differently depending on the sex of the person performing and evaluating it, and on the social labels and social cues that surround it. Such judgment biases not only pose problems for designing valid and fair job evaluation programs, but also lie at the heart of the comparable worth debate.

Determinants and Consequences of Outgroup Comparisons

The above analysis suggests that comparison processes play an important role in the toleration and persistence of pay injustice. A variety of factors pre- dispose individuals who are disadvantaged to compare their outcomes with others who are similarly disadvantaged (i.e., other ingroup members), as well as to use other comparative referents that are lower than those used by members of advantaged groups. As a result of these comparison processes, members of disadvantaged groups (e.g., underpaid women) frequently report contentment with what appear objectively unjust situations, and often undervalue their worth.

On the basis of this analysis, one might question how social protest movements such as “equal pay for equal work,” “affirmative action,” and “comparable worth” ever evolved, since those who are disadvantaged often do not perceive themselves as personally deprived. The answer to this question lies in a crucial distinction, made originally by Runciman (1966) and subsequently clar- ified by Crosby (1984) and Martin (1986), between egoistical or personal deprivation and fraternal or group deprivation. Personal deprivation refers to a type of personal discontent that occurs when an individual compares his or her own


situation to that of other individuals or groups. Group deprivation, in contrast, refers to a more social or group discontent that results when an individual compares the situation of his or her own reference group as a whole with that of some other reference group. Crosby’s (1982) research suggests that although working women do not feel personally deprived, they do experience group deprivation. That is, the women in her study generally did not believe their personal situations were unjust, but were aware of and aggrieved about the underpayment of women as a group.

As several authors have pointed out (Dion, 1986; Dube & Guimond, 1986; Vanneman & Pettigrew, 1972), the domains and consequences of these two types of deprivation differ. Personal deprivation is most relevant to evaluations of oneself or one’s own situation, whereas group deprivation is more pertinent to understanding the role of perceived injustice in bringing about structural changes in society. To quote Vanneman and Pettigrew,

Structural change involves by definition changes in the positions of groups within society and not the movements of particular individuals within that structure. It seems obvious, then, that attitudes about structural change would involve group-to-group comparisons (fratemalist) and not individual-to-group comparisons (egoistic). (1972, p. 483)

Consistent with this view, a number of studies suggest that it is those who experience group deprivation, rather than personal deprivation, who are most apt to be involved in social protest and to push for social change (cf. Dion, 1986; Dube & Guimond, 1986). Factors that foster feelings of group identity, such as the presence of women’s advocacy groups or the presence of a large number of women employees, may facilitate acknowledgment of group deprivation and hence promote social change.

The comparable worth movement emerged from a desire to effect structural change in the ways that jobs are evaluated and compensated. Not surprisingly, advocates of this strategy argue that comparisons should be made across rather than simply within groups (jobs). This view challenges the belief that comparisons within groups are the most appropriate and legitimate comparisons for determining whether an outcome distribution is fair, and it proposes a shift in the definition of which individuals (or groups) are relevant comparison others. Like the equal pay for equal work movement, comparable worth argues that men are appropriate pay comparisons for women workers. The comparable worth movement goes further, however, by arguing that men’s jobs are also relevant and appropriate pay comparisons for women’s jobs.

The strong resistance that the comparable worth strategy has experienced, however, suggests that comparisons across groups are not only difficult, but are perceived as being of questionable legitimacy. These reactions underscore the degree to which social categorization, as a basic cognitive process, underlies perceptions of the value of jobs. Basic to social comparison processes and to perceptions of group inequality and injustice are the phenomena by which

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groups, or social categories, are psychologically created. Once such groups or categories are created, a number of processes promote the perception of greater homogeneity within groups than between groups (cf. Tajfel & Turner, 1979). As Atkinson (1 986) has pointed out, perceived similarity strongly influences the way we categorize or group other people, and hence the comparisons we make. At the same time, the categories that we use, or that exist in society, influence our perceptions of similarity, and hence the comparisons we perceive as appropriate. The gender segregation of the work force reinforces perceived distinctions between women and men, and between women’s jobs and men’s jobs. It also promotes the perception that the sexes and the jobs they do are dissimilar, limits access to cross-sex comparison others, and hence inhibits cross-sex job comparisons. Thus, the same structural, cognitive, and affective mechanisms that tend to promote ingroup comparisons, also tend to make outgroup comparisons unlikely, cognitively difficult, and of questionable legitimacy. This difficulty is reflected in the following comment on women’s reactions to a comparable worth settlement at several General Electric Company plants:

The psychology here is interesting. “Jane,” a grade 1 I , did not compare her job with “John’s” grade 14 job; instead, she compared herself with “Sandra,” a grade 8 who was a plaintiff in the lawsuit, as a result of which “Sandra” also became a grade 1 1 . “Jane” was sure she was worth three grades more than “Sandra”-but did not know she was worth as much as “John,” who had been performing a “man’s” job. (Newman, 1976, cited in Treiman & Hartmann, 1981, p. 59)

What could encourage people to make outgroup rather than ingroup comparisons? Although theories of social justice are strangely silent on this issue, several interrelated factors can be identified from prior theory and research. These include (1) factors that enhance the perceived similarity between one’s own group or oneself and the outgroup, (2) factors that enhance the perceived relevance or legitimacy of the outgroup’s qualifications, (3) factors that increase the proximity or accessibility of outgroup members, and (4) factors that increase the salience of the outgroup’s inputs and outcomes. Structural features of organizations, such as the degree to which jobs are gender desegregated, and presence or absence of an organizational policy of pay secrecy, may affect any of these factors. For example, the greater accessibility and salience of cross-sex and cross-job pay scales in the public sector may explain why comparable worth advocacy has been more vocal and successful in the public sector than in the private sector, where pay secrecy is frequently the rule.

Encouraging members of disadvantaged groups, such as women, to compare with advantaged outgroups has a number of potentially positive consequences, including raising women’s sense of their own entitlement, broadening women’s occupational values and choices, and altering, via the self-fulfilling prophecy, others’ perceptions of women’s value. Such comparisons, however,


also have their cost, including increasing personal and group discontent. Such discontent is a necessary catalyst, however, for social change movements such as comparable worth.

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BRENDA MAJOR is Professor of Psydmlogy at the State University of New Yo& at Bdfalo. She was a corecipient of the 1986 a d the 1988 oordon Allport Intergroup Relatkma Rize from SPSSI, and of the 1B5 Distinguished hblica- ti- Award from the Association for Women in Psychology. Her anrent Fwtuch focuses on social compuison processes aad coping, and the coobcqueocto of social stigma for stkstecm.

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Gender Differences in Comparisons and Entitlement: Implications for Comparable Worth