Equal Pay for Equal Work

Introduction

Since World War II, women have attained higher levels of education, increased their time in the paid job market, and made significant inroads in the worlds of work and politics. These changes have resulted in new attitudes about women’s and men’s roles in families and in the workplace. This lesson plan introduces students to women’s efforts to receive equal pay and better working conditions.

Learning Objectives

• Students will be able to demonstrate a broad understanding of how women have fought for workplace equality.

• Students will increase their awareness of the role of government in the regulation of business through the enactment of workplace laws.

Essential Questions

• How do changes in laws contribute to new attitudes about work, family, and community?

• How is the struggle for equal pay related to larger struggles for citizenship rights?

Materials

• Computer with Speakers and Internet Access

• This Lesson Plan (PDF)

Warm Up Activity: Film Viewing and Discussion

1. Show a clip from the film A Moment in Her Story: Stories from the Boston Women’s Movement (1:49 min.), also located above.

2. Have the students discuss what they have learned from this short clip about the “9 to 5” movement to organize women secretaries and waitresses, and to help women enter nontraditional occupations.

Main Activity: Research and Class Discussion

1. Explain that in 1963 the United States passed the Equal Pay Act and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 included Title VII, which prohibited gender discrimination in the workplace.

   1. Students can learn more by reading the Click section “Challenging Sex Discrimination.”

2. Divide the class into four groups.

3. Have students go to Click’s Workplace & Family chapter and direct their attention to the timeline.

   1. Tell them to find the entries titled “Women’s Paychecks” and to create a chronological list of how much women earned that year, on average, for every dollar earned by men. They should leave spaces between each year.

   2. Next, have them look for events that help explain these paychecks. Tell them these can be both broad changes (such as World War II) or specific events (such as the Equal Pay Act of 1963).

   3. Have them add these events to their chronological list.

4. Have the students discuss their findings. Guiding questions include:

   1. Has there been progress in closing the pay gap between men and women?

   2. What is the government’s role in determining equal pay?

   3. Why do you think the gender pay gap still exists?

5. Break the groups into pairs and have them work on completing the following sentence: “Since the passage of the Equal Pay Act in 1963, it has been illegal to pay different (unequal) salaries or wages to men and women working similar jobs in the same workplace, however . . . .”

6. Bring the class back together and have the students share their findings.

Extension Activities

1. Have the students create graphs of their research on women’s paychecks and the gender pay gap. The horizontal axis would include historical events and the vertical axis would contain pay rates.

2. Ask students to discuss what strategies individuals in different positions might use to ensure equal pay in the workplace. For example, what could a business owner do? An employee? A government investigator?

3. Have students do research on the recent efforts by the United States Women’s National Soccer Team to receive pay equal to the Men’s National Soccer Team.

Common Core Anchor Standards

Reading

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.10
Read and comprehend complex literary and informational texts independently and proficiently.

Speaking and Listening

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.SL.1
Prepare for and participate effectively in a range of conversations and collaborations with diverse partners, building on others' ideas and expressing their own clearly and persuasively.

Language

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.L.6
Acquire and use accurately a range of general academic and domain-specific words and phrases sufficient for reading, writing, speaking, and listening at the college and career readiness level; demonstrate independence in gathering vocabulary knowledge when encountering an unknown term important to comprehension or expression.