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CNN Saturday Morning News

Interview With Carolyn Maloney

Aired February 02, 2002 - 07:33   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: The old cliche says it's a man's world; but women have been making giant strides, especially in the work force, or so we thought. There is a new study out which shows working women are still far behind men in terms of pay and power. The study called "A New Look Through the Glass Ceiling: Where are the Women?" examined 10 industries. They employ 71 percent of all female workers and 73 percent of all female managers in the U.S. The research by the General Accounting Office finds the gender wage gap increased between 1995 and 2000 in seven of the 10 industries that were followed.

For more on this report, I am joined now by Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney. She is a leading advocate for women and family issues, and was one of the officials behind the glass ceiling report -- good to have you with us.

Good to be with you, Miles, and thank you for your interest.

O'BRIEN: All right. I am surprised. I guess we should all be surprised by this. Were you?

REP. CAROLYN MALONEY (D), NEW YORK: Well, I was absolutely stunned by the results, and it really flies in the face of conventional wisdom that women are doing better. It showed that during a time of great economic prosperity and growth when America was doing well, women slipped. We didn't spread the wealth. We grew the disparity.

I asked for this study, because there had been a series of studies, seven in all, that showed that women weren't doing well. The Annenberg Study on Women in the Media and Telecommunications showed that women only held 3 percent of so-called clout jobs. The Washington study that showed that women aren't shown in the media. The study of the scientific industry that showed they were paid a third of what male scientists were studied (sic). So I wanted to have a broader look, so we looked at 10 industries, which employ the majority of women. And the results were absolutely stunning.

O'BRIEN: All right. We have one full-screen graphic I'd like to put up here. It has a very interesting and telling point here I think is worth making. It says basically that women make up 46-and-a-half percent of the work force, but only 12 percent of the corporate officers. Now, bear with me on this. It seems to me that there is a widening gap between the pay that corporate officers in general get compared to the rest of the work force. Is that really the issue here, or is there something else here that inherently is penalizing women?

MALONEY: Well, we really need to look more. We know that women are paid less. I know when I began working in the '70s, women were paid 50 cents to the dollar. We are now at 76 cents to the dollar. But what the study showed was not only are women paid less than men, which we knew, but we were gaining ground overall, but in management positions we dropped dramatically.

In the area, for example, of entertainment and recreation in 1995, women were paid 86 cents to the dollar. They dropped to 65 cents to the dollar. And in seven of the industries, primarily in the private sector, women dropped dramatically. In the three industries where they were paid less than men, but had kept their ground, were in public-regulated industries, such as education, hospitals and public administration, which has a lot of government influence and guidelines.

The one industry where women did better than men was in the hospital administration, which has a majority of female employees, and the male doctors, of course, are paid more than the administrators. So we saw also a segregation of positions, where there were certain positions where a lot of areas where a lot of women went into, and they tended to be lower paying and less prestigious. But that's just hospital administration and education.

O'BRIEN: Let's take a graphical look at what you just were talking about of the 10 industries, if we could, and I'm talking about that bar chart we tried to put together there. And it should give you a sense of it. We'll try to walk people through it. It's a lot of information to put on the screen, but I think you can see it. Let's take a look at that.

And if you look at this over here, we're looking at entertainment; 83 cents for man compared to 62 cents for a woman, 86 vs. 73 in communications, 76 vs. 68 financial, insurance and real estate, 82 vs. 76 business and services, and then other professional services it's not as much of a disparity. As you said, education, women do better. And of course, this chart is changing all over the place.

But I guess what I'm trying to get out here is why is there such a difference among these industries? And I guess that could lead us to some discussion as to why this is happening.

MALONEY: Well, we really don't know why it's happening. And, Miles, as I said, I was shocked by the results of the study. We see occupational segregation. We also know that women oftentimes, by their own choice, and they worked to receive this, they worked part- time. But when you work part-time, you pay a price often with not being able to have a mentor or networking and not really being put on the track for management.

And the area where there was the greatest disparity between men and women was whether or not there were children in the home. It showed that 60 percent of women managers did not have children in the home, whereas 40 percent of male managers didn't have children in the home. So that seemed to show that there may have been some decision- making on the part of women to defer having children, or in some cases to put off having children altogether, which is a startling statistic, given the fact that 90 percent of women do have children at some point in their lives.

O'BRIEN: Well, you know...

MALONEY: And possibly they're making a choice between being a manager or a mother, and that should not -- that's a terrible choice to be forced to make.

O'BRIEN: All right. I wonder if anybody is taking a look at it. Maybe this is the next study, but I wonder if anybody is taking a look at if men, who are the primary caregiver for children in the home, are equally penalized? In other words, is this something that is blind to sex, or is something that has to do with domestic responsibilities?

MALONEY: Well, that's something I intend to continue making -- doing studies, and that's one thing that we'll look at. Another point that's important, Miles, is that this is very much a male and female and family issue, and that two-thirds of the families where women work, women make 50 percent of the family income or more. So when you penalize her salary, you are penalizing her husband's, her children's and the entire families.

I must tell you that I thought that life was going to be a lot easier for my two daughters, but this study shows that it may be more difficult for them than the struggle that I had in management positions.

O'BRIEN: I hate to end it on that note. That's not a very good note to end it on, but nevertheless, it's worth pointing out. Representative Carolyn Maloney, Democrat of New York, thanks for being with us and talking about this, and when you do that next study, let's come back and we'll talk about that.

MALONEY: Thank you, Miles, for your interest.

O'BRIEN: Oh, you're welcome -- it was our pleasure.

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