Equal Pay to Men and Women for Equal Work

WORK 1 1. SHOULD men and women receive equal pay for equal work?This question is in a peculiar degree perplexed by difficulties that are characteristic of economic science.They arise from the presence of a subjective or psychical element that is not encountered in the purely physical sciences.Outward and visible wealth cannot be quite dissociated from the inward feeling of welfare.But the ideas of welfare or well-being are deficient in the simplicity and distinctness which conduce to accurate reasoning.It may be, indeed, that there is something indefinite and metaphysical about certain conceptions which the higher physics now involve.But the practical uses of those sciences are not thereby impaired.Speculations about four-dimensional time-space do not much interfere with the work of the engineer.But the connection of our studies with things higher than material wealth affects injuriously the reasoning even about material wealth.Sentiment exercises a disturbing influence-a disturbance peculiarly to be apprehended in dealing with a question which touches not only the pocket but the home.Nor even when this danger is avoided does the logic of political economy escape the consequences of its connection with the higher parts of human nature.The most correct and unbiassed economic conclusions are liable to be overruled by moral considerations.This fate, too, is particularly to be apprehended for arguments on the present subject.Guarding against these difficulties, I propose to distinguish and to discuss separately two inquiries into which the proposed question may be subdivided, according as it is referred to external wealth only, or also to the attendant internal feeling of welfare.2. The disturbing effect of sentiment or prejudice makes itself felt, at the very outset of the discussion, in the definition 1