American Academy of Political and Social Science

The Cost of Caring

Author(s): Paula England and Nancy Folbre
Source: Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. 561, Emotional
Labor in the Service Economy (Jan., 1999), pp. 39-51
Published by: Sage Publications, Inc. in association with the American Academy of Political
and Social Science
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 ANNALS, AAPSS, 561, January 1999

The Cost of Caring

By PAULAENGLANDand NANCY FOLBRE

ABSTRACT: Caring work involves providing a face-to-face service to

recipients in jobs such as child care, teaching, therapy, and nursing.
Such jobs offer low pay relative to their requirements for education
and skill. What explains the penalty for doing caring work? Because
caring labor is associated with women, cultural sexism militates
against recognizing the value of the work. Also, the intrinsic reward
people receive from helping others may allow employers to fill the
jobs for lower pay. Caring labor creates public goods-widespread
benefits that accrue even to those who pay nothing. For example, if
children learn skills and discipline from teachers, the children's fu-
ture employers benefit, with no market mechanism to make the pay
given to care workers reflect these benefits. Even when the public or
not-for-profit sectors do step in to hire people to provide such services
for those too poor to pay, the pay is limited by how much decision mak-
ers really care about the poor. Finally, the fact that people feel queasy
about putting a price on something as sacred as care limits the pay of-
fered-as paradoxical as it is to pay less for something when it is seen
as infinitely valuable!

Paula England is professor of sociology at the University of Arizona and author of

Comparable Worth: Theories and Evidence (1992) as well as many articles on gender
and labor markets. From 1993 to 1996, she served as editor of the American Sociological
Review.
Nancy Folbre is professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst
and author of Who Pays for the Kids? (1994). An associate editor of Feminist Econom-
ics, she is also cochair of a research network on the family and the economy, funded by
the MacArthur Foundation.

39
40 THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICANACADEMY

W ORKthat involvescaringpays pational prestige and educational re-

less than other kinds of work. quirements. The jobs are dispropor-
This is true even after statistical ad- tionately female, but there are some
justments for other job characteris- predominantlymalejobs amongthem.
tics known to affect pay, such as edu- Caring work does not include
cational requirements, physical manufacture of a physical product,
demands, and union membership. such as assembly work in a factory,
This penalty for caring explains part because here the worker is not in per-
of the sex gap in pay, since more sonal contact with those who gain
women than men do caring work. To fromthe work (the consumers buying
explore this topic, we start by ex- the product).Nor does it include serv-
plaining what we mean by caring ice work where there is some contact
work. Next, we review the empirical between worker and client, but this
evidence showing that occupations contact is incidental to the service.
that involve this type of work are pe- Forexample, carpenters have contact
nalized by lower pay. Finally, we ex- with their customers, but this inter-
plore several possible explanations action is incidental to getting the
for this care penalty. house built, so we do not call it caring
labor.
This definition does not require
WHATIS CARINGWORK? that the worker be motivated by care
for those helped in the job.3However,
Although caring work can be ei- those who choose to do caring work
ther paid or unpaid, we focus on paid often feel some affection, altruism, or
caring work in this article. We em- obligation toward the people they
ploy a simple behavioral definition care for (for a typology of caring mo-
that roughly matches what has been tives, see Folbre and Weisskopf
operationalized in the research we 1998).Anyjob will attract people who
will review here: caring work in- obtain satisfaction from the work it-
cludes any occupation in which the self. Also, caring motives may be de-
worker provides a service to someone veloped through doing caring work
with whom he or she is in personal because social roles often shape the
(usually face-to-face) contact.1 The personality and preferences of the
work is called "caring"on the as- people in them. The processes of se-
sumption that the worker responds lection into the job and socialization
to a need or desire that is directly ex- on the job make it likely that
pressed by the recipient.2 Caring individuals in caring occupations
work includes such jobs as child care, are concerned about the welfare of
teaching, physical and psychological their customers and clients.4 There-
therapy provision, nursing, doctor- fore, they probably do not conform
ing, and the work of sales clerks and to the traditional model of rational
wait persons, to name a few. Such economicman, who is concernedonly
work spans most of the range of occu- about his own earnings and leisure.
THE COST OF CARING 41

EVIDENCEOF tics, including the required qualifica-

THE CAREPENALTY tions of the workers.
Human capital theory suggests
A great deal of caring work is done that skills of all kinds will have posi-
at home for family members without tive returns. Skills cost something to
any pay.Women do much of this. Un- acquire,and a wage premium may be
paid work, by definition, carries a pe- necessary to induce a sufficient
cuniary penalty: one forgoes the po- supply of workers to invest in acquir-
tential earnings from working the ing them. Another possible explana-
same hours in a paid job. In addition, tion for skill premiums is that
because pay is affected by how much they are normatively harmonious
job experience one has, women who with American meritocratic ideology
leave employment to rear children and often institutionalized in organi-
suffer wage penalties for years after zations'pay structures. In any case, it
they reenter the job market (Waldfo- is clear that jobs requiring the cogni-
gel 1997). Mothers who work part- tive skills we associate with formal
time while their children are young education pay more than those that
also pay a penalty since part-time ex- do not (England and McLaughlin
perience has a lower return than 1979; England, Chassie, and McCor-
full-time experience (England, mick 1982;Steinberg et al. 1986; Par-
Christopher, and Reid forthcoming). cel and Mueller 1989; Parcel 1989;
Being employed fewer years also af- England 1992; Kilbourne et al. 1994;
fects mothers' pension and Social Se- England et al. 1994; Farkas et al.
curity benefits. These effects are par- 1997). The effects of requirements for
ticularly consequential if a caregiver physical skill, such as manual dex-
lacks the financial support of a terity, and requirements for heavy
spouse or other partner specializing lifting are less clear (England and
in market work. McLaughlin 1979; England, Chassie,
The focus of our concernhere, how- and McCormick 1982; Sorensen
ever, is the disadvantage of working 1989; and Parcel 1989 find negative
in a paid caring occupation, which or no effects, but England 1992 and
seems to resemble the disadvantage Kilbourneet al. 1994 find premiums).
of providing unpaid care. To deter- The neoclassical economic per-
mine whether caring work carries a spective on earnings includes a the-
wage penalty, one needs to perform ory of compensating differentials
an analysis that compares the pay in that calls attention to differences be-
caring work to pay in otherjobs, after tween jobs in how many people like
making statistical adjustments for or dislike the work itself. These non-
other pay-relevant differences.These pecuniary amenities or disamenities
adjustments entail the introduction will affect how many people are will-
of control variables into a regression ing to work in a job. Theoretically,
analysis predicting mean or median employers will have to increase the
earnings in jobs fromjob characteris- wage to compensate for nonpecuni-
42 THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICANACADEMY

ary disamenities of jobs, and they Some industries have been found
will be able to pay less than they oth- to offer higher wages than others.6
erwise would in jobs with nonpecuni- Various theories, from dual economy
ary amenities. Most of the relevant theory to efficiencywage theory,have
studies have focused on physical haz- been offered to explain these differ-
ards or physically onerous working entials across industries. (For re-
conditions, probably because re- views, see Farkas and England
searchers find a certain face validity 1994.) Thus studies assessing
in assuming that most workers whether caring work has a penalty
would prefer to avoid such conditions have generally controlled for which
if they have an option of an otherwise industries the caring occupations are
equivalent job with the same wage.5 in (where the public sector is treated
Studies looking for wage premiums as one industry). Another necessary
in such jobs are conflicting. Smith's controlis how extensive unionization
review (1979) of many studies noted is in the occupationor industry, since
that less than half show the pre- unionized jobs generally pay more
dicted positive effects on wages for than comparable nonunionized jobs
characteristics such as physical re- (Freeman and Medoff 1984).
petitiveness, lack of freedom, and job Whether men or women typically
insecurity. Among later studies, two do the work has been found to affect
found wage premiums for hazardous wages. That is, jobs filled largely by
work for male but not female workers females pay less than is commensu-
(Barry 1985; Filer 1985), one found rate with their skills, onerous work-
premiums for both sexes (Duncan ing conditions, union status, and the
and Holmlund 1983), and two found industries in which they occur.7
no premium for either sex (Kilbourne Studies investigating whether
et al. 1994; England 1992). England there is a penalty for doing caring
(1992) found evidence of premiums work should control for as many of
for nonphysical disamenities: repeti- the factors discussed previously as
tiveness of the job, and having to en- possible. The studies reviewed next
gage in tasks against one's con- have generally controlled for other
science. Jacobs and Steinberg (1990) skill demands of the occupation,
examined the pay for New YorkState educational requirements, the per-
government jobs, finding only 1 of 14 centage of workers who are female,
onerous job characteristics to have a unionization, industry, and some
significant positive effect on pay measures of amenities and disameni-
(working with sick patients). Several ties. While most of the investigators
had negative effects (cleaning others' did not use the term "caring work,"
dirt, loud noise, strenuous physical most of their operationalizations
activity, repetition, and being told capture something close to face-to-
what to do). Thus the evidence is face service work.
mixed but generally nonsupportive England (1992, chap. 3) created a
of the propositionthat characteristics dummy variable for caring work (us-
we would expect most workers to find ing the term "nurturant work"), by
undesirable have wage premiums. making a judgment from each de-
THE COSTOF CARING 43

tailed census occupational title as to We know of no studies that have

whether a primary task in the job included a measure of a concept re-
was giving a face-to-face service to sembling caring work in an earnings
clients or customers of the organiza- regression and not found a negative
tion for which one worked. This effect. Thus the evidence is strong
dummy variable closely corresponds that there is a pecuniary penalty for
with our behavioral definition of car- working in a caring occupation. The
ing work as face-to-face service work fact that the studies reviewed control
discussed earlier.8 Controlling for for many variables allows us to dis-
many other occupational character- miss some possible explanations of
istics, the study found that both men this result. But we are left with a
and women earned less if they puzzle: why are caring occupations
worked in a caring occupation in paid less?
1980. England et al. (1994) also
found a negative return (wage pen- EXPLANATIONSFOR
alty) for working in a caring occupa- THE CAREPENALTY
tion using another measure. This
measure was constructed from a sur- This question probably does not
have a simple answer. We outline
vey of undergraduates asking them
to rank jobs according to "how much five possible explanations that could
they involve helping people, encour- provide a framework for future
research.
aging the development of people, or
taking care of people." Kilbourne et
al. (1994) developed a scale to meas- Gender bias
ure nurturant skill from the dummy
Caring labor may pay less because
variable developed by England we associate caring skills and func-
(1992) previously described, plus tions with women and their mother-
other measures from the Dictionary
ing role, which are culturally deval-
of Occupational Titles (U.S. Depart- ued (Kilbourne et al. 1994; England
ment of Labor 1977) involving deal- et al. 1994; England 1992; Steinberg
ing with people, and demands for 1990). If sexist cultural norms affect
talking and hearing. Other things employers' valuations, then pre-
being equal, working in an occupa- dominantly female jobs will pay less
tion scoring higher on this scale re- than sex-integrated jobs or those
duced earnings for both men and filled by males, and caring work will
women. In an analysis of the New pay badly because many caring jobs
York State civil service jobs, are filled by women. The studies pre-
Steinberg et al. (1986) found that a viously reviewed found a penalty for
number of scales that tapped caring doing caring labor even net of the
social skills had negative returns. job's sex composition. This notion of
These included communication devaluation by association could also
with the public and group facilita- explain a penalty for doing work in-
tion, both of which relate to caring volving a skill or function associated
work (152). with women, even when not all the
44 THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICANACADEMY

jobs to which this applies are filled by(England and Folbre 1997), so that by
women. selecting people with the skills for a
When we talk about the devalua- job, employers unwittingly select
tion of jobs because they involve a more of those who would take the job
function or skill associated with for lower pay than others. But every
women, what more specific mecha- job disproportionately attracts peo-
nisms do we envision? One mecha- ple who find the job requirements an
nism may be cognitive error:decision amenity. For example, intellectually
makers are more apt to recognize the demanding work attracts those who
contribution of jobs done by men or enjoy using their mind, yet cognitive
involving skills culturally coded as requirements have a positive, not
male. They simply do not perceive negative, return.
the true importance of skills cultur- Compensating differentials could
ally coded as female. Another mecha- explain the low wage of caring labor
nism may be social norms that dic- only if there were, in a sense, an over-
tate that male skills deserve greater supply of individuals who wanted to
compensation. Once such biases af- enter a caring occupation, so that
fect wage setting, institutional iner- the last worker hired would be
tia may keep the differences in force willing to do the job for less than
over time. otherwise equivalent jobs. This is a
possibility, but we cannot directly
Intrinsic rewards observe the tastes of the last (or
marginal) worker hired. The
Low wages in caring work could claim that intrinsic rewards may
result from the intrinsic rewards of help explain the care penalty is theo-
care for others. The neoclassical retically plausible but empirically
economic theory of compensating unsubstantiated.10
differentials implies that jobs with Another problemconcerns the cul-
nonwage characteristics that the tural construction of intrinsic re-
marginal worker finds onerous must wards. If women consider caring
offer higher wages. The same theo- work an amenity only because they
retical logic implies that jobs entail- have been socialized to believe that
ing intrinsically satisfying work can, such work is more appropriate or
all else being equal, offer a lower more feminine, this amenity may be
wage. considerably attenuated by changes
Does the amenity of doing caring in social norms. Also, a worker who
work help explain why it pays less?9 initially derives some nonpecuniary
The argument is consistent with but benefits from her job may find that
not necessarily implied by our claim these decline over time but that the
that caring work disproportionately costs of changing occupations are
attracts people with caring motives. prohibitively high. In this instance,
The process of learning a skill often the amenity obviously does not con-
goes hand in hand with developing a tinue to provide compensation for
preference for exercising that skill low pay.
THE COST OF CARING 45

Public goods and free riders an eagerness to learn and willing-

ness to cooperate that later teachers
Some goods or services provide
and employers benefit from. When
widespread benefits that are difficult nurses do a good job, patients' fami-
to price because nonpayers cannot be
lies and employers benefit. Anyone
excluded from enjoying them. Such
who treats another person in a kind
public goods include many forms of and helpful way creates a small bene-
public infrastructure, such as roads, fit that is likely to be passed along.
bridges, and military defense, and The beneficiaries of caring labor,who
many aspects of our physical envi-
extend beyond the actual recipients
ronment, such as our climate, water,
and air.Human capital, in the form of of the care, are thus free riders on the
labor of those who do caring labor.
education, has traditionally been
considered a public good. One could In addition to being diffuse, the
also think of social capital, including benefits of caring work are more diffi-
levels of honesty and trust that are cult to measure than the quality of
necessary to the efficient functioning physical products such as cars, or
of a market economy,as public goods standardized services, such as data
(Coleman 1990;Putnam 1993,1995). entry. Neither child care service pro-
Many people share in the benefits viders nor parents can easily assess
when children are brought up to be the effects of care quality on chil-
responsible, skilled, and loving dren's cognitive and social develop-
adults who treat each other with ment. Neither standardized test
courtesy and respect. Employers scores nor conventional measures of
profit from access to skilled, disci- physical health adequately capture
plined, and cooperativeworkers. The our success in enhancing human ca-
elderly benefit from the Social Secu- pabilities. Social scientists find it ex-
rity taxes paid by the younger gen- traordinarilydifficult to measure the
eration. Fellow citizens gain from kinds of "neighborhoodeffects" that
having law-abiding rather than lead to "collectiveefficacy"(Sampson,
predatory neighbors. Raudenbush, and Earls 1997).
Care work helps create these Neoclassical economic theory con-
forms of human and social capital. cedes that the forces of supply and
There is, however, no practical way demand alone cannot ensure ade-
for those who do this work to charge a quate production of public goods.
price that reflects the value of their Government funding of schools is
contributions. Mothers cannot de- justified by the argument that we col-
mand a fee from employers who hire lectively benefit from a better-
their adult children and benefit from educated citizenry. A case for public
their children's discipline. They can- support of child rearing and public
not send a bill to their children's subsidies for the wages of workers in
spouses for the extra qualities pro- caring occupations could be framed
vided because of their many years of in similar terms (Folbre 1994a,
good parenting. When child care 1994b). The fact that economists re-
workers or elementary teachers do a main largely uninterested in this is-
good job, their students internalize sue reflects their tendency to assume
46 THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICANACADEMY

that care is a natural activity that against prostitution reflect a belief

does not deserve or require that sexual intimacy should not be
remuneration. bought and sold. Rules that adoptive
parents may not pay for a baby from a
Poor clients birth mother (but only for expenses)
can be interpreted as a taboo against
Caring labor often involves help- purchase of children.
ing those who lack the resources to Similar concerns come into play
pay for their own care:the young, the when we discuss the commodifica-
ill, the poor. In the public and non- tion of care for others, particularly
profit sectors of the economy,levels of family members. We see love as
pay for workers in caring occupations sacred-and caring most effective-
are largely determined by political when it is done for intrinsic rather
forces. The amount of money allo- than extrinsic reasons. The principle
cated for programs such as Head that money cannot buy love may
Start, Medicaid, child care, compen- have the unintended and perverse
satory education, and other social consequence of perpetuating low pay
safety net programs depends criti- for face-to-face service work.
cally on how much voters, charitable
givers, and state decision makers
really care about those who will re- CONCLUSION
ceive the services. In the United
States today, a widespread ideology Childrenneed care for their initial
of individualism blames the poor for development, and all of us are ill or
their own problems and makes redis- otherwise in need of special assis-
tribution suspect. The low pay of- tance at times. Some minimal level of
fered to state workers serving low- care is necessary even for healthy
income populations puts downward adults. Therefore, the research re-
viewed in this article, showing that
pressure on the pay for all caring
occupations. occupations involving face-to-face
services to others are paid less than
Sacred cows others, is disturbing. We see a need
for a national dialogue on how we rec-
The belief that love and care are ognize caring labor as work and sup-
demeaned by commodification may, port those who make these contribu-
ironically, lead to low pay for caring tions to the public good.
labor. Many people seem to think We also encourage research that
that caring motives are so sacred can help us arbitrate competing ex-
that it is offensive to talk about their planations of the care penalty. This
exchange value. At issue is what can entails refining the links between
be commodified, where we should conceptual and operational defini-
draw the lines around what may be tions of caring.Ourbehavioral defini-
exchanged for gain (Radin 1996). tion of caring labor as face-to-face
Laws against slavery reflect a social service work had the advantage of
norm that human beings should not correspondingwith the way the con-
be allowed to own one another. Laws cept has been operationalized in past
THE COST OF CARING 47

empirical research. This definition means that levels of service and pay
misses something, however. Among for caregivers may depend upon col-
those jobs involving face-to-faceserv- lective action. It would be useful to
ice work, there is considerable varia- study the roles that unions, worker
tion in how important it is to the initiatives, and state regulation play
well-being of the recipient that the in defending standards of care and
caregiver really care about him or higher pay for those doing caring
her. Customers may be happier if a work.
sales clerk, flight attendant, or wait- As Arlie Hochschild (1983) has
ress treats them with genuine kind- emphasized, workers themselves
ness and concern,but they are not de- may feel burdened by the require-
pendent upon such forms of care. ments of emotional labor. How do
The situation is quite different these feelings compare across jobs in
when the recipient of a service is very different places on the care quality
young, ill, or infirm. It matters a continuum? Do workers talk about
great deal whether a child care the need to display affections they do
worker or nurse or home health not genuinely feel? Do they experi-
worker cares about his or her client, ence the opportunity to provide care
because a worker'smotives affect the as a positive or a negative feature of
likelihood of abuse and the overall their job? Are they frustrated when
quality of care. Dependents often do their job environment minimizes
not have the resources or power to their opportunities to develop per-
fire a caregiver they do not like and sonal relationships with their clients
hire another. Third parties who do or patients? Do workers in occupa-
have this power (for example, par- tions higher on this continuum expe-
ents of a child, adult children of an rience more or less burnout?
elder, or the state) cannot continually Thoughtful qualitative research
monitor the caregiver'sperformance. could shed light on these issues.
It would be useful to rank caring There is also a pressing need for
occupations along a continuum de- quantitative research on determi-
fined by the impact that caring mo- nants of the size of the care penalty.
tives may have on the quality of serv- Does caring work pay more when
ices provided. Comparative ethnog- provided to a relatively affluent cli-
raphies of occupations at different entele? Does it pay more when pro-
points on this continuum couldtell us vided to a clientele more able to
a great deal. How exactly do workers' measure its benefits? Statistical
feelings and attitudes affect the cli- analyses that go beyond an analysis
ent's well-being? Are workers with of occupational characteristics to
caring motives successfully matched look at industrial structure and the
with jobs in which these motives composition of consumer demand
matter? What kinds of institutional couldshed some light on these factors.
features and work organization fos- It is also important to go beyond
ter the cultivation of genuinely car- an analysis of the causes of the care
ing motives among workers? The penalty to consider its consequences.
public-good aspect of caring labor Apart from the obvious negative fi-
48 THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICANACADEMY

nancial impact on many women and Weisskopf 1998), which Susan Himmel-
weit (this volume) also emphasizes. Since mo-
workers, there is a risk that the well- tives are not observable,however,we are rely-
being of children, the sick, and the ing on a simpler criterion of service provision
elderly is compromisedby high levels with personal contact here.
of worker turnover and stress result- 4. Our conceptof caring work differs from
ing from low pay for caring labor.The Hochschild'snotion (1983) of emotional labor.
norms and more explicit forms of dis- Forher,emotionalwork involves changing the
emotions of the person who is served and re-
crimination that once restricted quires the workerto display emotions that are
women to caring occupations are often not genuine. We agree that both of these
weakening. In a culture that encour- may occur in caring work, but we do not in-
ages self-interested calculation, the clude them as part of our definition. As a mat-
number of women who choose to en- ter of emphasis, we are more inclined to see
authentic caringmotives where Hochschildfo-
ter caring occupations will probably cuses on the alienation of having to "fake"emo-
decline. Continued commodification tions for pay. Nonetheless, the face-to-face
may both raise the price and lower service occupations that meet our behavioral
the quality of important care serv- definition of caring work are largely the same
ices. occupations Hochschild lists in her appendix
as involving emotional work.
On the other hand, simple resis- 5. Of course, individuals will differ in
tance to commodificationis no solu- what job characteristicsthey considerpositive
tion, and we should be suspicious of and negative and how much the wage needs to
any argument that decent pay de- be increased or could be decreased to keep
means a noble calling. The notion them in the job. Accordingto neoclassical the-
ory, it is the "marginal"worker whose tastes
that women should provide care out determine the penalty or premium that will
of the goodness of their hearts has just "compensate"forthe nonpecuniaryamen-
traditionally reinforced low pay for ity or disamenity (England 1992, 69-72).
caring occupations. We should re- 6. An industry is defined by the productor
ward care work fairly in both the service that the organizationsells or provides,
and an occupation is defined by the function
market and the home. Doing so may the workerperforms.Thus one can be a secre-
require significant changes in the tary, janitor, or manager-three occupa-
way we remunerate all types of work. tions-in the automobile, mining, grocery,or
hospital industries.
7. Sorensen 1994, tab. 2.1, reviews many
Notes studies. See also Steinberg et al. 1986; Eng-
land et al. 1988; Baron and Newman 1989;
1. Some services provided through writ- Parcel 1989;Kilbourneet al. 1994; England et
ten or telephone communicationmight be per- al. 1994; Macphersonand Hirsch 1995; Eng-
sonal enough to qualify as caring work, even land, Reid, and Kilbourne1996. All find nega-
though they are not face-to-face. tive effects of percentage female; two studies
2. The service is something that someone finding no effects of percentage female are
has decided the recipient should have. But Filer 1989 and Tam 1997.
sometimes others may view the worker as en- 8. One differencebetween the two defini-
gaged in social controlrather than care of the tions is that England'sdummyvariable (1992)
client. In principle,we would not want to call requiredthat the recipient of the service be a
the formercaringwork,but it is hard to opera- client or customerof the organization.Jobs re-
tionalize the distinction. quiring service to another employee of the or-
3. Elsewhere, one of us has stressed the ganization (forexample,secretaries to manag-
role of motives in defining caring work (Folbre ers, paralegals to lawyers) were not coded as
THE COSTOF CARING 49

caring work. If this restriction had not been Coleman, James S. 1990. Foundations of
made, coding would have required deciding Social Theory. Cambridge, MA: Har-
whether managers providedservices to those vard University Press.
they supervised. Under some styles of man- Duncan, Greg J. and Bertil Holmlund.
agement, this may have occurred, but Eng- 1983. Was Adam Smith Right After
land's preference(1992) was to keep a cleaner
distinction between authority and caring All? Another Test of the Theory of
work. Using a separate measure of whether Compensating Wage Differentials.
jobs entailed supervisory authority showed Journal ofLabor Economics 1:366-79.
authority to have a positive return. England, Paula. 1992. Comparable
9. The thesis that caring work pays less Worth: Theories and Evidence. New
because it is more satisfying (at least to the York:Aldine.
marginal worker) contrasts sharply with England, Paula, Marilyn Chassie, and
Hochschild'sclaim (1983) that emotional labor Linda McCormick. 1982. Skill De-
is more onerous for virtually all workers than
mands and Earnings in Female and
physical or mental labor because it involves Male Occupations. Sociology and So-
acting, suppressing feelings, and a virtual de-
nial of the self. (She has little to say about the cial Research 66:147-68.
relative pay of emotional labor,however.) England, Paula, Karen Christopher,and
10. Most research on compensating differ- Lori L. Reid. Forthcoming.How Do In-
entials, such as that reviewed previously,re- tersections of Race/Ethnicity and
lies on circularreasoning.It assumes we know Gender Affect Pay Among Young Co-
whether the marginal workerlikes or dislikes horts of AfricanAmericans, European
a characteristic (say, danger of loss of life, be- Americans, and Latino/as? In Race,
cause virtually everyone views this nega-
Gender, and Economic Inequality: Af-
tively), then uses this informationto test the rican American and Latina Women in
theory.Alternatively,it assumes that compen- the Labor Market, ed. Irene Browne.
sating differentials are the only source of oth-
erwise unexplained differences and uses em- New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
pirical findings on what job characteristics England, Paula, George Farkas, Barbara
carry penalties or premiums to discern what Kilbourne,and Thomas Dou. 1988. Ex-
the marginal worker considers an amenity or plaining Occupational Sex Segrega-
disamenity. tion and Wages: Findings from a
Model with Fixed Effects. American
Sociological Review 53(4):544-58.
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