Markets in Hierarchies: Organizational and Market Influences on Gender Inequality in a State Pay System

Abstract

A pivotal issue in sociological theories of labor markets, as well as legal and policy debates on pay equity, is the relative importance of market and organizational forces in determining pay differences between jobs held predominantly by men and those held predominantly by women. This article develops two models of the market organization relationship-an administered-efficiency model and a bureaucratic-politics model. Quantitative analyses of individual and job-level data in a state government pay system indicate that the administered efficiency model does not adequately explain malefemale earnings differences. Documentary, testimonial, and interview data strongly suggest the significance of bureaucratic politics in the pay-determination process. We conclude that market forces influence wage rates but are heavily mediated by organizational factors unrelated to efficiency considerations in the type of organization studied here.