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IS ‘EQUAL PAY FOR EQUAL WORK’ MERELY A PRINCIPLE OF NONDISCRIMINATION?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 November 2015

Jeffrey Moriarty
Jeffrey Moriarty*
Affiliation:
Philosophy Department, Bentley University, 175 Forest St., AAC 109, Waltham, MA 02452, USA. Email: jmoriarty@bentley.edu. URL: https://faculty.bentley.edu/details.asp?uname=jmoriarty
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Abstract:

Should people who perform equal work receive equal pay? Most would say ‘yes’, at least insofar as this question is understood to be asking whether employers should be permitted to discriminate against employees on the basis of race or sex. But suppose the employees belong to all of the same traditionally protected groups. Is (what I call) nondiscriminatory unequal pay for equal work wrong? Drawing an analogy with price discrimination, I argue that it is not intrinsically wrong, but it can be deceptive, in which case it is wrong.

Keywords

compensationdiscriminationequal pay for equal workprice discrimination

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Economics & Philosophy , Volume 32 , Issue 3 , November 2016 , pp. 435 - 461
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2015 

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