ABSTRACT
This chapter will begin with a discussion of what comparable worth is and what it is not and I will continue with a presentation of a standard neoclassical approach to comparable worth, arguing that comparable worth policy is perfectly compatible with some aspects of a neoclassical approach to labor markets. I will then suggest how a feminist political economy perspective broadens our understanding of comparable worth policy. Finally, in discussing some of the criticisms leveled at comparable worth by all parts of the spectrum of economic thought, I will indicate how attention to the specific gender issues of comparable worth policy from a feminist political economic perspective broadens and alters our understanding of the operation of labor markets. Labor markets and work places emerge as arenas of gender struggle as well as class struggle.
