Contesting the Market: Pay Equity and the Politics of Economic Restructuring Figart, Deborah M. and Kahn, Peggy

Using a political economy perspective, Contesting the Market explores pay equity in the context of a deregulating global economy. Deborah M. Figart and Peggy Kahn use Michigan, the quintessential example of the deindustrializing heartland, as an instructive case, contending that the state's decision-making concerning pay equity was related to a broader politics of the economy, of political parties, and of debate over the appropriate roles of the state and the market. Contesting the Market chronicles and analyzes the role of the national pay equity movement, specific women's organizations inside state institutions, and public sector unions in placing a discussion of wage discrimination on the state's agenda. Figart and Kahn contend that the large-scale, systemic, relatively technocratic efforts to create comparable worth in state government will probably have limited success.

Deborah M. Figart is an associate professor of economics at Richard Stockton College, and received her Ph.D. from the American Unversity. She teaches and conducts research in the areas of gender and race discrimination, labor economics, and public policy.

Peggy Kahn is an associate professor of political science at the University of Michigan, Flint, and coordinator of the Women's and Gender Studies Program. She received her Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, and coedited Equal Value/Comparable Worth in the UK and USA (St. Martin's Press, 1992).