BY SHEILA D. GAUGHAN
Executive director of the Governor's Board of Ethics, she is a graduate of the University of Illinois, Circle Campus, in political science in 1972.
Women in executive branch earn less than men at same level
IN THE EARLY fifties when Gov. William G. Stratton named Vera Binks to be director of the Department of Registration and Education, she became the first woman in Illinois history to hold a cabinet post. Since then every governor has named at least one woman to direct a code department. Two women have been nominated by Gov. Dan Walker: Dr. Joyce Lashof to head the Department of Public Health and Mary Lee Leahy as director of the Department of Children and Family Services.
Although executive positions in state government are no longer the exclusive domain of men, it is clear that women in the highest executive positions are still the exception rather than the rule.
No executive women elected
Illinois has a "long" ballot and elects six persons to executive branch positions, yet none of these positions—governor, lieutenant governor, secretary of state, attorney general, comptroller and treasurer—has ever been held by a woman. Prior to the ratification of the 1970 Constitution, Illinois voters elected an auditor of public accounts and a superintendent of public instruction. No woman was ever elected to either post. Of course, the situation is the same in other states, although Connecticut recently elected a woman governor, and in California a woman serves as secretary of state.
But many factors must be taken into account before a fair appraisal of the status of women in state government can be made. The salaries women are paid is perhaps the surest indicator of their status in state government. Women in Illinois government, whether or not they are in policymaking positions, consistently earn less money than the men who occupy similar positions.
A check of the comptroller's list confirms that in all but salaries fixed by law, women are paid less than men. A look at the 10 highest paid persons in the executive branch drives home the point. Excluding the elected officials, itemization of the "top 10" wage earners in the executive branch finds that (in round numbers) one earns $50,000; one $48,000; four $45,860; and four $44,000. All but one are men.
Until the latter part of 1974 when the 78th General Assembly enacted a pay raise for cabinet level officers, no woman in the executive branch was earning as much as $40,000 per year. Now the director of public health has the double distinction of being not only the sole woman among the top 10 wage earners, but also the only woman out of approximately 40 persons in the executive branch who earns a salary in excess of $40,000.
Disparity in top salaries
Excluding Dr. Lashof, the top 10 female wage earners in the state's executive branch earn the following salaries: (again, in round numbers) $39,000; $38,330; $38,000; $37,270; and six at $35,480. Although only about 40 women earn salaries ranging from $30,000 to $40,000 per year, more than 350 men are in this salary range. In the category of those earning $20,000 or more per year, the disparity is even more obvious. For while 3,000 men earn annual salaries at this level, only about 260 women exceed this figure.
An examination of salaries under the jurisdiction of each elected executive branch official would appear to indicate that significant numbers of women do not have policymaking roles. In the eyes of their co-workers, however, many women do appear to play a major role in making policy. If this is true, then the plain fact is that women policymakers do not receive salaries equivalent to their male counterparts. Using the threshold figure of $20,000 one finds relatively few women in the jurisdiction of each elected official. For example, neither the lieutenant governor nor the treasurer have women in their offices who earn more than $20,000. However, both of these elected officials employ relatively few persons who are paid more than $20,000. The lieutenant governor has a total of four persons, the treasurer a total of nine. The attorney general and the comptroller each have one woman who earns $20,000 out of a total of 40 persons in this category. The secretary of state has nine women in his agency who earn $20,000 or more out of a total of 116 persons who top this figure. In each office, the percentage of highly paid women is less than 10 per cent.
Health, social welfare fields
In the agencies under the governor, women who earn more than $20,000 are employed most frequently in agencies related to the so-called women's fields of health and social welfare. Both of Gov. Walker's woman code directors are in this area. The pattern continues in positions below cabinet level. In the Department of Public Health about 40 women earn $20,000 or more out of a total of 125; in Children and Family Services the figure is 12 out of 86; and in the Department of Mental Health, 114 out of approximately 900. But in the traditionally male-dominated fields such as finance, building, and construction there are virtually no women at high salary levels. For example, there are fewer than 10 women in the Department of Transportation out of a total of more than 550 persons who earn more than $20,000 and there is only one woman in this category out of 50 at the Capital Development Board.
Even this very brief look at the executive branch indicates that despite the strides being made by women in some areas of employment and the rise of individual women to high paying positions, state government in Illinois is still basically male-dominated. ¯
166 / Illinois Issues/June 1975