Police Income and Occupational Gender Inequality

Abstract

Research has found a meaningful income gap between males and females across several occupational settings, and this is also true within law enforcement. As more female workers enter the criminal justice system, it is important to revisit and update these patterns of gender inequality to account for the changing gender dynamics within this occupation. Using Current Population Survey data, we document the gender differences in pay among police over the past 28 years. Police officers experience income advantage compared with the general working population, but they also show a stable gender gap in pay. While this stable inequality is better than other public-sector jobs-which have experienced a growth in the gender pay gap-it represents a continued disadvantage for police women, despite the growing number of women working in law enforcement and the rules governing public-sector employment. We further decompose the gendered pattern in police pay by whether these individuals work for federal, state, or local agencies, and find that those working for state government show stark declines in the gender gap in pay while those working for local or federal agencies experience little to no change in this gender income inequality over time. We conclude with a discussion of the policy implications of our findings and directions for future research on gender inequality within law enforcement occupations.

Is there a marriage or parenthood effect on police income?

“…This would also lead researchers to expect a smaller gender pay gap in the public realm compared to the private labor market. Contrary to this finding, Luo et al (2019) found that police women earn consistently less than police men, and this gender income gap has remained stable over the last three decades.…”

“…It is the juxtaposition between the hyper-masculine occupational settingwhere research suggests we would expect a greater degree of gender inequality (Shelley et al, 2011) and the public-sector occupationswhere we assume there will be little to no gender inequality due to the enforcement of legal precedentthat makes law enforcement the ideal place to explore within-occupational gender inequality. With increasing numbers of women entering into the police labor force (Luo et al, 2019), examining whether any gender differences in marriage's and parenthood's effects on income are present within this occupation will inform the literatures on occupational gender inequality as well as inequality within the US law enforcement.…”

“…This is at least partially due to the protective nature of public sector employment (Mandel and Semyonov, 2014), in which uniformed pay structure is more common. Research focused on police specifically, however, has found that these gender pay disadvantages persist (Luo et al, 2019), despite any benefit of being a public-sector job. With a steadily increasing number of women working as police officers since the 1950s (Schulz, 1995) and the strong gendered expectations for individuals pursuing a career in policing (Archbold and Schulz, 2012), it is important to continue to explore the occupational gender dynamics among law enforcement to determine if police officers face similar moments of structural gender discrimination.…”

“…Among these police, women experience varying degrees of sex harassment and discrimination (Lonsway, 2007;Lonsway et al, 2013). Although the proportion of women joining the police occupation has significantly increasedpartially due to the relatively high earning potential in law enforcement (Luo et al, 2019) women are still underrepresented in local, state and federal law enforcement agencies. Given the high-risk nature of police work, this may be an occupational environment where the typical rewards and penalties due to marriage and parenthood may operate differently than elsewhere in the labor force.…”

Equal Employment Opportunity: Women Bureaucrats in Male‐Dominated Professions

“…At the local level, the pay gap is present for women in city management roles even after accounting for human capital and organizational factors (Alkadry, Bishu, and Ali 2019). Similarly, Luo, Schleifer, and Hill (2019) report that women in policing earn 84 percent of the salary earned by their male counterparts. We know much about the gender pay gap, yet we know less about the lived workplace experiences of women in male-dominated professions.…”