Equal Rights in the Labor Market: The Response of the State to the Women’s Movement Challenge in the USA in 1960’s
The goal of the article is to determine why the principal demand of the women’s movement in the USA in 1960’s was the elimination of gender discrimination in the labor market (primarily in the wage rates) and to show how the state and the society responded to this challenge. An important step towards the implementation of this demand and the proof of the success of the women’s movement was the Equal Pay Act, adopted in 1963. Simultaneously, passing of this Act meant that the state and the society were ready to answer positively to the challenge of the women’s movement. As the analysis of the materials related to the preparation and presentation of the project of the Equal Pay Act to the US Congress and the debates over the project in the Congress demonstrated, the interests of the women’s movement and the state in the implementation of the equal opportunities in the labor market coincided in that period.