By Macy Meinhardt, Voice & Viewpoint Staff Writer
Existing pay gaps for women and people of color continues to be the status quo for the City of San Diego’s workforce, according to the 2023 Pay Equity Study.
“Black employees feel their experience, education and dedication is devalued,” said Greg Woods, a spokesperson for the City of San Diego Black Employee Association.
The report on pay equity, presented to the city council on May 20, showed that women were paid on average 16% less than men in 2022. People of color made 19% less than white employees.
“I think it is both expected, but still disappointing to see the disparities, and in some cases how drastic they can be,” said Kent Lee, District 6 Councilmember.
Despite women making up 33% and Black people 57% of the city’s current workforce, underlying societal factors and group disparities continue to create barriers for these demographics to move up into higher earning positions, data from the report shows. As a result, councilmembers such as District 4 Henry Foster argue that concrete policies aimed to address the disparities should have already been implemented.
The study does not point to “direct evidence of deliberate gender and racial bias” on behalf of the city of San Diego. Instead, the report states, “90% of San Diego’s gender and ethnic pay gaps can be explained by group disparities in: occupation, the effect of children; overtime; and demographics. ” The city commissioned Analytica Consulting to prepare the report for a $250,000 fee.
“Occupational sorting” was the term described to have the largest impact in driving the gaps in pay between gender and race. This means that people end up in different jobs because of a mix of social pressures, obstacles to getting certain jobs, how companies hire, and personal decisions.
The three jobs that reflect the largest pay gaps are police officers, firefighters, and administrative support. Men overwhelmingly make up the majority of public safety positions, which pays an average of $140,000. Women, especially Black women, are more likely to work in the administrative support field, with a take home pay of $66,000 – less than half of what male public safety employees earn.
“Equity is a culture change, we are not going to solve this overnight,” said District 5 Councilmember Marni von Wilpert, noting that “clearly we need to do better.”
The study recommends that the City focuses on recruiting more women within firefighting and law enforcement.
“ We do need to find a way to get more women in the fire fighting force,” said Wilpert, suggesting that they add more funding into the recruitment efforts.
However, during discussion, Council President Sean Elo-Rivera questioned whether lower paid positions that women tend to fill are not being valued enough.
“I just think it’s worth noting that there are opportunities for us to value all work more, rather than simply shuffle the way that folks are placed within the workforce,” Elo-Rivera said, during the May 20 council meeting.
Another disparity highlighted in the report is the impact the of the
“Parenthood penalty” where fathers are more likely to take on the breadwinner role within their families, and mothers are more likely to feel like family obligations impact their career advancement, the report states. The cost of childcare in California is currently at a record high, averaging $1,200 a month, according to statements made by District 7 Councilmember Raul Campillo.
Based on the report’s findings, women of color with children earn less than women of color without children. In contrast, white men are rewarded with a “fatherhood bonus” as they earn more than men without children on average.
In an attempt to address this gap, the city has doubled the amount of hours for maternity leave for city employees and launched a child care subsidy program in 2023.
The report argues that factors like the parenthood penalty and pay gaps contribute to the city’s high staff turnover rate – recorded at 59 percent last year. Annually over 1,000 employees leave the city’s 12,000-employee workforce.
“San Diego faces the same challenges as most cities in our country, when it comes to ensuring that we promote equity and address pay gaps among our workforce. However, unlike other cities, we are the first to strive to quantify these differences and make strides toward changing employees’ lives for the better” a spokesperson for the City said.
Results from surveys conducted by the City in 2022 show that a majority of Black employees believe that the promotion process is unfair and report that they did not receive meaningful feedback when denied a promotion.
Officials from Human Resources maintain that providing oversight to ensure diversity on hiring panels and promotions is a practice already in place. However, based on data and responses from Black employees, Councilmember Foster says, “I think we can all say that we have not done a good job in terms of equity.”
Beyond the practices already in place, Foster asked whether there “have been any significant steps or put any policies in place to start addressing items such as oversight with appointing authorities for positions?”
“There is not a specific policy that has been crafted to date, but we are currently working on a talent equity strategy as a cohesive group in order to identify and address concerns and disparities that exist,” a spokesperson for human relations said.
The spokeswoman said an update on the upcoming talent equity strategy would be coming soon, but did not clarify a date.
Other recommendations the report presented is to explore randomized experiments that test for discrimination in recruitment, hiring and promotions, and consider implicit bias training for all appointing authorities.
Officials from Personnel and Data Analytics, Human Resources, and the Office of Race and Equity maintain that the ball is rolling on implementing a strategic policy that would address pay gaps and provide more oversight in the hiring processes. In closing remarks, District 1 Councilmember Joe LaCava states: “there is no better time than now to start doing things differently than we’ve done in the past.”
