Designing a Comparable Worth Based Job Evaluation System: Failure of an a Priori Approach

The State of Montana recently embarked on a project to develop a new job evaluation system explicitly embracing recommendations emerging from the comparable worth literature. The State's experience shows that while establishing a single, point-factor job evaluation system using an a priori approach may make sense from a pay equity perspective, such a system will not necessarily serve an organization's political and administrative objectives. A policy-capturing approach corrected to remove gender bias may prove a better means of pursuing the goal of pay equity.