Gender bias in the workplace is the subject of hundreds of scholarly articles and even more cases by courts.

But a recently-published study looked at whether the working status of a married man affects the man’s attitude of women in the workplace.

The conclusion? It’s not pretty.

We found that marriage structure has important implications

Over the last week, two unrelated stories caught my eye.  For employers, they are a reminder that claims of pay inequality based on gender are still something to be concerned about. 

Photo Courtesy Library of Congress c. 1943

The first story is that Governor Malloy announced plans for a new study to examine “factors that contribute to the gender wage gap in Connecticut’s workforce.” 

The study will be run by  new Connecticut Department of Labor Commissioner Sharon Palmer and Department of Economic Development Commissioner Catherine Smith.  The Governor has asked the commissioners to make recommendations on the issue by October 2013.   

I’ve talked about this issue before; there are some who believe that the wage gap is overstated.  But the study will make headlines this year and this renewed focus in Connecticut on the issue should have employers revisiting their own practices.

The second story illustrates the claim in much more real world terms and shows the perils of trying to navigate your way through such claims. 

In Morse v. Pratt & Whitney, decided last week, a federal court — among other issues — denied an employer’s motion for summary judgment on an Title VII unequal pay claim.Continue Reading Gender Inequality Claims Make Headlines in Case and in New Study

Returning from the ABA Meeting today, there were two stories over the last couple of days that have received some press. Taken together, they show the difficulties that companies and individuals have in predicting both the outcome of lawsuits and the coscourtesy morgue file "justice"ts of them.

First, the stories:

Conventional wisdom is that healthy and happy employees lead to better results for the workplace.  As a result, many employers offer Employee Assistance Programs (EAP) for their employees, including the U.S. government. Now, there is additional scientific evidence of that theory in a study involving depression.  

A medical study published in this week’s Journal of the American Medical