It has been suggested that this article or section be merged into Equal pay for women. (Discuss) Proposed since March 2012.

The gender pay gap (also known as gender wage gap) is the difference between male and female earnings expressed as a percentage of male earnings, according to the OECD.^[1] The European Commission defines it as the average difference between men’s and women’s hourly earnings.^[2] There is a debate to what extent this is the result of gender differences, implicit discrimination due to lifestyle choices (e.g., number of hours worked, need for maternity leave), or because of explicit discrimination.^[3][4][5]

Adjusted and unadjusted gender pay gap[link]

It is important to differentiate between the unadjusted (also known as raw) wage gap and the adjusted (also known as discriminatory or unexplained) wage gap. The unadjusted or raw pay gap does not take into account differences in personal (e.g., age, education, the number of children, job tenure and occupation) and workplace characteristics (e.g., the economic sector and place of employment) between men and women. Parts of the raw pay gap can be attributed to the fact that women, for instance, tend to engage more often in part-time work and tend to work in lower paid industries. The remaining part of the raw wage gap that cannot be explained by variables that are thought to influence pay is then referred to as the adjusted gender pay gap and is interpreted as being discriminatory.

However, a 2010 report by the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions, for example, pointed out that "interpreting the adjusted gap as being the only discriminatory component falls short of the reality." The report found that the part of the pay gap which is attributed to observed differences in characteristics (such as age, education, hours worked etc.) may still reflect the outcome of discriminatory social processes. Eurofond found that "the major reasons for this gap are very often related to both horizontal and vertical segregation – or the fact that women tend to choose lower-paid professions, reach a ‘glass ceiling’ in their careers, or have their jobs valued less favourably. The origins of these factors could be judged as being discriminatory in themselves – that is, when they are rooted in gender stereotypes of male and female occupations."^[6]

Statistics[link]

OECD[link]

Gender gap in median earnings of full-time employees according to the OECD 2008.^[7]

The 2008 edition of the Employment Outlook report by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) found that while female employment rates have expanded considerably and the gender employment and wage gaps have narrowed virtually everywhere, women still have 20% less chance to have a job than men, on average, and they are paid 17% less than their male counterparts.^[8] Moreover, the report stated:

"[In] many countries, labour market discrimination – i.e. the unequal treatment of equally productive individuals only because they belong to a specific group – is still a crucial factor inflating disparities in employment and the quality of job opportunities [...] Evidence presented in this edition of the Employment Outlook suggests that about [...] 30% of the variation in gender wage gaps across OECD countries can be explained by discriminatory practices in the labour market."^[8][9]

European Union[link]

At EU level, the gender pay gap is defined as the relative difference in the average gross hourly earnings of women and men within the economy as a whole.

Eurostat found a persisting gender pay gap of 17.5 % on average in the 27 EU Member States in 2008. There were considerable differences between the Member States, with the pay gap ranging from less than 10% in Italy, Malta, Poland, Slovenia and Belgium to more than 20% in Slovakia, the Netherlands, Czech Republic, Cyprus, Germany, United Kingdom and Greece and more than 25% in Estonia and Austria.^[10]

Save the Children State of the World's Mothers report[link]

Ratio of female to male salaries according to the Save the Children State of the World's Mothers report (2007 data). Each color represents 5% of the average male pay.

The Save the Children State of the World's Mothers report is an annual report by the International Save the Children Alliance, which compiles statistics on the health of mothers and children.

Gender pay gap over time[link]

Looking at the gender pay gap over time, the United States Congress Joint Economic Committee showed that as explained inequities decrease, the unexplained pay gap remains unchanged.^[11] Similarly, according to economists Francine Blau and Lawrence Kahn and their research into the gender pay gap in the United States, a steady convergence between the wages of women and men is not automatic. They argue that after a considerable rise in women's wages during the 1980s, the gain decreased in the 1990s. The 2000s are characterised by a mixed picture of increase and decline. Thus Blau and Kahn assume:

"With the evidence suggesting that convergence has slowed in recent years, the possibility arises that the narrowing of the gender pay gap will not continue into the future. Moreover, there is evidence that although discrimination against women in the labour market has declined, some discrimination does still continue to exist."^[12]

A wide ranging meta-analysis by Doris Weichselbaumer and Rudolf Winter-Ebmer (2005) of more than 260 published adjusted pay gap studies for over 60 countries has found that, from the 1960s to the 1990s, raw wage differentials worldwide have fallen substantially from around 65 to 30%. The bulk of this decline, however, was due to better labor market endowments of women. The 260 published estimates show that the unexplained or discriminatory component of the gap has not declined over time. Using their own specifications, Weichselbaumer and Winter-Ebmer found that the yearly overall decline of the gender pay gap would amount to a slow 0.17 log points, implying a slow level of convergence between the wages of men and women.^[13]

According to economist Alan Manning of the London School of Economics, the process of closing the gender pay gap has slowed substantially and women could earn less than men for the next 150 years because of discrimination and ineffective government policies.^[14][15] A 2011 study by the British CMI revealed that if pay growth continues for female executives at current rates, the gap between the earnings of female and male executives would not be closed until 2109.^[16]

Gender pay gap by country[link]

United States[link]

Female-to-male earnings ratio, median yearly earnings among full-time, year-round workers, 1980-2009.^[17]

In the United States, the gender pay gap is measured as the ratio of female to male median yearly earnings among full-time, year-round (FTYR) workers. The female-to-male earnings ratio was 0.77 in 2009, meaning that, in 2009, female FTYR workers earned 77% as much as male FTYR workers. Women's median yearly earnings relative to men's rose rapidly from 1980 to 1990 (from 60.2% to 71.6%), and less rapidly from 1990 to 2000 (from 71.6% to 73.7%) and from 2000 to 2009 (from 73.7% to 77.0%).^[17][18]

The gender pay gap has been attributed to differences in personal and workplace characteristics between women and men (education, hours worked, occupation etc.) as well as direct and indirect discrimination in the labor market (gender stereotypes, customer and employer bias etc.). ^[3][19][20]

The estimates for the discriminatory component of the gender pay gap include 5%^[21]:2 and 7%^[22]:9 and in at least one study grow as men and women's careers progress.^[22]:93 One economist testified to Congress that hundreds of studies have consistently found unexplained pay differences which potentially include discrimination.^[22]:80 Another criticized these studies as insufficiently controlled, and opined that men and women would have equal pay if they made the same choices and had the same experience, education, etc.^[21]: Other studies have found direct evidence of discrimination. For example, fewer replies to identical resumes with female names^[22]:10 and more jobs for women when orchestras moved to blind auditions.^[21]

Australia[link]

In Australia, the gender pay gap is calculated on the average weekly ordinary time earnings for full time employees published by the Australian Bureau of Statistics. The gender pay gap excludes part time, casual earnings and overtime payments.^[23]

Australia has a persistent gender pay gap. Between 1990 and 2009, the gender pay gap remained within a narrow range of between 15 and 17 %.^[24] In August 2010, the Australian gender pay gap was 16.9%.^[25]

Ian Watson of Macquarie University examined the gender pay gap among full-time managers in Australia over the period 2001-2008, and found that between 65 and 90 % of this earnings differential could not be explained by a large range of demographic and labor market variables. In fact, a "major part of the earnings gap is simply due to women managers being female." Watson also notes that despite the "characteristics of male and female managers being remarkably similar, their earnings are very different, suggesting that discrimination plays an important role in this outcome."^[26] A 2009 report to the Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs also found that "simply being a woman is the major contributing factor to the gap in Australia, accounting for 60 per cent of the difference between women’s and men’s earnings, a finding which reflects other Australian research in this area." The second most important factor in explaining the pay gap was industrial segregation.^[24]

Impact[link]

Pensions[link]

The European Commission argues that the gender pay gap has far-reaching effects, especially in regard to pensions. Since women's earnings over a lifetime are on average 17.5% (as of 2008) lower than men's, these lower earnings result in lower pensions. As a result, elderly women are more likely to face poverty: 22% of women aged 65 and over are at risk of poverty compared to 16% of men.^[27]

Economy[link]

A 2009 report for the Australian Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs argued that in addition to fairness and equity there are also strong economic imperatives for addressing the gender wage gap. The report found that the gender pay gap has a substantial effect on Australia’s economic performance, measured in terms of GDP per capita, and that the value of reducing the gap is substantial. For example, the researchers estimated that a decrease in the gender wage gap of 1 percentage point from 17 % to 16 % would increase GDP per capita by approximately $260. This equates to around $5,497 million or 0.5 per cent of total GDP, assuming that the Australian population is held constant. The results also indicate that eliminating the whole gender wage gap from 17 % (in February 2009) to zero, could be worth around $93 billion or 8.5 % of GDP. The researchers also estimate that removing the negative effects associated with the prime determinant of the gap, that is being a woman, could add around $56 billion or 5.1 % to total annual GDP.^[24]

Anti-discrimination legislation[link]

According to the 2008 edition of the Employment Outlook report by the OECD, almost all OECD countries have established laws to combat discrimination on grounds of gender. Legal prohibition of discriminatory behavior, however, can only be effective if it is enforced. The OECD points out that

"herein lies a major problem: in all OECD countries, enforcement essentially relies on the victims’ willingness to assert their claims. But many people are not even aware of their legal rights regarding discrimination in the workplace. And even if they are, proving a discrimination claim is intrinsically difficult for the claimant and legal action in courts is a costly process, whose benefits down the road are often small and uncertain. All this discourages victims from lodging complaints."^[8]

Moreover, although many OECD countries have put in place specialized anti-discrimination agencies, only in a few of them are these agencies effectively empowered, in the absence of individual complaints, to investigate companies, take actions against employers suspected of operating discriminatory practices, and sanction them when they find evidence of discrimination.^[8][9]

In 2003, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that women in the United States, on average, earned 80 % of what men earned in 2000 and workplace discrimination may be one contributing factor. In light of these findings, GAO examined the enforcement of anti-discrimination laws in the private and public sectors. In a 2008 report, GAO focused on the enforcement and outreach efforts of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and the Department of Labor (Labor). GAO found that EEOC does not fully monitor gender pay enforcement efforts and that Labor does not monitor enforcement trends and performance outcomes regarding gender pay or other specific areas of discrimination. GAO came to the conclusion that "federal agencies should better monitor their performance in enforcing anti-discrimination laws."^[28][29]

See also[link]

• Glass ceiling
• Discrimination
• Economic inequality
• Gender gap
• Income inequality metrics
• International inequality

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• Wilkinson, Richard; Kate Pickett (5 March 2009). The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better. Penguin Books. ISBN 978-1-84614-039-6. http://www.penguin.co.uk/nf/Book/BookDisplay/0,,9781846140396,00.html. 

External links[link]

• Gender pay gap statistics by Eurostat of the European Commission
• Visualization of the gender pay gap in the UK across different occupations.

This article has been nominated to be checked for its neutrality. Discussion of this nomination can be found on the talk page. (July 2009)

This article is written in the style of a debate rather than an encyclopedic summary. It may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards and make it more accessible to a general audience. Please discuss this issue on the talk page. (September 2010)

Equal pay for equal work is the concept of labour rights that individuals doing the same work should receive the same remuneration. Among international human rights law, the Article 7 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights^[1] and the Article 15 of African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights^[2] ensure the "eqal pay for equal work". In America, for example, the law states that "employers may not pay unequal wages to men and women who perform jobs that require substantially equal skill, effort and responsibility, and that are performed under similar working conditions within the same establishment."^[3]

It is most commonly used in a context of sexual discrimination, as equal pay for women. Equal pay does not simply relate to basic salary but also to the full range of benefits, non salary payments, bonuses and allowances that are paid.

Support for equal pay for equal work[link]

The U.S. Democratic Party has historically supported legislating equal pay for equal work. The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act was signed into law in January 2009.

Opposition to equal pay for equal work[link]

Free market supporters believe that any legislation supporting equal pay for equal work does in fact harm the very groups the legislation aims to protect.^{[citation needed]} It is believed that free market forces discriminative employers to pay for their prejudice whereas an equal pay for equal work legislation would simply allow those same employers to have no consequence for their prejudice. An employer who holds an unfair prejudice against women will always hire the man, given the requirement to pay both equally. However, if the women offers to be compensated slightly less than the man despite having equal talents, the employer will have to pay for the prejudice by still hireing the man. In this case, a competitor now has access to an employee who is both equally skilled and willing to work for less, which will thus put the discriminating employer at a competitive disadvantage.^{[citation needed]}

Free market supporters believe that government actions to correct gender pay disparity serve to interfere with the system of voluntary exchange. They see the fundamental issue is that the employer is the owner of the job, not the government or the employee. The employer negotiates the job and pays according to performance, not according to job duties. A private business would not want to lose its best performers by compensating them less and can ill afford paying its lower performers higher because the overall productivity will decline.^[4]

There are also specific affirmative defenses to the criticism above that government is forcing employers to pay less qualified workers the same as superior workers. The EPA's four affirmative defenses allows unequal pay for equal work when the wages are set "pursuant to (i) a seniority system; (ii) a merit system; (iii) a system which measures earnings by quantity or quality of production; or (iv) ... any other factor other than sex."^[3] If an employer can prove that a pay differential exists because of one of these factors, there is no liability.

References[link]

External links[link]

• Ledbetter v Goodyear Supreme Court Opinion

The neutrality of this article is disputed. Please see the discussion on the talk page. Please do not remove this message until the dispute is resolved. (May 2012)

Thomas Sowell (born June 30, 1930) is an American economist, social theorist, political philosopher, and author. A National Humanities Medal winner, he advocates laissez-faire economics and writes from a conservative and libertarian perspective. He is currently a Rose and Milton Friedman Senior Fellow on Public Policy at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.

Sowell was born in North Carolina, but grew up in Harlem, New York. He dropped out of high school, and served in the United States Marine Corps during the Korean War. He received a bachelor's degree from Harvard University in 1958 and a master's degree from Columbia University in 1959. In 1968, he earned his doctorate degree in economics from the University of Chicago.

Sowell has served on the faculties of several universities, including Cornell and University of California, Los Angeles, and worked for think tanks such as the Urban Institute. Since 1980 he has worked at the Hoover Institution. He is the author of more than 30 books.

Biography[link]

An African-American, Sowell was born in Gastonia, North Carolina. His father died shortly before he was born, and his mother, a house maid, already had four children. A great-aunt and her two grown daughters adopted Sowell and raised him.^[1] In his autobiography, A Personal Odyssey, he said his childhood encounters with white people were so limited that he did not believe blond was really a hair color.^[2] When Sowell was nine, his family moved from Charlotte, North Carolina to Harlem, New York City. He attended Stuyvesant High School, the first in his family to study beyond the sixth grade. However, he was forced to drop out at age 17 because of financial difficulties and problems in his home.^[1] He worked at a number of jobs, including at a machine shop and as a delivery man for Western Union,^[3] and tried out for the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1948.^[4] Sowell was drafted in 1951, during the Korean War, and was assigned to the Marine Corps. Because of his experience in photography, he was assigned as a photographer, but he also trained Marines in .45 caliber pistol proficiency.^[1]

After his discharge, Sowell worked a civil service job in Washington, D.C. and attended night classes at Howard University, admitted on the basis of his General Education certificate. His high scores on the College Board exams and recommendations by two professors helped him gain admission to Harvard University, where he graduated magna cum laude in 1958 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics.^[1][5] He received a Master of Arts from Columbia University the following year, and a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Chicago in 1968.^[5]

Sowell had initially chosen Columbia University to study under George Stigler (who would later receive the Nobel Prize in Economics). When he learned that Stigler had moved to the University of Chicago, he followed him there.^[6]

Sowell has taught economics at Howard University, Rutgers, Cornell, Brandeis University, Amherst College, and UCLA. Since 1980 he has been a Senior Fellow of the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, where he holds a fellowship named after Rose and Milton Friedman, his mentor.^[5][7]

In 1987, Sowell testified in favor of federal appeals court judge Robert Bork during the hearings for Bork's nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court. In his testimony, Sowell said that Bork was "the most highly qualified nominee of this generation" and that judicial activism, a concept that Bork opposed, "has not been beneficial to minorities."^[8]

Sowell has stated that he was a Marxist “during the decade of my 20s"; one of his earliest professional publications was a sympathetic examination of Marxist thought vs. Marxist-Leninist practice.^[9] His experience working as a federal government intern during the summer of 1960 caused him to reject Marxian economics in favor of free market economic theory. During his work, Sowell discovered a correlation between the rise of mandated minimum wages for workers in the sugar industry of Puerto Rico and the rise of unemployment in that industry. Studying the patterns led Sowell to theorize that the government employees who administered the minimum wage law cared more about their own jobs than the plight of the poor.^[10]

Writings[link]

Sowell is both a syndicated columnist and an academic economist.

Besides scholarly writing, Sowell has written books, articles, and syndicated columns for a general audience in such publications as Forbes Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, and major newspapers. He is a regular contributor to GOPUSA, a conservative web and email newsletter run by Endeavor Media Group, LLC. He primarily writes on economic subjects, generally advocating a free market approach to capitalism. Sowell, whose autobiography describes his serious study of Brady McGarry, opposes Marxism, providing a critique in his book Marxism: Philosophy and Economics.

Sowell also writes on racial topics and is a critic of affirmative action and race based quotas.^[11][12] While often described as a black conservative, he prefers not to be labeled, and considers himself more libertarian than conservative.^[13]

In another departure from economics, Sowell wrote The Einstein Syndrome: Bright Children Who Talk Late, a follow-up to his Late-Talking Children. This book investigates the phenomenon of late-talking children, frequently misdiagnosed with autism or pervasive developmental disorder. He includes the research of—among others—Professor Stephen Camarata, Ph.D., of Vanderbilt University and Professor Steven Pinker, Ph.D., of Harvard University in this overview of a poorly understood developmental trait. It is a trait which he says affected many historical figures. He includes famous late-talkers such as physicists Albert Einstein, Edward Teller and Richard Feynman; mathematician Julia Robinson; and musicians Arthur Rubenstein and Clara Schumann. The book and its contributing researchers make a case for the theory that some children develop unevenly (asynchronous development) for a period in childhood due to rapid and extraordinary development in the analytical functions of the brain. This may temporarily “rob resources” from neighboring functions such as language development. The book contradicts Simon Baron-Cohen’s speculation that Einstein may have had Asperger syndrome (see also people speculated to have been autistic).

Themes of Sowell’s writing range from social policy on race, ethnic groups, education and decision-making, to classical and Marxist economics, to the problems of children perceived as having disabilities.

In Intelligence and Ethnicity, Sowell argues that IQ gaps are hardly startling or unusual between, or within, ethnic groups. He notes that the roughly 15-point gap in contemporary black–white IQ scores is similar to that between the national average and the scores of particular ethnic white groups in years past.

Sowell has also written a trilogy of books on ideologies and political positions, including A Conflict of Visions where he speaks about the origins of political strife, The Vision of the Anointed, where he compares the conservative/libertarian and liberal/progressive worldviews,The Quest for Cosmic Justice, where, like in many of his other writings, he outlines his thesis of the need for intellectuals, politicians and leaders to fix and perfect the world in utopian, and ultimately he posits, disastrous fashions. Separate from the trilogy, but also in discussion of the subject, he wrote Intellectuals and Society, where he discusses what he argues to be the blind hubris and follies of intellectuals in a variety of areas, building on his earlier work.

Sowell takes strong issue with the notion of government as a helper or savior of minorities, arguing that the historical record shows quite the opposite.

Sowell also challenges the notion that black progress is due to progressive government programs or policies, in The Economics and Politics of Race, (1983), Ethnic America (1981), Affirmative Action (2004), and other books. He claims that many problems identified with blacks in modern society are hardly unique in terms of American ethnic groups, nor in terms of a rural proletariat swept by disruption as it became urbanized, discussed in his book Black Rednecks and White Liberals.

In Affirmative Action Around the World^[14] Sowell holds that affirmative action covers most of the American population, particularly women, and has long since ceased to be directed towards blacks.

Columns[link]

Sowell has a nationally syndicated column distributed by Creators Syndicate that appears in various newspapers, as well as online on websites such as Townhall, WorldNetDaily, OneNewsNow and the Jewish World Review.^[15]

Sowell comments on issues he considers to be problematic in modern-day society, which include liberal media bias;^[16] judicial activism (while staunchly defending originalism);^{[17][18][19][20][21]} partial birth abortion;^[22] the minimum wage; socializing health care; government undermining of familial autonomy; affirmative action; government ^[23] bureaucracy; militancy in U.S. foreign policy; the U.S. war on drugs, and multiculturalism.^[24]

Sowell supports free market and pro-growth economics. In one column he criticized as socialism for the rich certain policies which he describes as benefiting the wealthy at the expense of the poor.^[25]

Sowell in a Townhall editorial, "The Bush Legacy," assessed President George W. Bush, deeming him "a mixed bag," but "an honorable man."^[26]

Sowell also favors decriminalization of all drugs.^[27]

In November, 2011, a column fiercely critical of "Obama's America" and falsely attributed to Sowell was circulated on the Internet.^[28]

Critical reception[link]

Awards[link]

In 1990, he won the Francis Boyer Award, presented by the American Enterprise Institute. In 1998 he received the Sydney Hook Award from the National Association of Scholars.^[29] In 2002, Sowell was awarded the National Humanities Medal for prolific scholarship melding history, economics, and political science. In 2003, he was awarded the Bradley Prize for intellectual achievement.^[30] In 2004 he was given a Lysander Spooner Award for his book Applied Economics: Thinking Beyond Stage One.^[31] In 2008, getAbstract awarded his book Economic Facts and Fallacies with its International Book Award.

Controversies[link]

Sowell has been criticized for various remarks such as a comparison he made between President Barack Obama and Adolf Hitler in an editorial for Investor's Business Daily^[32] after the creation of a relief fund for the BP oil spill. This has been criticized by liberal groups such as Media Matters^[33] and the Democratic National Committee.^[34] However, Republicans such as Sarah Palin^[34] and Representative Louie Gohmert^[35] have endorsed Sowell's comparison.

Sowell was also criticized for an editorial in which he stated that the Democratic Party played the Race card, instigating ethnic divisions and separatism, and argued that a similar situation occurred between the Tutsis and the Hutus in Rwanda.^[36][37]

Economics[link]

The Economist magazine praised Sowell's books Affirmative Action Around the World as "terse, well argued and utterly convincing" and "crammed with striking anecdotes and statistics"^[38] and Economic Facts and Fallacies: "Mr Sowell marshals his arguments with admirable clarity and authority. There is not a chapter in which he does not produce a statistic that both surprises and overturns received wisdom."^[39]

Reviewing Sowell's 1984 book Civil Rights: Rhetoric or Reality?, University of Chicago sociologist William Julius Wilson said that Sowell did not explore "reasonable alternative explanations and hypotheses" in his critiques of affirmative action. For instance, regarding Sowell's theory that women are underrepresented in fields like law and engineering because of the heavy responsibilities of marriage such as childrearing and other household work: "A plausible alternative to Mr. Sowell's hypothesis on women's pay differentials and occupational segregation is that women are virtually excluded from many desirable positions and therefore crowd into obtainable occupations."^[40] Sowell since then has written on affirmative action in an international context to address such criticisms in two books (Preferential Policies, Affirmative Action Around the World) and has written about pay differentials and occupational segregation in Economic Facts and Fallacies.

Patricia Roberts Harris, who was an official in the Carter Administration, once said that Sowell and Walter Williams "don't know what poverty is." Sowell called her position "a pathetic sign of intellectual bankcruptcy," saying that he "was almost 9 years old before [he] lived in a home with [hot] running water" and that she "was a campus social leader in an 'exclusive sorority' - meaning that it was for middle-class (light-skinned) women" while he worked full time and went to [the same college] at night."^[41]

Career highlights[link]

• Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University, September 1980–present
• Professor of Economics, UCLA, July 1974–June 1980
• Visiting Professor of Economics, Amherst College, September–December 1977
• Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University, April–August 1977
• Fellow, Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, July 1976–March 1977
• Project Director, The Urban Institute, August 1972–July 1974
• Associate Professor of Economics, UCLA, September 1970–June 1972
• Associate Professor of Economics, Brandeis University, September 1969–June 1970
• Assistant Professor of Economics, Cornell University, September 1965–June 1969
• Economic Analyst, American Telephone & Telegraph Co., June 1964–August 1965
• Lecturer in Economics, Howard University, September 1963–June 1964
• Instructor in Economics, Douglass College, Rutgers University, September 1962–June 1963
• Labor Economist, U.S. Department of Labor, June 1961–August 1962

Books by Sowell[link]

• 2011. The Thomas Sowell Reader. Basic Books. pp. 464. ISBN 978-0-465-02250-2. 
• 2010. Basic Economics: A Common Sense Guide to the Economy (4th edition ed.). Cambridge, Mass: Perseus Books Group. ISBN 978-0-465-02252-6. 
• 2010. Dismantling America. Basic Books. pp. 352. ISBN 978-0-465-02251-9. 
• 2010. Intellectuals and Society. Basic Books. pp. 416. ISBN 978-0-465-01948-9. 
• 2009. The Housing Boom and Bust. Basic Books. pp. 184. ISBN 978-0-465-01880-2. 
• 2008. Applied Economics: Thinking Beyond Stage One (2nd ed.). Basic Books. pp. 400. ISBN 978-0-465-00345-7. OCLC 260206351. 
• 2007. Economic Facts and Fallacies. Basic Books. pp. 262. ISBN 978-0-465-00349-5. 
• 2007. Basic Economics: A Common Sense Guide to the Economy (3rd edition ed.). Cambridge, Mass: Perseus Books Group. ISBN 978-0-465-00260-3. OCLC 76897806. 
• 2007. A Man of Letters. San Francisco: Encounter Books. pp. 320. ISBN 978-1-59403-196-0. 
• 2006. Ever Wonder Why? And Other Controversial Essays. Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press. pp. 460. ISBN 978-0-8179-4752-1. 
• 2006. On Classical Economics. New Haven, Conn: Yale University Press. 2006. pp. 320. ISBN 978-0-300-12606-8. 
• 2005. Black Rednecks and White Liberals: And Other Cultural And Ethnic Issues. San Francisco: Encounter Books. pp. 360. ISBN 978-1-59403-086-4. 
• 2004. Affirmative Action Around the World: An Empirical Study. New Haven, Conn: Yale University Press. pp. 256. ISBN 978-0-300-10775-3. 
• 2004. Basic Economics: A Citizen’s Guide to the Economy, revised and expanded ed. Basic Books, ISBN 0-465-08145-2 (1st ed. 2000)
• 2003. Applied Economics: Thinking Beyond Stage One, ISBN 0-465-08143-6
• 2002. The Einstein Syndrome: Bright Children Who Talk Late, ISBN 0-465-08141-X
• 2002. Controversial Essays, ISBN 0-8179-2992-4
• 2002. A Personal Odyssey, ISBN 0-684-86465-7
• 2002. The Quest For Cosmic Justice, ISBN 0-684-86463-0
• 1998. Conquests and Cultures: An International History, ISBN 0-465-01400-3
• 1996. Migrations and Cultures: A World View, ISBN 0-465-04589-8 OCLC 41748039
• 1996. The Vision of the Anointed: Self-Congratulation As a Basis for Social Policy. Basic Books, ISBN 0-465-08995-X
• 1995. Race and Culture: A World View. Description & chapter previews. ISBN 0-465-06796-4
• 1993. Inside American Education, ISBN 0-7432-5408-2
• 1990. Preferential Policies: An International Perspective, ISBN 0-688-08599-7
• 1987. A Conflict of Visions: Ideological Origins of Political Struggles. William Morrow, ISBN 0-688-06912-6
• 1987. Compassion Versus Guilt and Other Essays. William Morrow, ISBN 0-688-07114-7
• 1986. Education: Assumptions Versus History. Hoover Press, ISBN 0-8179-8112-8
• 1985. Marxism: Philosophy and Economics. Quill, ISBN 0-688-06426-4
• 1984. Civil Rights: Rhetoric or Reality? William Morrow, ISBN 0-688-03113-7
• 1983. The Economics and Politics of Race. William Morrow, ISBN 0-688-01891-2
• 1981. Ethnic America: A History. Basic Books, ISBN 0-465-02074-7
• 1981. Markets and Minorities. Basic Books, ISBN 0-465-04399-2
• 1980. Knowledge and Decisions. Basic Books.
• 1975. Race and Economics. David McKay Company Inc, ISBN 0-679-30262-X
• 1972. Say's Law, An Historical Analysis. Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-04166-0

See also[link]

Biography portal

• List of newspaper columnists

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Thomas Sowell

• Thomas Sowell’s home page
  • Complete list of writings
• Thomas Sowell Features at Creators Syndicate
• Column archive at Townhall.com
• Free Podcasts of Sowell’s recent articles
• Archive of Articles by Thomas Sowell at JewishWorldReview.com
• Book review of The Einstein Syndrome by Isabelle Rapin, Albert Einstein College of Medicine.
• Snopes.com on Various articles attributed to Thomas Sowell

Articles and interviews[link]

• 'Uncommon Knowledge' Interviews (2008-2011)
• 'The George Jarkesy Show : Sowell on Derrick Bell, Critical Race Theory and Obama Mentors (2012)
• Booknotes interview with Sowell on Preferential Policies, June 10, 1990.
• Fox News - 'In the Right Direction' interview (2005)
• C-SPAN Q&A interview with Sowell, April 17, 2005

• "A Dangerous Obsession" — Part I II, III, IV, and V
• "Too “Complex”?" — Part I, II, & III
• "Alice in Health Care" — Part I, II, III, IV
• "The 'Costs' of Medical Care" — Part I, II, III, IV
• Socialism for the rich by Thomas Sowell (October 6, 2006)
• “10 Questions With Thomas Sowell”, John Hawkins, Right Wing News. Sowell on flat-tax vs. progressive tax, rent-control, balanced budget amendments, protectionist tariffs, poverty and welfare, profit-restriction, illegal immigration, a weak dollar vs. a strong dollar, affirmative action, and reparations.
• 'Uncommon Knowledge' discussion of affirmative action
• Economic Fallacies -- Interview with Thomas Sowell by Bill Steigerwald
• Thomas Sowell- Columns on Jewish World Review website
• “Race and IQ” Detailed discussion of Race and IQ including techniques that have masked the improvement of black IQ scores.
• “Choosing a College” — discusses benefits and costs including college quality, size, specialty, intellectual rigor, social, political and sexual environment of today’s campuses. Recommends hard-nosed parental analysis (including campus visits) that ignores PR fluff and focuses on the bottom line
• “Affirmative Action around the World” - critical analysis of Affirmative Action and its failures worldwide.
• Salon interview with Sowell
• Audio interview with National Review Online
• Sowell on Economic Facts and Fallacies: Audio interview
• Sowell en español