The Relationship Between Youth and Adult Award Wages from 1930 to 1985

Abstract

The important and sometimes controversial subject of relativities between youth and adult award wages is examined in this paper. For the first time a historical index of award wages applying to youth and adults in Victoria has been constructed. Trends in relative youth/adult wages are shown using the index and explanations of these trends are suggested. Both male and female youth wages have tended to track women's wages from 1930 to 1970, and hence they rose relative to men's wages. Between 1970 and 1975, male youth wages declined relative to all other wage groups, thus more closely paralleling female youth wages. From 1975 a new trend is shown to have appeared, with both types of youth wages continuing to rise relative to men's wages. It is suggested that this break in trend shown in the index is due to the application of different wage principles to women's wage fixation after the equal pay cases of 1969 and 1972. From this time women's wages have no longer been adjusted according to their social needs but according to work value, as with men's wages. The second part of the paper illustrates the wage-fixing principles historically applied and presents some evidence of the social needs principles still being used in youth wage-fixation, leading to unequal pay for equal work for some youth.