Study weighs competitive nature in tennis

ORONO – A new report, co-written by a University of Maine professor, indicates that men and women professional tennis players are equally competitive and that, factoring in the amount of time they spend on the court, they make similar amounts of money.

The report’s authors say those findings also hold true for men and women in businesses across the country where they are as competitive in their careers and are paid equally well for their skills when on the job.

According to the study, male tennis players earned an annual average of about $182,000 between 1984 and 1994, while female tennis players earned $109,000. By comparison, the U.S. Department of Labor says the average American man working full time earned $33,674 in 1997 while full-time working women earned an average of $24,973.

The income gaps in both tennis and business are attributed to the fact that women spend less time on the tennis courts and in the workplace. In tennis, men play best three sets out of five, while women play best two out of three, and men play in more tournaments than women. The authors say that similarly, businessmen work more years on average than women, who tend to leave the work force to raise families. As a result, men make more money.

The report was published in the most recent edition of the Journal of Labor Research.

But can a study of tennis really tell us anything about how men and women stack up in the business world? Most definitely, according to University of Maine professor Donijo Robbins who is co-author of the report with an economics professor at Rutgers University in Newark, N.J. Robbins teaches courses in public administration.

In both tennis and business, the researchers contend, men and women are subjected to intense competition for jobs coveted by co-workers and the flood of new talent pouring in from colleges. Both sexes respond equally well to that pressure, according to Robbins’ report. “Our analysis indicates no differences in the tournament careers of men and women tennis professionals that might be attributed to ‘competitiveness’ traits possessed in greater quantity by males than females,” wrote Robbins and Douglas Coate of Rutgers.

Robbins said Wednesday that she realized her study was an unusual vehicle for drawing conclusions about business practices, but that the way men and women compete with one another on the tennis court is no different from corporate boardrooms and assembly lines in a manufacturing plant. “It’s an eccentric kind of approach to the earnings gap,” Robbins said.

That eccentric approach to studying how men and women relate in the workplace was necessary, Robbins said, because private businesses don’t release information detailing job descriptions or incomes of their employees. Businesses, she said, “are not very apt to give you a lot of information about their numbers.” Tennis players on the professional tour, by comparison, are ranked against one another and compete for specified amounts of money.

But in both tennis and workplaces across the country, Robbins says the income gap is largely attributed to the time women are not on the court or in the workplace. During the years when women are out of the work force raising families, Robbins said, men continue to work and therefore get raises and promotions more frequently.

In addition, more physical demands are placed on men in tennis and in the work force, said Robbins. The men play more sets in tennis, she said, and are more likely to work in dangerous or physically intensive professions. Therefore they are paid more. “When you’re talking about manual labor,” Robbins said, “the majority of those positions will be filled by men … and you pay them for that.”

Yet Robbins maintains that the income gap shouldn’t be ignored. In some cases, she said, discrimination does keep women from getting higher-paying jobs – often because employers are hesitant to employ someone who may leave the business to raise a child.

“If you bring in somebody, male or female, you want them to stay there,” Robbins said. Women in their 20s, she said, are often passed over because employers fear they will leave once they begin a family. “Until they are in their 30s, that kind of hurts.”

That kind of discrimination, Robbins said, ultimately harms businesses, as they end up hiring less-qualified people. “It’s not wise for businesses to discriminate,” Robbins said. “It brings in inefficiencies.”

Laura Fortman, executive director of the Maine Women’s Lobby, said Wednesday that while she hadn’t reviewed Robbins’ study she is skeptical of reports that attribute the income gap to child rearing or the nature of jobs performed.

“I think what is important to remember is that while some women do take time out of the work force [for child rearing],” Fortman said, “the majority of women are not making choices like that.”

Fortman said businesses must focus on making sure that women are paid equally for equal work and providing women access to higher-paying jobs – regardless of whether they are strenuous or dangerous.

Meanwhile, Robbins said equal access and consideration for all people are largely what she had in mind when working on her study and subsequent report. Employers, she said, should consider the person before them in the interview individually, and not as a member of a specific race, age group or social class.

“Look at the individual,” Robbins said. “Think of what they can do.”