WHERE THE CANDIDATES STAND ON WOMEN'S ISSUES; MONDALE
Equal pay for equal work is ''not enough,'' says Democratic presidential nominee Walter F. Mondale. He is pushing for equal pay for men and women who perform jobs of ''comparable worth'' even if the actual tasks are quite different.
Women should have the freedom to choose to have an abortion, and the government should offer aid to poor women who make that choice.
And the president should launch an all out effort to win passage of an Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution.
These stands form part of the core policies of former vice-president Mondale. His most dramatic statement on women's issues is his choice of Rep. Geraldine A. Ferraro to be his running mate.
The presence of a woman on the ticket not only is historic, but Mondale indicates that it illustrates his approach to governing. The nation's problems can be resolved only ''with the full and equal participation of women at every level of our political process,'' he says.
On the question of equal pay, Mondale has embraced the relatively new concept ''comparable worth,'' which could eventually overhaul the pay scales of the nation. The big gap between men and women in salaries persists largely because they do different types of work, says a Mondale position paper. The former vice-president promises pay equity to federal workers and a national effort to educate the public about the issue. He proposes to establish a federal clearinghouse for information about job skills so that unrelated jobs could be compared. As a result, jobs such as nursing and truck driving could be rated on the same scale and salaries assigned.
An original sponsor of the Equal Rights Amendment when he was a Minnesota senator, Mondale promises that if elected, he will ''use the full power and moral authority of that office to ensure ratification of the ERA in the states.''
He also favors an insurance reform act, such as one which died in the Congress this year, that would forbid setting rates on the basis of sex.
Social security should treat marriage as an economic partnership that values a woman's role either as a homemaker or a wage-earner, and social security earnings should be shared, according to the Democrat's view.
Mondale's program also calls for reversing Reagan's cuts in federal aid to children and families. Mondale proposes to restore money to health, welfare, and nutrition programs. Federal spending for school lunches, food stamps, and health aid for indigent women who are pregnant would be increased, as would childhood immunization efforts.
At the same time, Mondale says he will strengthen civil rights and equal-pay enforcement by appointing to key posts men and women who agree with the civil rights movement of the past two decades. He also endorses the concept of ''affirmative action'' in the federal government, an approach that includes taking extra steps to hire women or others who have been discriminated against in the past.
For the considerable Mondale effort in women's rights, his ticket still trails badly among both women and men voters in the polls. But he is doing somewhat better, by about 10 points in a recent ABC-Washington Post survey, among women than among men.
