Spun off from PGT: President Elect Donald Trump thread
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Originally Posted by Makarov
You have already been provided with links to numerous studies that show that a wage gap persists even after "number of hours worked" is accounted for.
There are also other, more complex issues such as the way society values traditionally female work.
The wage cap is almost entirely about choices couples make once they have children. Single women in Canada who have never married earn 98 per cent of what single men who have never married earn. Women in their 20s in the UK now earn more than men in their 20s.
Married men in Canada earn substantially more than single men, even when accounting for age and education. Is that about bias and oppression against single men, or about married men seeking out more hours and higher-paying work once they're married and have kids?
As for jobs 'society values', wages in Canada aren't set by societal values. They're set by the market. If roofers earn more than receptionists it's because the minimum salary you have to pay to get and keep a competent roofer is higher than the minimum salary you have to pay to get a competent receptionist (owing to the discomfort and danger of being a roofer).
GOLDIN: I like to think about an individual who gets a degree — let’s say a law degree — and it’s a woman, and now I have an individual a man who gets a law degree. And they graduate from law school and they’re both equally brilliant, and they both get jobs in approximately the same type of firm. By and large they’re going to earn approximately the same amount when they start. Things will continue in their lives — they’ll both perhaps find partners, get married, have kids. It’s often the case that women will leave the very large law firms that put a lot of time demands on them and go to smaller firms or become corporate counsel, become part-time corporate counsel, perhaps, for a while. They will go to small firms where the workload is somewhat different. They may work in fact the same number of hours, but they may work hours that are their hours rather than the hours imposed on them by the firm. The woman will then begin to make — if she’s the one who did this — she will make considerably less than the man. And a lot of what we see — not all of it — but a lot of what we see is this choice to go into occupations that have less expensive temporal flexibility, that allow individuals to do their work on their own time.
Women’s groups will counter that even if most of the wage gap can be explained by women’s choices, those choices are not truly free. Women who major in sociology rather than economics, or who choose family-friendly jobs over those that pay better but offer less flexibility, may be compelled by cultural stereotypes. According to the National Organization for Women (NOW), powerful sexist stereotypes “steer” women and men “toward different education, training, and career paths” and family roles. But are American women really as much in thrall to stereotypes as their feminist protectors claim? Aren’t women capable of understanding their real preferences and making decisions for themselves? NOW needs to show, not dogmatically assert, that women’s choices are not free. And it needs to explain why, by contrast, the life choices it promotes are the authentic ones — what women truly want, and what will make them happier and more fulfilled.
A new survey from PayScale this morning finds that the wage gap nearly evaporates when you control for occupation and experience among the most common jobs, especially among less experienced workers. It is only as careers advance, they found, that men outpaced female earnings as they made their way toward the executive suite.
- The Atlantic
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Quote:
Originally Posted by fotze
If this day gets you riled up, you obviously aren't numb to the disappointment yet to be a real fan.
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So the gender pay gap is a myth, but law suits for this are being won all the time? Industry studies also maintain the existence of the pay gap, across almost all industries, but this is myth?
Also, you misrepresented what Ms. Goldin stated in her Freakanomics podcast. She clearly states the wage gap exists, but then goes on to explain why, in certain circumstances, the wage gap exists. She does not deny the existence of the gap, in fact her other work in economics supports the existence of the gap, she just attempts to provide reasons why the wage gap may develop.
The glass ceiling is largely due to the fact that to rise to top of a profession, you need to devote yourself almost entirely to your career. That's why most executives with a family have a spouse who either doesn't work or who works part-time. That leaves the ambitious career-oriented spouse free from worrying about bills and swim lessons and chores around the house, and able to be on-call 24/7, travel frequently, and have the energy to excel in an extremely competitive role.
A) High-status career
B) Spouse with a high-status career
C) Family life
Pick two. Ambitious men have an easier time disregarding B than ambitious women do, because ambitious women often consider a high-status spouse to be part of the package of success. For the gap at the very top to close, we'll have to see more highly ambitious women adopt the mating tactics of their male counterparts - which is to put a higher value on nurturing and parenting qualities in a mate than status and earning power. So more executive track women who want a family marrying the guy from IT and letting him be the primary caregiver in the family, rather than seeking out another ambitious executive-type.
The alternative is for companies to de-emphasize long hours, 24/7 availability, travel, etc. among top executives. It's hard to imagine how that could be put into practice, though.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by fotze
If this day gets you riled up, you obviously aren't numb to the disappointment yet to be a real fan.
Last edited by CliffFletcher; 11-20-2016 at 09:34 AM.
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Pretty simple, forgiving factors like time worked the gap should be 0 in like for like positions. It's not.
By "like for like positions", do you mean the same position within the same industry? As in once you control for hours worked, a male electrical engineer who works in industry X and had Y amount of experience in region Z should make the same amount as a female electrical engineer who works in industry X and had Y years of experience in region Z?
If so I totally agree, but when you say "it's not", how far off is it? Does that sort of granular data exist? Seems like it would be really hard to create a study that controls for all of those variables; it'd be a lot like Roland Fryer's police violence study, and even something as nuanced as that has some holes in it.
__________________ "The great promise of the Internet was that more information would automatically yield better decisions. The great disappointment is that more information actually yields more possibilities to confirm what you already believed anyway." - Brian Eno
So the gender pay gap is a myth, but law suits for this are being won all the time? Industry studies also maintain the existence of the pay gap, across almost all industries, but this is myth?
Also, you misrepresented what Ms. Goldin stated in her Freakanomics podcast. She clearly states the wage gap exists, but then goes on to explain why, in certain circumstances, the wage gap exists. She does not deny the existence of the gap, in fact her other work in economics supports the existence of the gap, she just attempts to provide reasons why the wage gap may develop.
And I didn't dismiss the existence of the gap either. It's real. But it's not due to sexism and patriarchy. It's due to choices around careers and child-rearing - areas which is extremely difficult for the state to intervene in, and which there's no evidence aren't choices that are freely taken with open eyes about the consequences. Most people don't base all their career and family choices strictly on maximizing income. And there's no reason to believe those who do are happier than those who deliberately choose to earn less money in exchange for more agreeable work or more time with family.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by fotze
If this day gets you riled up, you obviously aren't numb to the disappointment yet to be a real fan.
The glass ceiling is largely due to the fact that to rise to top of a profession, you need to devote yourself almost entirely to your career. That's why most executives with a family have a spouse who either doesn't work or who works part-time. That leaves the ambitious career-oriented spouse free from worrying about bills and swim lessons and chores around the house, and able to be on-call 24/7, travel frequently, and have the energy to excel in an extremely competitive role.
A) High-status career
B) Spouse with a high-status career
C) Family life
Pick two. Ambitious men have an easier time disregarding B than ambitious women do, because ambitious women often consider a high-status spouse to be part of the package of success. For the gap at the very top to close, we'll have to see more highly ambitious women adopt the mating tactics of their male counterparts - which is to put a higher value on nurturing and parenting qualities in a mate than status and earning power. So more executive track women who want a family marrying the guy from IT and letting him be the primary caregiver in the family, rather than seeking out another ambitious executive-type.
That alternative is for companies to de-emphasize long hours, 24/7 availability, travel, etc. among top executives. It's hard to imagine how that could be put into practice, though.
It's almost like there are societal institutions and structures in place to educate women from birth that they shouldn't be devoted to their career, that they should be provided for and not provide for themselves, that being highly ambitious in your career is not as rewarding and accepted as being a caring and nurturing parent, and that they should be the primary caregiver for children.
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Pretty simple, forgiving factors like time worked the gap should be 0 in like for like positions.
It's not.
Doesn't matter if the problem is a little one or a big one, it shouldn't be one period.
If the gap is 4 per cent it's still real. Okay. Then why do the media relentlessly trumpet the 24 per cent gap, when it is misleading and has been debunked over and over again?
Because culture wars. Because Us vs Them. Because distorting the truth in the interests of a righteous cause has become mainstream practice in mainstream media in the last few years.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by fotze
If this day gets you riled up, you obviously aren't numb to the disappointment yet to be a real fan.
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If the gap is 4 per cent it's still real. Okay. Then why do the media relentlessly trumpet the 24 per cent gap, when it is misleading and has been debunked over and over again?
Because culture wars. Because Us vs Them. Because distorting the truth in the interests of a righteous cause has become mainstream practice in mainstream media in the last few years.
Maybe that's the thread you should've made? It seems like the issue that ties most of the things you take issue with together.
It's almost like there are societal institutions and structures in place to educate women from birth that they shouldn't be devoted to their career, that they should be provided for and not provide for themselves, that being highly ambitious in your career is not as rewarding and accepted as being a caring and nurturing parent, and that they should be the primary caregiver for children.
Yes, for sure this is true. This is the point, though - focusing on the pay gap obscures this causal issue, which is one of the underlying causes we should be talking about. This is a problem we can hopefully solve (or at least ameliorate), which would have good outcomes for women more broadly not just in terms of how much money they make over their lifetimes but in other ways, too.
That being said, it probably won't be surprising that no matter what we do, some women (probably quite a few) are going to simply prefer to act as primary caregivers in their family, and they shouldn't be stigmatized for that preference, or be accused of not having agency. So what do you think is the best way to approach this issue?
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By "like for like positions", do you mean the same position within the same industry? As in once you control for hours worked, a male electrical engineer who works in industry X and had Y amount of experience in region Z should make the same amount as a female electrical engineer who works in industry X and had Y years of experience in region Z?
If so I totally agree, but when you say "it's not", how far off is it? Does that sort of granular data exist? Seems like it would be really hard to create a study that controls for all of those variables; it'd be a lot like Roland Fryer's police violence study, and even something as nuanced as that has some holes in it.
Are you suggesting that there should be regulated pay rates for all positions? Should an employee at company X make the exact same as an employee at company Y? Wouldn't that remove a lot of competitive advantage from employers? It would also force the shut down of many companies that can't afford to pay their employees as much (I previously made less than my industry peers because I worked for a small company that didn't have the revenue stream of comparable companies.)
Married men in Canada earn substantially more than single men, even when accounting for age and education. Is that about bias and oppression against single men, or about married men seeking out more hours and higher-paying work once they're married and have kids?
Interesting, wouldn't have thought of that before, but in hindsight it's actually not surprising. I'm guessing it's the latter, most guys I know with young kids are stressed out of their dang minds. That's a lot of pressure to provide, especially if you're the principal earner of the household. I'd imagine that crippling stress would channel itself into motivation to earn more $$$. A lot easier being content and comfortable with your current salary if you're just supporting yourself, as opposed to an entire house full of people.
And I didn't dismiss the existence of the gap either. It's real. But it's not due to sexism and patriarchy. It's due to choices around careers and child-rearing - areas which is extremely difficult for the state to intervene in, and which there's no evidence aren't choices that are freely taken with open eyes about the consequences. Most people don't base all their career and family choices strictly on maximizing income. And there's no reason to believe those who do are happier than those who deliberately choose to earn less money in exchange for more agreeable work or more time with family.
Good post Cliff, and I agree with what you are saying as it addresses the majority of the issues with the gap. But it does only address the majority, not every situation. There are still close to 40% of jobs held by women that face an institutionalized gender pay gap, and these are not based on the choices they make along the way, they are impacted by the decisions of other women in their industry. That is where the gap myth argument falls apart. There are plenty of women who make choices to follow a different path, but there are plenty who play the game by the exact same rules the men do and see less pay and benefit for their work.
It's almost like there are societal institutions and structures in place to educate women from birth that they shouldn't be devoted to their career, that they should be provided for and not provide for themselves, that being highly ambitious in your career is not as rewarding and accepted as being a caring and nurturing parent, and that they should be the primary caregiver for children.
That was true 50 years ago. But today? When women do better in school at every grade? Go into post-secondary education at far higher rates than men? Move out of home earlier than men? Make up the majority of graduates in medicine, law, and accounting? Earn more than men in their 20s? That doesn't look to me like a culture where women are encouraged to be barefoot and pregnant.
Why is it so hard to believe that these choices around family and career are made freely? And why the assumption that they're bad for women? These disparities aren't evident in single and childless men and women. It's about families. And since the higher-earning men in these families put their money into the collective pot of the household finances, how does it hurt their spouses? The only case I can see where it does is after a divorce. And we already have a legal mechanism to address that case - child and spousal support.
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Originally Posted by fotze
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I think we've come a long way in this regard, but I don't think these factors have evaporated. Not even close. Anecdotally, can you imagine the reaction at work if a male co-worker said he wanted to take a few years off and raise kids? I know a guy who took two months off when his first was born and the snickering and joking at his expense wasn't even disguised. Had he been a woman, taking that kind of time and changing lifestyle to reduce work hours is expected; no one would bat an eye. I know another woman who doesn't work where I do, but does similar stuff, who didn't make the decision to sacrifice part of her career to raise kids, and instead had various caregivers to make up for her not being there all the time, which earned her some denigration, because "what kind of mother lets a nanny do raise her kids for her", that sort of thing. It's still all too evident, from where I sit. Which isn't to dismiss the progress that's been made, but there's still a whole lot of this atmosphere still hanging around, despite decades of effort.
Quote:
Originally Posted by calgarygeologist
Are you suggesting that there should be regulated pay rates for all positions? Should an employee at company X make the exact same as an employee at company Y? Wouldn't that remove a lot of competitive advantage from employers? It would also force the shut down of many companies that can't afford to pay their employees as much (I previously made less than my industry peers because I worked for a small company that didn't have the revenue stream of comparable companies.)
No, I'm not. My example only considered three variables, I concede that there are going to be more, for sure. I do think that market forces will mostly account for the differences between employers and wages will be pretty similar across them, though I mean differential non-wage benefits also play a role here. It's certainly complicated. What I really mean is that if you have a comparable woman and man applying for essentially the same position, all other things being equal (and recognizing that all other things are basically never equal), the woman should be paid the same salary as the man would be. I don't think that's controversial.
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Last edited by CorsiHockeyLeague; 11-20-2016 at 09:43 AM.
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I should also say that I'm in support of strengthening paternity leave to encourage more men to be primary caregivers, and subsidizing child-care to get mothers back into the workforce faster if that's what they want.
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Originally Posted by fotze
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Are you suggesting that there should be regulated pay rates for all positions? Should an employee at company X make the exact same as an employee at company Y? Wouldn't that remove a lot of competitive advantage from employers? It would also force the shut down of many companies that can't afford to pay their employees as much (I previously made less than my industry peers because I worked for a small company that didn't have the revenue stream of comparable companies.)
Most industries will self-regulate by using salary surveys and recruitment data to establish pay bands for positions. There is no true open market for an employee to bilk as much as possible from an employer. You point out the likely result is it was the wild west. This is a good thing, but a bad thing.
The real ironic thing in all of this is the Human Resource involvement in maintaining salaries and the gender gap. HR is a very female driven industry, yet they help establish the pay grades and application of those pay grades which facilitate the gap, and then protect the interests of the organization over the interests of the employee.
Source of Gender Earnings Gap
