I make a shit ton more money than another guy at the company (I know this because he volunteered it, my jaw dropped but I said nothing). He’s another man. We both have the “same job”. As far as I can tell, the only difference is I have been in my career for more than a decade and he’s only a couple years out of college. I’ve had the benefit of multiple pay bumps over this time and make 40K more than I made 10 years ago. But we still pretty much do the same thing.
Now, a theoretical (not really because I’ve seen this happen): My buddy could get pissed off at is lowly wages, go to another company, pick up some new skills and get some major pay bumps. My biggest pay bumps were early on in my career (nearly 100% after the first 2 years). I could lose my job or whatever, then he calls me and says “hey we have a job opening over here.”
He’s learned all the latest cutting age stuff over the last year, and I’m still doing a bunch of legacy crap I’ve been doing the last 5 years, so I’m not exactly looked at as a rock star, even though I’ve forgotten more than he knows. So he could very well make more money than I make now because I’m fledgling on a very specific facet of the job that’s all the rave.
“Same pay for same job” is simplistic. Even factoring in experience is a difficult calculus, because you can have experience in different things, with some experience being more valuable than others.
If this is because Bob values his career over family and chose not to have a child, then I think that’s OK. But if this is because Bob kept working while his wife Jane quit work for 4 years to have and raise their baby, then that I think is a problem. Why didn’t Bob take 2 years off to raise the baby so that Jane would only need to take 2 years off? Why does our society expect the woman to do all the work raising the children? Why doesn’t our government have laws requiring equal parental leave for both men and women? It’s not a problem caused by Company A, but it’s still an unfairness that should be addressed.
I didn’t find out until I started getting involved in hiring decisions and proposal writing. It’s a small company so that helped as well, most of my team has no clue what their hourly rate is. There’s no reason for your company not to tell you how much they’re billing the government other than it’s in their best interest to keep you in the dark. (Which is why most people on my team don’t know, I’ve been explicitly advised that all of our proposals are confidential and not to tell the team. I think that’s BS but I value my job so I’ve kept mum. I do disclose my own salary to anyone who asks, though, because I think employees should share that information with each other to help even the field.)
Of course they do. Most of the wage gap is because women choose different jobs. However, even on the same job men and women make different choices. Men work longer hours which means that even in the exact same job at the exact same hourly wage they would make more. Men have a higher workforce participation rate so they are more likely to have more experience and thus be more productive in their jobs and make more. Men are more motivated by money and so would make choices to do dangerous or unpleasant work in the same job and thus make more money.
For instance men Uber drivers make more than women Uber drivers. This despite that the rate is not negotiated and they are paid according to an set algorithm that does not take into account gender. It is because they work more hours, seek out more lucrative routes, and drive faster.
Even in a setting where everything should be equal such as the MBTA, the Boston public trans system, where all people are given the same starting salary, and promotion is due solely to seniority,men make more than women because they voluntarily work more overtime, and take less leave.
Or rather, how much they can convince you to accept. I suspect that no company pays their employees what they feel their employees are actually worth to the company, because if they did no company would make a profit because they’d be paying out all the profits to the employees that generated them. (And then they’d promptly go out of business because they’d have no money left for rent, supplies, and other expenses.)
Really, the worth of one’s labor (in terms of the value the labor generates) doesn’t come into play at any point in this discussion, besides as an absolute cap that the company will refuse to pay above. They will very happily go lower.
That’s fair. My response was addressing a macro point as the original comparison was a type of job compared to another type of job. When it comes down to individuals there is surely variance that will reflect distortions.
I believe in markets, generally. I think most people do too. But when what can be explained by markets appears to not comport with one’s view of how the world should be, a lot of times people either forget, or think markets somehow don’t apply in that particular situation. Granted, I do believe there are instances where markets don’t function that well, but in general the burden rests on those who would make that argument because for the vast majority of other times, markets work on a macro level.
People would not be paid the entire profits of the company if they are paid what they are worth. The evidence is the history of capitalism. If this were so, then those employees would certainly look for other work to maximize their income/utility. That they don’t means that the value of their labor on a macro level is what they are paid. We measure what their labor is worth in dollars. Are you suggesting there is some other metric that conveys superior information as to what a person’s labor is worth?
You seem to be ignoring market factors in determining wages. The very best horse and buggy makers started earning a whole lot less after cars became more prevalent - their skills didn’t diminish, but the demand certainly did - their labor started to be worth less than it had before.
I’m not sure what you’re trying to assert here. Do you think Wahlberg and Williams should have been paid the same amount, or that the delta between them should have been less? What do you base your analysis on?
…can you not see how it applied to the example I cited?
What an utterly ridiculous strawman.
Williams was paid scale. Walhberg was not.
I’ve given an example. You continue to ignore it. Williams was top-billed. She got paid 0.07% of what Wahlberg got paid for the reshoots. It doesn’t mean " the same role." Here are SAG tablesfor theatrical performances. Scale isn’t dependent on being in the same role, creating the same work with the same standards of productivity.
It isn’t always “actionable” as the example I posted quite clearly demonstrates. It is tolerated by very many people.
You can address this and address the pay gap at the very same time. It isn’t a dichotomy.
Too bad you can’t actually refute what I said and have to resort to making this personal.
I have no idea what you are talking about. I doubt you do either. Why on earth should two Hollywood stars get paid the same for doing different work? Do you think all actors should get paid the same? Do you have any sort of point that can be demonstrated with people who don’t get paid millions of dollars to do very different jobs with no objective means of determining the value of their productivity?
The value of their labor is shown in the value that their labor produces - their output. This could be extremely hard to calculate a dollar value for, but it is clearly a better metric than their wage - and it’s clearly the metric their employers use. If you have two people making the same wage (perhaps it’s a fixed-wage position) and one of them is more productive or does better work, the employers will value that employee more. And no, that doesn’t mean the more valuable employee will suddenly have a raise or promotion forced on them in order to show their employer’s appreciation.
Bringing in market forces certainly doesn’t support the notion that wages indicate worth, by my above definition of worth. Doubling the workforce doesn’t make a person less productive, but market forces would suggest that wages should drop all the same.
…Williams was top-billed. At the very least she should have been paid the same as the man who got last billed. Instead she got paid 0.07% of what he got paid. Do you think that Wahlberg offered 99% more value to society than Williams? What do you base **your **analysis on?
There was a podcast recently which interviewed one of the authors of a recent study on the gender pay gap in several western countries. What you are talking about - working different hours, different job types, etc. does appear to account for ~75% of the unadjusted pay gap - however men are still paid ~4.9% higher for the same work done in the US.
The podcast/study talk about the difference in pay gap by industry, and found that media had the biggest adjusted pay gap of ~6.4%, while the biotech industry had the lowest adjusted pay gap of only 2.2%. The author believed that fields that had higher pay gaps had more of an “old boys club” where connections mattered more than credentials for compensation, while industries with a low pay gap were more merit based. So there is still some good evidence that discrimination still exists, though it is likely a smaller scale than some people might believe.
I encourage everyone to read the study (or at least the summary) as I feel like people are often talking past each other, without being consistent as to whether they are referring to the adjusted pay gap vs. unadjusted.
As for whether society undervalues the types of work that historically are over-represented by women - I think one of the biggest factors is that how valuable (ie. important) the work is is only one piece of the puzzle as to how people are compensated for that work. For example, caring for a child is exceptionally important, but it is not something that requires that specialized of a skillset, so there are a vast number of people who are qualified and willing to do that work, so it doesn’t pay that well. If external childcare gets too expensive, people will take it on themselves.
…I’ve struggled to parse what you have been talking about. I still don’t quite know what you are talking about.
How different was the work Williams and Walhberg did on the reshoots? Can you be specific? Did Walhberg really do 1.5 million dollars more work than Williams?
The “objective” means exist. You’ve already pointed to it. Actors aren’t measured on “productivity.” One could potentially sit on their arse most of the day and still end up getting paid scale.
I asked for an analysis. Instead you’ve provided further evidence that not only the gender pay gap exists, but why it continues to exist. And apparently you appear to endorse it.
According to Bone: the value of labor is measurable, and if people are paid less by definition they provide less value to society. Michelle Williams got paid substantially less than Walhberg so by your definition provides substantially less value to society (or, if you would prefer, the economy) than Walhberg. And its her fault she got paid less because she agreed to the amount that was offered to her. Even though the people who were responsible for negotiating on her behalf, her agency, was the same agency that got Walhberg his 1.5 million dollars.
The analysis is predicated upon the argument that the free market is a flawless (flawless!) value-finding device, and thus wages by definition are the value of the labor. And the free market actually is flawless - but only regarding the buying and selling of spherical cows.
It seems like you’re denying, or at least minimizing Williams’s individual agency (not her agent, but her sense of agency). It seems paternalistic to suggest that Williams is somehow unable to find employment that reflects the actual value of her work. You express incredulity that Williams chose, of her own free will, to accept work for an amount you think was not sufficient.
I take a different view. One that recognizes Williams as a person that has her own agency, and can make her own choices for what work she is willing to do and at what price. If she were to think that was unfair, then she has an obvious and easy solution - don’t agree to do the work.