Thank you, Cicada2003 - from what I’ve read recently (in addition to what I’ve observed) all those stats are still good.
Basically, it’s still the case that if you tiptoe into the HR department and start going through files, you’ll find that a woman with X years experience and training and time on the job and a man with the same qualifications are not making the same amount of money.
I’ve also seen - only personally, not in meaningful statistics - that men do a better job of skating away from problems (i.e., poor performance reviews, threats of lawsuits, being warned about ethics ) which I think goes back to you theory that men are better negotiators.
A female colleague and I considered writing a humorous internal document explaining that women are more likely to leave when they work for a bozo because women are unlikely to be able to protect themselves from being used as a scapegoat - women are seen as complainers because they have to say something 56 times before anyone listens, etc. Not that that little story has anything to do with the OP.
Given the current life-expectancy of a job (what is it this week? Seven years?) the idea of a mommy track doesn’t make sense. Men are just as likely to be playing catch up. Nobody but Lula Mae, the 62-year old executive secretary, knows anything about the company history.
Right now, by the way, I am doing a project for a company that is great for women. It’s freakin’ amazing. There is hope.
The problem with this postulate in light of the current topic, though, is that there will be an immediate difference after, say, 3 months. Or at least after the first performance evaluation to determine rate of increase. These differences will only magnify over time. “Seniority” and “performance” are essentially the two overwhelming determinants in virtually every job in every working environment I’ve ever been in, and really, I wouldn’t want it any other way.
Same base salary at day 1, yes. But after day 1 all bets are off: Joanne could take an inordinate amount of sick days, extra-long breaks leaving others to pick up her slack, or be a slacker in other ways; Bob could do some outside research on tab insertion, off the clock, and present his manager with a report on how to streamline the process; he could be taking night classes on manufacturing engineering; he could be super fast and put out more units than Joanne.
I suspect (but have no data to back up this assertion) that because women in general are more family oriented, likely to take more time off due to maternity leave, and are more likely to leave career-track positions before peaking in order to devote more time to family obligations, that one would indeed find higher paid men in “the same jobs” as women; women are more likely to forgo seniority and experience for other things. Just my WAG.