Of course women get paid less in many of the lower end jobs! Every time you hear some woman say “I only took this job to make some extra spending money” or “I was bored since my kids left home so I went back to work”, then you’ll know the reason why. Why would employers pay women more just because they need to support themselves or their family when they can get dorks like that to work cheap. No wonder volunteers are so desperately needed anymore in charities, hospitals, etc. These women would rather make a pittance to spend money than help out somewhere they could be needed. And yes, this goes for men too, if they don’t need to work.
A woman where I used to work was always trying to find out my salary (I told her it was none of her damned business). I had a rougher schedule than she did and in addition to my office duties I sometimes made deliveries out of my own truck; no doubt in my mind I was worth more to the company.
When I wanted a raise, I checked the classified ads, did some legwork, found out what other places were paying and threatened to quit and work for one of them (a bluff some of my employers called). When SHE wanted a raise, she’d try to guilt me into telling her what I was making. Unsuccessfully.
Comparable Worth is a noble idea, but not one I feel real bound by. Remember the X-FILES season without Scully? Remember the one without Mulder? Which would YOU rather watch?
Well, you have to admit, Scully does have a better set of hooters than Mulder does.
Women did not enter the work force in any real numbers until the 1980’s. At this point, they still make up much less than half. There are a significant number of men who have been working steadily, in the same field, since the 1960’s. As a general rule, people with more experience get paid more and occupy the better positions. Since the vast majority of the most senior workers are men, there must be a disparity in overall pay. As years march by, this disparity will shrink, but will probably never disappear for the other reasons already stated, such as childbirth. Since men cannot give birth and many, if not most, women would prefer to limit their work responsibilities when caring for small children, men will always earn more as a group.
The Great and Powerful Cecil becomes displeased when you forget the link to the column: Are women paid less than men for the same work? Now please report to the re-education camp.
There is another major factor that appears to have been
completely ignored - the number of hours worked per
week. I think most people would agree that the number
of hours a person works per week in a job should affect their
pay. You can create almost any figure you wish by screening
out people at different number of hours per week. The 76%
figure is created by screening out people who are not classed
as working full-time, which is usually defined as 35 hours
a week or more in this context. Feminist sources manage to
get it as low as 60% by further figure-fixing. If you want a
particular answer, it’s not hard to lie with statistics to get it.
The great majority of the difference is due to the fact that
the average number of hours worked per week by men
who work at least 35 hours per week is about 15% higher
than the average number of hours worked per week by
women who work at least 35 hours a week (in the USA).
For all workers, it’s 50% higher.
So, the 76% is actually 91%, before you take into account
job choices, experience, mobility, etc.
The bottom line is the bottom line - there is no way businesses
could get away with inflating their staff costs by paying men
almost a third more than women for the same amount of the
same work. Even if some did so for sexist reasons, their
competitors would look to the bottom line and only employ
women. The very large saving on staff costs would give them
a great advantage and the sexist companies would not be able to
compete.
The idea that women are routinely paid much less than men for
doing the same amount of the same work doesn’t make much
sense, but it ties in with the prevailing sexism of our time - that
women are victims and men are privileged, if not outright
oppressors - so it is widely believed. The truth is irrelevant to
a biopolitical ideology, such as feminism, except for selected
part-truths to promote the ideology more effectively.
Do you have a citation for the notion that the pay-for-work differential is not per-hour, but per-month?
And in a similar vein:
Cite?
It is stated explicitly in all the reports on
wage differentials. Which report would
you like me to give a citation for? It
will simply be a matter of pointing out
where in the report that fact is contained.
It’s normally per year rather than
per month, but the point remains the
same.
Hmm…not much use without the text tracer was replying to 
Tracer was asking for a citation for my statement that the average number of hours worked per week by men in full-time employment in the USA was about 15% higher than the corresponding number for women.
Try this:
Table 7.3 of Martha Hill, Pattern of Time Use in Time, Goods, and well-Being (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, Institute for Social Research, 1985), ed. by F. Thomas Juster and Frank P. Stafford.
That includes time worked in any secondary jobs held in addition to the main job, a factor usually ignored.
I realise it is out of date, but so is the 72% figure.
This explains a few things:
http://www.ncpa.org/pub/ba/ba392/
Or maybe you’d prefer online government statistics. These only cover the main job:
http://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/1997/04/art1full.pdf
If you’d prefer to search for yourself,
that document is the 14th one returned from a search for working hours AND gender on the Bureau of Labor Statistic’s website, using a keyword search.
The relevant information is this:
“…the average workweek for men was 42.1 hours, compared with 35.8 hours for women…”
42.1 is 17.6% higher than 35.8
That’s for 1995, btw. I would also suggest looking at Table 2, which shows what proportion of men and women in paid employment work how many hours (1-34, 35-39, 40, 41-48 and 49+). The proportion of employed men aged 25-54 working 49 or more hours per week was 29.2%. For women, the figure was 12.0%. Check the table and you will see that is a typical figure, not an atypical one I have picked to dishonestly substantiate my point.
If you look into the matter, you will see that the gap in hours worked between women and men has been decreasing over the years…just like the gap in pay. I very much doubt if that’s a coincidence - more work, more pay.
If you want more citations, I will provide them. Online, offline, different countries, whatever.
None of this information is actually hidden. It is simply ignored because the whole subject of sex&gender is dominated by feminist sexism, which has permeated throughout society. It is now, therefore, normal to just assume that men are privileged and women are oppressed and simply ignore anything that doesn’t support that belief.
In many workplaces, it’s the boss, not the employee, who decides the number of hours worked. Often, the reason for the decision is cost. Because of govt. regs/company policy, the fulltime workers get perks like insurance, overtime pay, etc. The boss sometimes has to do some fancy juggling to keep the part-timers below the number of hours that would make them fulltime. There are economic pressures to keep as few fulltimers as possible, and if the boss is a bit sexist, you can bet the fulltimers will be mostly male.
If Cecil himself hadn’t opened this Pandora’s can of Russian nesting dolls, this thread would be in Great Debates.
Okay, I have a (hopefully) innocent question related to all this:
Are there any studies in which they try to see if women are paid the same for a particular job while taking othering things into consideration?
for example, what is the pay difference, when taking into account education and seriority among teachers?, or doctors or whatever
This just seems like something that is rather important, but I have never seen a study trying to figure these things out and since there are so many variables it all seems rather confusing to just look at one number and spout a causal relationship (i.e. the average woman makes 72% what the average man does, so sexism is used in job interviews… it may be true, but there doesn’t seem to be enough evidence. There is a strong correlation between rum sales and the number of ministers in boston between 1830 and 1880, but that doesn’t mean that all the ministers were getting drunk)
A quick Google will show that Cecil got it right. Women have achieved equality in the workplace. The major factor in any wage discrepancy is taking time out from work. The choice to have children, and the subsequent time out of work is what causes the ‘wage gap’. By most reports, a childless woman of equal training, education and experience will earn 98% of what a man would earn. Whether this is fair or not is another question, but there is definitely equality in pay structures in terms of equal experience + equal ability = equal pay, and women need to stop playing the victim (IMO).
http://www.ncpa.org/pub/ba/ba392/
http://www.cnn.com/2000/CAREER/trends/12/12/womenpay/
http://www.aei.org/ct/ctdfr.htm
http://www.stls.frb.org/publications/re/2000/d/pages/economic-backgnd.html
http://www.dadi.org/mc_wages.htm
http://nafe.com/whythewagegap.html
http://www.dartmouth.edu/~chance/course/Syllabi/Princeton96/Earnings.html
Scully raises owls?
I think that Goo (and Cecil) are right, so what’s the solution? Do we stop procreating (not a bad idea in the short run, but in the long run, I think we can all agree that some procreation is necessary), or do we resign ourselves to the fact that doing so forces us into second-class economic citizenship?
Okay, I have to ask. Why are my mother (and my wife, for that matter) second class citizens?
Why do you judge people by the cash in their pocket instead of, say, their impact on society and the world around them?
I can’t pay the rent with my impact on society & the world around me…I’m not saying it’s worhtless, not at all. My point is that we either have to consign ourselves to financial dependence (or at the very least, a lower standard of living) or else not have babies.
Sorry for the double post, but I figured out what I meant to say…perhaps instead of demanding equal pay for equal work, which, it seems, we already have, perhaps women’s groups should focus on the REAL issue - the price of motherhood. I don’t have a solution to the problem, but it’s not fair that it costs us as much as it does.
Stella,
I think it’s important to remember that the children have a say in that, too. You say that “it’s not fair that it costs us as much as it does” - I would argue that it’s not a cost, it’s an investment - an investment in the lives of others.
Is my wife financially dependent on me? I suppose - and so are my children. It’s unnerving at times (at these times) and there are times I’m jealous of the two-earner families around us. On the other hand, I do think the constant compliments we get about are children are a sign that the investments we are making in them are paying off.
I think Scylla means that Scully owns a couple of restaurants.