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Pay Gap Between Genders? Not a Result of Discrimination.
This makes me feel better. The link to the article is at the bottom.
Summary: "An in-depth, 93-page U.S. Department of Labor study came to the ?unambiguous conclusion that the differences in the compensation of men and women are the result of a multitude of factors and that the raw wage gap should not be used as the basis to justify corrective action. Indeed, there may be nothing to correct. The differences in raw wages may be almost entirely the result of the individual choices being made by both male and female workers."
Article: "Every year around this time we?re treated to the same eyeball catching headlines about the stubborn persistence of the gender pay gap. The White House has an entire website decrying how ?women are still paid less than men,? 77 cents on every dollar, according to the Census Bureau.
Indeed, President Obama is putting his political clout behind the Paycheck Fairness Act, legislation intended to address the age-old income disparity between men and women that everyone assumes is a result of discrimination.
There?s only one problem. It isn?t true.
If you can get past all the populist media headlines, the politicians pandering for the female vote, and the big bucks behind all the lobbyists, feminist groups, and women?s councils and just look at the facts, you?ll learn that the wage gap is not the result of discrimination.
There?s a mountain of data, research, and studies from sources like the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the U.S. Census Bureau, even a 2011 White House report prepared by the U.S. Department of Commerce for the White House Council on Women and Girls, that all say the same thing.
The gender pay gap is not a result of discrimination, coercion, or anything like that. To put it simply, it?s a matter of women?s choices.
Many women sacrifice pay for all sorts of reasons including security, safety, flexibility, and fulfillment. Their priorities are vastly different than men?s. And when you account for that, when you compare apples to apples, when women actually make the same career choices as men, there is no gap. Men and women earn the same.
Moreover, treating women as victims, which they are not, instead of empowering them, which we should, does nothing but hold them back. It does not serve their interests one bit. And the legislation will likely do more harm than good, as is usually the case when government overreaches and overreacts to satisfy special interests.
To dispel this age-old myth once and for all, just take a quick look at the unbiased facts, objective data, and conclusions of the studies:
An in-depth, 93-page U.S. Department of Labor study came to the ?unambiguous conclusion that the differences in the compensation of men and women are the result of a multitude of factors and that the raw wage gap should not be used as the basis to justify corrective action. Indeed, there may be nothing to correct. The differences in raw wages may be almost entirely the result of the individual choices being made by both male and female workers."
Indeed, the primary reason for the wage disparity is that men choose higher-paying fields and occupations.
According to the White House report, "In 2009, only 7 percent of female professionals were employed in the relatively high paying computer and engineering fields, compared with 38 percent of male professionals." Professional women, on the other hand, were far more likely to choose careers in lower paying fields such as education and health care.
Even within the same field or category, men are more likely than women to pursue areas of specialization with higher levels of stress. Within the medical field, for example, men are far more likely to become surgeons while women tend to choose lower stress and lower paying specialties like pediatrics and dentistry.
Another major factor is that many women have different priorities than men do. They tend to value factors like job security, workplace safety, flexible hours, and work conditions much higher than they value compensation. For example, Department of Labor surveys show that men work an average of 9% more hours than women. Demanding jobs that command higher pay naturally require longer hours.
Men are also far more likely to choose careers that involve physical labor, overnight and weekend shifts, dangerous conditions, as well as uncomfortable, isolated, outdoor, and undesirable locations. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the top 10 most dangerous jobs are all male-dominated. These occupations also pay more than less dangerous and taxing careers.
All that notwithstanding, a 2010 analysis of Census Bureau data showed that young, single women who?ve never had a child actually earned 8% more than their male counterparts in most U.S. cities. The findings seem to be driven by an ongoing trend: more and more women ? now more than men, in fact ? are attending college and going on to relatively high-paying professional careers.
Now, I can probably just walk away from the keyboard and call it a day, but I won?t, and here?s why. Even though the facts are clear, I?m not going to sit here and ignore the one ginormous difference between men and women that obviously affects our choices: the baby elephant in the room.
I?m pretty sure that women still have all the babies and still do most of the child rearing and housework in America. Clearly, there are biological and societal factors that contribute to their personal career choices.
Not only that, but having been an executive in corporate America, I know that, while gender discrimination is illegal and women have cracked the glass ceiling, for whatever reason, a lot of board rooms still resemble good old boys clubs.
I?m not entirely sure who needs to do the work to change that ? the women climbing the corporate ladder, the men and women in charge of hiring and promoting them, or both ? but one thing?s for sure. That?s not a job for Congress ? or President Obama."
Read more: http://www.foxbusiness.com/business-leaders/2013/05/03/gender-pay-gap-is-myth/#ixzz2SICFqJXb
Re: Pay Gap Between Genders? Not a Result of Discrimination.
Too many things are wrong with this article in my opinion. I will try to comment more later. I have to go back to my job where I perform the same tasks as my male colleagues but only get paid .77 to their dollars...
The gender pay gap is not a myth. It does exist. Why does it exist? I think it's a mix of things but I don't think we can definitely rule out discrimination.
I believe it exists as well. I read an article around election time about white house employees. Even the females that work at the white house get paid less than their male co-workers
The 77 cent figure that is often cited is bad statistics. It just looks at top down pay and ignores a lot of factors.
I've seen one study that suggested 92 or 93 cents on the dollar is a more realistic pay gap when all other things are equal. A chunk of that is probably simply due to women not demanding raises or being as willing to bolt if they aren't being valued. And a chunk of it is probably unintentional discrimination.
I've seen those studies too (the one I saw was .91 cents, with all things being equal), but until it's closer to 99-100%, the gap will still bother me. There are also lots of studies out there that show the gap is wider for African-American women (.68 cents) and Latinas (.58 cents).
I like this article:
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1983185,00.html
While there are some decent points made in this article regarding the choices women make regarding their careers, this article fails to even address the fact that many times, women aren't completely in control of how successful they will be because their career advancement depends upon superiors and supervisors who are very often males. Lets not forget that the "Good Ol' Boys" clubs still exist, and there are many men that believe a woman's place is in the house, barefoot, with a baby on one arm and a cleaning cloth on the other. Furthermore, I have witnessed women in the work place being passed up for promotions due to the fact that they are mothers, and the company assuming that since this female employee has children, she will not be as loyal as a male employee, along with the assumption by male superiors that a woman just can't do as good of a job as men can, due to various factors (emotions, inferiority due to physical strength, mental inferiority, etc. all based on gender bias).
Before the recession, I worked in construction management. I was EXCELLENT at my job. However, some of my male coworkers assumed I needed to be making their photo copies, coffee, and answering their phones, despite the fact that our positions were equal. My superiors constantly made snide remarks about how I didn't know what I was doing, how this was "a man's territory", and how I should just "get back at that desk and aswer the phones, sweetheart".Yet, our contractors and vendors would specifically seek me out because I was less egotistic and less confrontational than my male coworkers, more organized, and a lot more willing to discuss various construction/engineering concerns without taking it as a personal attack. As far as I was concerned, we had an objective that needed to be met without the constant interruptions of pissing contests or flagrant shows of testosterone, and we needed to cooperate effectively in order to meet this objective. To make a long story short, when the recession hit, I was the first one let go because I was the "most likely to get knocked up" and leave at some point (which I had no intention of doing). In my opinion, the abrupt halt to my career was completely gender based, rather than performance based.
Over the last few years, despite all of my work experience and education, the only job I have been able to get is as an Admin. Assistant - making those copies and coffees as was always expected, and yes, I still work for a man.