According to various groups that either have an agenda
(Feminists, SJW's, Hillary Clinton, the left wing media) or don't know how to
correctly interpret statistics (all of the above) there is a huge and unfair
disparity between what men and women are paid "for the same work".
These groups will tell you that it's down to some "vast right wing
conspiracy" or "the patriarchy" or "misogyny" or some
other such nonsense and that women are discriminated against and are only paid
some percentage of a mans wage for doing the exact same job.
This is nonsense, and I'm going to explain why.
Where does the myth come from?
Simply, bad interpretations of data. The currently touted
figure is that women are paid ~77% of a mans wage for the same work. The
"for the same work" bit is complete bullshit. Anybody who tells you
"for the same work" is either lying to your face or has been taken in
by someone who was lying to theirs. As for the percentage part, that figure is
arrived at using the following method:
- Add up the total annual wages for all the women in the country,
- Divide the total above by the number of women workers in the country,
- Do the same for the men,
- Express one as a percentage of the other.
This is flawed for a number of glaringly obvious reasons.
Just some of the things it doesn't take into account include:
- People working in different fields
- People having different specialisations in the same field
- People being employed on a full time or part time basis
- People working overtime
- People receiving promotions
- Differences in qualifications
- Differences in experience
- Differences in time employed at their current job
- People taking time off work
- People negotiating wages
Now let's examine some of the above the more quantifiable
differences above. For the rest of this
post direct quotes taken from the sources will be in this colour, and my own
comments opinions or interpretations will be in italics. Statistics
quoted come from the sources linked. I've also noted some real examples of
differences in pay due to gender at the bottom, as well as a host of links to
other related articles.
Women don't negotiate their wages as much as men(sort of)
A small
study (74 participants) at Carnegie Mellon found that when volunteers told
they would be paid $3 for their time, 8 times more men than women asked for
more money. A larger group (153) was told that the payment would be negotiable
between $3 and $10, and 58% of women and 81% of men asked for more. Another
study asked masters degree graduates whether they had negotiated starting
salaries for their jobs. 12.5% of the women had compared to 51% of the men. the
negotiators managed to get an average of 7.4% more. These studies came about
because a group of female PHD students lodged a complaint that all of the male
PHD students on their course were teaching classes by themselves whereas
they(the females) were only teaching assistants. The reason for this as it turned
out was that the males had actually asked to teach whereas the females had not.
Another study from the US National Bureau of Economic
Research shows that women don't negotiate their wages as much as men do
unless it is explicitly stated that negotiating is an option, in which case
they negotiate more.
In job adverts where the wages were not explicitly
stated as being negotiable (herein T1), 31.9% of women and 46.6% of men
applied. Where the wages were explicitly stated as being negotiable (T2)
33% of women and 41.2% of men applied. More women than men prefer an
environment where they don't think they will have to negotiate their salary.
In T1, 8.2% of female applicants and 10.6% of male
applicants chose to negotiate over wages.
In T2, where the wages were explicitly stated as being
negotiable, 23.9% of female applicants and 22% of male applicants negotiated.
When the possibility of negotiation is ambiguous more men
(by about 29%) will try to negotiate, but when it is an explicit option more
women(~8.6%) will.
If we were to go by the results of the USBER study, and
assume that negotiating wages would get you a 4% better deal on average(the
7.4% for the masters graduates seems a little high for the average job), that
there is an even split between jobs advertising the possibility of negotiation
and jobs that do not, and all other things being equal, this would account for
a wage gap of 0.01%, or 0.02% if you use the 7.4% figure. If we use the
Carnegie Mellon figures for numbers of negotiators we can account for a
difference of 1.51% @4% salary increase or 2.75% @7.4% salary increase.
To get a more precise idea of how this would contribute
to the wage gap there would need to be a study of what proportion of jobs
advertise the possibility of negotiating wages, if there was a difference
between higher paid and lower paid jobs in that respect, and if people going
for higher paying jobs were more or less likely to negotiate than the average.
From my own previous experiences with job hunting in the past most adverts did
not specifically state that wages were negotiable, however that is too small
and narrow of a sample size to be of value.
Women have more sick days than men
The UK Office of National Statistics Labour
Force Survey from 2013 shows that on average women lose 2.6% of their hours
to sickness each year whereas men lose 1.6%.
Assuming this sick leave is unpaid, and all other things
being equal, the sick day difference alone accounts for a pay gap of just over
1%.
A greater percentage of women than men will take time off
work, reduce their working hours, turn down promotions or stop working entirely
for family reasons.
A Pew
Research Survey from 2013 ( a nationally representative sample of 2,002
adults, including 1,254 parents) determined the following:
42% of mothers had reduced their work hours, compared to 28%
of fathers,
39% of mothers had taken "significant" time off
work (fathers 24%),
27% of mothers had quit their job to take care of family
responsibilities (fathers 10%)
13% of mothers had turned down a promotion (fathers 10%)
As there's no way of quantifying how much mothers and
fathers had reduced their work hours by (either in real or relative terms), or
a precise definition of what constitutes a "significant" amount of
time off work, and if we assume that the parents who had left the workforce
entirely aren't included in average wage statistics, we are left with the
figures on promotions.
According to WorldatWork, in
2011 8.4% of employees received promotions and their average increase in pay as
a result of a promotion was 7.4%. If we take into account ratios of male and
female workers (69.703m women to 79.131m men), assume promotions were split
accordingly, and also assume equal hours worked and hourly pay, this alone
accounts for a wage gap of 0.02%. Again, a tiny figure, but the only one
calculable from the available data and also the smallest difference in the 4
figures above.
This CNN
article cites a study in the Harvard Business Review as stating that 40% of
women have taken time off of work compared to just 1/4 of men. It also says
that men tend to leave in order to change career or start a business (the
type of action that may result in higher earnings) but that women tend to
leave for family reasons (most likely to result in no income).
Men tend to work longer hours than women.
From the US Bureau
of Labor Statistics
"On the days they worked, employed men worked 52
minutes more than employed women. This difference partly reflects women's
greater likelihood of working part time. However, even among full-time workers
(those usually working 35 hours or more per week), men worked longer than
women—8.4 hours compared with 7.8 hours."
From the chart data, the average day for a man is 8.1 hours
whereas for a woman it is 7.3 hours. Assuming a linear relationship between
hours worked and wages paid, and assuming the same fields of work with the same
pay scales, this 0.8 hour difference alone accounts for a pay gap of just under
10% of the mans wages. This is even without taking into account overtime. It is
also worth noting however that hours worked and wages paid do not scale
linearly, and as such the difference in pay due to working time alone will be
greater than the 10% figure we've used.
Longer hours are paid disproportionately more than
shorter hours.
Harvard professor of economics Claudia Goldin talks to Freakanomics
"But, really the lion’s share of the difference is due
to the fact that in every occupation, just about, women receive less than men.
And they’re receiving less than men for a host of reasons, one of which is that
they’re not working the same amount of time. And in many occupations, working
more hours or being there when the firm wants you to be there earns you a lot
more."
"By and large, it appears that there’s just a very high
cost of temporal flexibility in certain occupations."
From page 21 of A
GRAND GENDER CONVERGENCE: ITS LAST CHAPTER, regarding MBA recipients
"Three factors explain 84 percent of the gap. Training
prior to MBA receipt, (e.g., finance courses, GPA) accounts for 24 percent.
Career interruptions and job experience account for 30 percent, and differences
in weekly hours are the remaining 30 percent. Importantly, about two-thirds of
the total penalty from job interruptions is due to taking any time out."
"Women with children work 24 percent fewer hours per
week than men or than women without children."
"MBA moms with high-earning spouses have labor force
rates that are 18.5 percentage points lower than those with lesser-earnings
spouses. They work 19 percent fewer hours per week (when working) than those
with spouses below the high-income level."
From page 26
"What, then, is the cause of the remaining pay gap?
Quite simply the gap exists because hours of work in many occupations are worth
more when given at particular moments and when the hours are more continuous.
That is, in many occupations earnings have a nonlinear relationship with
respect to hours. A flexible schedule often comes at a high price, particularly
in the corporate, financial, and legal worlds."
Essentially the more hours you work the greater your
hourly rate of pay.
Women entrepreneurs pay themselves less than men do
"When female entrepreneurs pay themselves a salary (and
they do just 41% of the time in contrast with 53% of their male peers), they
earn $60,000. Male founders write themselves much fatter paychecks–$78,000 on
average."
Although it might not be as simple as women just choosing
to pay themselves less.
"Of course there’s another element to the
entrepreneurship pay gap: on the whole women-owned firms are smaller than
men-owned operations and pull in lower revenues on average."
According to the National
Women's Business Council 36.3% of nonfarm and privately-held businesses are
owned by women. This would mean that the difference in entrepreneurs pay
(~23%, where have we seen that figure before?) when factored into the overall
picture would account for a paygap of 2.89%. However, I have doubts about the
Forbes article. Firstly, the page it links to regarding the 41%/53% and pay
rates makes no mention of those figures at all. Secondly the NWBC Fact Sheet
states that 89.5% of women owned businesses have no other employees, which if
the 41% figure is correct would mean that some 5.8 million women are working
for themselves without being paid.
Men tend to work in less desirable jobs, which also pay
more
This article on CBS
News also states that men choose to work in higher paying fields, are more
likely to work in more dangerous jobs or in uncomfortable or isolated
locations, work unsociable hours, and work in higher stress and higher paid
specializations within a given field.
The real pay gap is much lower than 23%, if it exists at
all
This article from the Huffington
Post covers a study by the American Association of University Women(AAUW)
"Graduating
to a Pay Gap". By looking at the numbers the pay gap is actually
around 6.6%. A 2009 study by the US Department of Labor "Gender
Wage Gap Final Report" also shows that when taking into account career
and family attributes the pay gap drops to between 4.8% and 7%. The AAUW study
also doesn't take into account wage negotiations (which we determined above
to account for a pay gap of between 0.1% and 2.75%), and it is overly broad
with occupational and education categories.
Individual choice is likely the reason for the difference
in pay between men and women
Gender
Wage Gap Final Report prepared by CONSAD Research Corporation for the US
Department of Labor
"Although additional research in this area is clearly
needed, this study leads 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."
Results & Conclusion
Let's put everything quantifiable above together and see
what we have with a few additional statistics.
Bureau of
Labor Statistics: The US workforce is made up of 79,131,000 men and
69,703,000 women.
Survey
of Income and Program Participation, unpublished tabulations: Estimated
mothers in the US is 85.4 million (2009)
Survey
of Income and Program Participation: Estimated fathers in the US is 70.1
million (2008)
Department
Of Labor: Labour force participation for mothers is 69.9% and fathers is
92.8%
Here is a summary of the few differences we've managed to
quantify:
Negotiating wages: 0.01% - 2.75%
Sick Days: 1%
Parents turning down promotions: 0.01%
Average working day: 10%
When you add the above you can account for a pay gap of
between 11.02% and 12.76%. If you look at them collectively (as in reality
these terms will tend to multiply together) you can account for a pay gap of
between 10.69% to 13.82%. We've managed to reduce the pay gap from 23% down to
10-13% in just one blog post. Now, I'm sure some people will argue that we've
not been able to account for that last 10-13%, but we've not taken into account
any of the following differences.
- People working in different fields
- People having different specialisations in the same field
- People receiving promotions
- Differences in qualifications
- Differences in experience
- Differences in time employed at their current job
There's also some articles linked below that have revised
the pay gap down to between 4.8% and 7%, again without accounting for all of
the factors above.
It's at this point we should also remember the burden of
proof. If someone wants to tell you that women are paid less than men because
of some gender bias then it's up to them to prove that is the cause. It is not
up to anybody to disprove a point that has not first been proven.
"That which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence" -Christopher Hitchens
"That which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence" -Christopher Hitchens
Apart from the data above, just use some common sense.
Large corporations really care very little for factors other than their bottom
line. Profits and dividends keep the shareholders happy, and when your execs
are given stock options they themselves
become shareholders. As a result, it's in their direct interest to make as much
profit as possible. With this in mind, please examine the small table below.
Current
|
Hiring an all-female workforce
|
|||||||
Company
|
Profit
|
Wages
|
% Female
|
Wages
|
Profit
|
Difference
|
%
Increase
|
|
Shell
|
2,200.00
|
12,558.00
|
30.00%
|
10,386.32
|
4,371.68
|
2,171.68
|
98.71%
|
|
Unilever
|
7,220.00
|
5,474.00
|
32.00%
|
4,549.85
|
8,144.15
|
924.15
|
12.80%
|
|
Barclays
PLC
|
2,073.00
|
4,954.00
|
48.92%
|
4,298.17
|
2,728.83
|
655.83
|
31.64%
|
|
ARM
|
414.80
|
246.70
|
17.00%
|
197.69
|
463.81
|
49.01
|
11.82%
|
|
BAE
|
1,090.00
|
5,052.00
|
20.00%
|
4,077.61
|
2,064.39
|
974.39
|
89.39%
|
|
RM
|
16.47
|
56.89
|
33.86%
|
47.51
|
25.86
|
9.39
|
56.97%
|
|
The above table is an example of a few companies showing
their profit before tax and wage bills(in millions), as well as the percentage
of their workforce that is female. On the right hand side of the table we can
see what their wage bills and profits would look like if the "women are
paid 77% of what men are paid for the same work" myth were actually true.
If the myth were true then simply by hiring all women ARM (processor
manufacturer) could increase their profitability by over 11%, Barclays by over
31%, and Shell by a whopping 98%. Does anybody really think a huge company like
Shell is going to turn down the opportunity to increase their profits by 98%?
Real gender pay gaps
There are however a few industries where pay gaps exist
solely because of gender.
Porn: articles from Alternet
and The
Daily Star both indicate that female performers are paid in the region of
60-67% more than male performers.
Modelling: Fortune reports that
female models make around 47.5% more than males, with the top highest paid
female supermodel (Gisele Bundchen) being paid almost 17 times (1700%) as much
has her male counterpart. Even the reported 10th highest earning female is paid
over 250% of the highest paid males earnings.In fact if you add up the the earnings of the top ten male and female models, the women make $105million whereas the men only bring in $7,645,000. The top 10 males in total would only place 4th on the women's list. This equates to a pay gap of 92.72% of the women's earnings, or 1,273% of the mens.
I would also be willing to wager that female strippers
and escorts out-earn males by a considerable margin but I couldn't find any
data on the subject.
Tennis doesn't have a pay gap as there is parity
between genders for prize money, however there is a `work gap` and a `skill
gap`. Men play until one competitor has won 3 sets (3-5 sets total) whereas
women only play until 2 sets(2-3 sets total) have been won. This would indicate
that women do somewhere between 40% and 100% of the work of the men for the
exact same prize money, which pro-rata equates to a wage of anything up to 250%
of that of the men(a wage gap of 150% of the mens wage). There have also been a
number of
times when men and women have competed against each other. The most recent
being at the 1998 Australian open where the Williams sisters claimed they could
beat any man outside the top 200. Karsten Braasch, at the time ranked 203,
accepted and played them back to back for a single set each. He beat Serena 6-1
then Venus 6-2. In this instance it is clear to see that women tennis players are paid the same as men for doing less work of vastly inferior quality.
Links
A few articles that point out how the gender wage gap is
a myth, a fallacy or a lie
Men tend to make education choices that relate to higher
earnings, and when controlling for several outside factors the gap drops to
between -1% and 5%
Pay statistics are invalid as they don't compare like to
like (2010)
Contrary to feminist propaganda, there is no
discrimination in science
Between the ages of 22 and 30 women earn 8% more than men
Female corporate directors are paid ~15% more than men
(2007)
Women CEOs are paid ~40% more than men, receiving 30% pay
increases while men took cuts (2010)
More than 1/3 of working dads would leave their jobs if
their spouse made enough to support the family (2007)
Equality at home happens when mothers let go (2009)
http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2009-05-04-equal-parenting_N.htm
No comments:
Post a Comment