I've ranted about this once, and 2 years later the same lie is still making the rounds.
Every year the UK government, and probably other places
besides, publishes a new set of work statistics. One statistic in particular is
often singled out by certain media outlets and organisations intent on pushing
an agenda and that is the statistic referred to as the gender pay gap. It’s sometimes
framed as “women earn only __pence/cents for every pound/dollar a man earns for
the same work”, which is not what the statistic means at all.
What does this statistic mean?
In November 2016 the Government Equalities Office posted this article,
citing the Gender pay gap at 18%, and stating their intention to eliminate the
gap within a generation (this is equality of outcome, and I’ll explain why this
is an extraordinarily bad and completely unworkable idea for everyone involved some
other time). Under the heading “What is
the Gender Pay Gap?” it gives the answer “The gender pay gap is an equality measure that shows the difference in
average earnings between women and men.” It also states that “The gender pay gap does not show
differences in pay for comparable jobs. Unequal pay for men and women has been
illegal for 45 years.” which is a part that the media outlets and
organisations talked about previously often neglect to mention.
In the US the American Association of University Women
(AAUW) cites the gender pay gap in 2016
as being 20%.
Does the gap prove sexism against
women?
No, and anybody who tells you it does without providing
actual evidence from unbiased sources to back that up is either deliberately misleading you or does not know
what they’re talking about.
Kinda like this:
But more this:
To understand why this is, we need to talk about how that
statistic of 18% is arrived at. The basic maths is as follows:
- Add up the earnings of all the working men, and divide by the number of working men. This is the average man’s earnings.
- Add up the earnings of all the working women, and divide by the number of working women. This is the average woman’s earnings.
- Express the average woman’s earnings as a percentage of the average man’s earnings.
- Take the above percentage away from 100. This is the pay gap.
Example:
Let’s pretend the average earning for men is £25,000 per
year, and for women it is £20,500.
20,500 / 25,000 x 100 = 82%
100% - 82% = 18%
Are you sure this doesn’t prove
sexism? It kind of looks like it does.
Absolutely positive.
OK, if men on average earn more than
women, how is it not sexism?
Because the statistic is not comparing like for like. Despite
what you may have been told
elsewhere, men and women are not the same and they make different choices as a
result. At least some of these differences are entirely biological and have nothing
whatsoever to do with social conditioning.
Women for example tend to be more interested in people and
men more interested in things. Girls and women make better eye contact than
same-aged men and boys, and are better at inferring emotions from facial
expressions. A study
performed on babies (average age less than 2 days) showed that the males
preferred looking at a mobile where the girls preferred looking at a face. CNN
has a piece on some differences
between baby boys and girls. By studying the behaviour of babies at such a young age you completely rule out the effects of any social conditioning, therefore any differences observed must be biological. There are differences present in adults too. Grown men even have difficulty telling
babies apart. Studies have also shown that women are higher
in Neuroticism (being prone to psychological stress), and Agreeableness
(compassion and cooperation), and that although these differences are
present across cultures they more pronounced in more egalitarian societies. In
other words, when left to their own devices men and women will make choices
that accentuate the differences between them. Men and women, broadly speaking, simply do not want to do the same things. As a result, women and men make different choices when it
comes to employment.
For example:
Women choose
different fields of education and employment
Christina Hoff Sommers (aka, The Factual Feminist) has
written many articles debunking the pay gap, one example being this
article on The Daily Beast. Herein, she cites a Georgetown University
Center on Education and the Workforce study listing the 10 most and least
well-paying college majors.
10 highest paying college majors
1. Petroleum
Engineering: 87% male (median earnings ~$120,000)
2. Pharmacy
Pharmaceutical Sciences and Administration: 48% male
3.
Mathematics and Computer Science: 67% male
4. Aerospace
Engineering: 88% male
5. Chemical
Engineering: 72% male
6.
Electrical Engineering: 89% male
7. Naval
Architecture and Marine Engineering: 97% male
8.
Mechanical Engineering: 90% male
9.
Metallurgical Engineering: 83% male (~$80,000)
10. Mining
and Mineral Engineering: 90% male
10 lowest paying college majors
1.
Counselling Psychology: 74% female
2. Early
Childhood Education: 97% female (~$36,000)
3. Theology
and Religious Vocations: 34% female
4. Human
Services and Community Organization: 81% female
5. Social
Work: 88% female (~$39,000)
6. Drama and
Theater Arts: 60% female
7. Studio
Arts: 66% female
8.
Communication Disorders Sciences and Services: 94% female
9. Visual
and Performing Arts: 77% female
10. Health
and Medical Preparatory Programs: 55% female
As you can see, 9/10 of the highest paying majors are
majority male, whereas 9/10 of the lowest paying majors are majority female.
This paper
from the German Institute for the Study of Labour found that degree choice
alone would account for a pay gap of between 2 and 4%.
Even inside work fields (eg, medicine) there are different
jobs with different pay rates. Looking at the US Bureau of Labour Statistics
data for Labor Force Statistics
in 2017 and their data for median pay in the same field
you would expect a pay gap of around 41% based purely on job choices within
medicine. If you look at the field of dentistry alone the expected pay gap is
greater than 50%. Moving away from medicine and looking at the Legal profession you would
also expect a pay gap of 23%, even without factoring in data for “miscellaneous
legal support workers” (80% female) as I could find no average earnings data.
But research has found that when
women move into male dominated fields the pay goes down, and when men move into
female dominated fields they pay goes up. That must be sexism, right?
Not necessarily, and I’ve not seen any study that attempts
to back up that assertion with research. There are other factors you need to
take into account, such as:
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%)
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.
I’ve created this table using data available from the US Bureau
of Labor Statistics regarding hours worked in 2016, and
the split between full time and
part time workers in 2017.
Employed
(x1000)
|
Average hours of work
|
Total
|
|
Men,
All*
|
81,402
|
8.03
|
653,949.48
|
Men,
Full Time
|
71,571
|
8.35
|
597,617.85
|
Men,
Part Time
|
9,831
|
5.73
|
56,331.63
|
Women,
All*
|
71,935
|
7.18
|
516,264.32
|
Women,
Full Time
|
54,396
|
7.84
|
426,464.64
|
Women,
Part Time
|
17,539
|
5.12
|
89,799.68
|
*This row calculated using the data in the 2 rows beneath it
Using just the raw data in the table above, we can expect a
pay gap in the US of 10.66%.
Let’s assume that full time is 40 hours per week (8 hours
per day), and that overtime is paid at time and a half. This means that for the
average woman in full time work, she works 39.2 hours at her normal rate and does
no overtime. The average full time man however works 40 hours at his normal
rate and 1.75 hours at his overtime rate, giving him 42.625 hours pay. When you
add in the figures for people working part time (and assuming no overtime for
those) the expected pay gap climbs to 12.34%. If we change the overtime
boundary to anything over 35 hours per week, then the expected pay gap would be
13.13%.
The UK has slightly different figures from the ONS,
that I have summarised in this table.
*Effective Hours: Basic hours + overtime hours with overtime hours counted as being worth 1.5 basic hours.
Employees (x1000)
|
Mean Basic Hours
|
Mean Overtime
|
Effective Hours*
|
Total
|
|
Men,
All
|
13,257
|
37.73
|
500,170.9
|
||
Men,
Full Time
|
11,405
|
38.8
|
1.4
|
40.9
|
466,464.5
|
Men,
Part Time
|
1,852
|
16.7
|
1
|
18.2
|
33,706.4
|
Women,
All
|
12,984
|
29.69
|
385,485.3
|
||
Women,
Full Time
|
7,490
|
37
|
0.5
|
37.75
|
282,747.5
|
Women,
Part Time
|
5,494
|
17.8
|
0.6
|
18.7
|
102,737.8
|
*Effective Hours: Basic hours + overtime hours with overtime hours counted as being worth 1.5 basic hours.
Using just the hours worked in an average week for full/part
time men and women in the UK, you would expect a pay gap of 20.61%. If you
factor in overtime being paid at time and a half (1.5x) then the expected pay
gap climbs to 21.31%.
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%) 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 in the US are
working for themselves without being paid.
Men are more likely 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.
This is backed up by the statistics regarding workplace
accidents. According to the UK Health and Safety Executive, women account for 38% of non-fatal
injuries at work, and less than 3% of
fatal injuries, despite making up around 47% of the UK workforce.
Women don't negotiate their wages as much as men unless
specifically told they can
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.
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%), it is overly broad with occupational and education categories,
and often does not appear to control for other factors such as hours worked or
time off sick. When displaying earnings by hours worked it doesn’t take into
account different occupations and makes no attempt to quantify the amount of
difference as a result of each factor, it just states that the factors have
been controlled for and did not explain the whole gap.
Research tends to support the idea that 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."
That was a lot to take in. What’s the
TLDR?
The pay gap of 18-20% can be accounted for by any number of
factors:
·
Women making different education choices: 2-4%
·
Women choosing different fields of work
·
Women choosing different jobs within the same
field: could be any percentage
·
Women taking more days off sick: >1%
·
Women working fewer hours on average: 20.61 –
21.31% in the UK
·
Women business owners pay themselves less than
men do
·
Women are less likely to work in dangerous or
unpleasant jobs
·
Women negotiate wages less often unless
specifically told they can: up to 2.75%
·
Women being more likely to take “significant”
time off, or leave work entirely, for family reasons
As you can see, the few factors you can quantify from the
readily available data are more than sufficient to account for the gender pay
gap.
But I read somewhere that women don’t
get promoted as often. Isn’t that sexism?
It might be but it might also be down to the factors listed
above.
Let’s look at the averages. You have 2 candidates for a
promotion. One of them is always the last person to leave at night, has few
days off sick, and doesn’t mind working in less than pleasant surroundings. The
other leaves earlier, is sick more often, and likes their air conditioned
office. Which one are you going to promote?
Even when women are offered promotions, mothers are 30% more
likely than fathers to turn it down.
When women move into male dominated
fields the pay drops. When men move into female dominated fields it increases.
Can you explain that?
Yes, for pretty much the same reasons outlined above. Women
tend to work shorter hours and have more time off sick. This means that the
average hours worked goes down, and so does the average annual pay. The
opposite happens for men moving into female-dominated fields. That’s probably not the whole reason, but
experience, promotions, specialisations, negotiating for pay, etc all adds up.
So there’s no sexism against women?
It’s not possible to prove a negative, but there’s no data
to support the idea that women are paid less than men just because they’re
women. The pay gap can be more than adequately explained by the factors outlined above.
If someone tells you that something is true, then it's up to them to prove it with valid statistics from credible sources and not try to shift the burden of proof for someone else to prove that it is not true.
Additional Links
A few articles that point out how the gender wage gap is a myth, a
fallacy or a lie
This Institute of Economic Affairs paper
states that the “equal pay day” calculation is “fundamentally misleading”.
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)
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