What feminist don't want you to know
The Myth
The "wage gap" is defined as women earn 77 cents for every dollar a man earns for the same work. This has been used by political campaigns [1] as well as by feminist. The Equal Pay Act was signed into law in 1963 which makes discrimination based on gender illegal. This claim has been addressed and debunked for the last 30 years. In 1981 there was a debate between Thomas Sowell and Harriet Pilpel where Mrs. Pilpel claimed that employers discriminated against women and minorities. In fact, when you control for age and experience blacks and women actually make more than their white coworkers. [2]
Census Data
This claim is based on a correlation equals causation analysis of data contained in a report done the Census Bureau in 2010. [3] The source report doesn't make the "wage gap" claim. It compares the average and median incomes of all men and women without accounting for choices made by the individuals. This comparison gives us the .77 cent (or 77%) difference between the genders. It is not possible to determine the cause from the Census Bureau report because the data needed to make such a judgement was not included. The proponents of the "wage gap" merely assert the cause without providing the evidence that it is true. In fact, most people who claim the "wage gap" don't link to the source of the figure. They simply link to a blog or a website making the unsourced claim.
Simply put, the claim is a misrepresentation of the Census Bureau statistics. The larger implication of the "wage gap" is if everything were equal, then a doctor would earn the same as the janitor that cleans the office. If janitors were paid the same as doctors then why would anyone bother with the years of school required to be a doctor? It should be obvious to everyone that such an arrangement is not practical.
AAUW
The American Association of University Women (AAUW) did a study called "Graduating to a pay gap" initially claims a gap of 82%, but buried in the report (page 20) they claim the gap is 93% after controlling for some of the variables. [4] The authors of the AAUW study have asserted the 7 cents was due to discrimination by gender without demonstrating it. It's impossible for the AAUW study to make such an assessment because it didn't examine male and female workers in the same field. Their job classifications were too generalized where comparisons are made of male lawyers with that of female librarians. It's likely that the remaining 7% in their report was do to problems with their methodology.
Reality
A study done by the US Department of Labor in 2009 (CONSAD) showed any gap between genders "may be almost entirely the result of individual choices being made by both male and female workers." [5] The CONSAD report showed an unexplained gap of 4.8 to 7 cents. The report didn't address the remaining 4.8 to 7 cents because they didn't have the necessary data to perform further evaluations.
A Stanford study shows the wage gap to about 91% (favoring men) [6]. However, the author also notes the 9% could be explain by women typically work less hours at jobs with generous family policies. This means the any gap is explained by choices of the person.
Comparison
The only way to determine if wage discrimination exists is by comparing the genders in the same job with the same experience and work ethic. If the gap existed then companies would save money by hiring women thus become more competitive. If that were the case then unemployment rates for men would sky rocket as companies replaced their male workforce with females.
The difference in pay is a result of choices made by the person. This is explained in detail by authors like Warren Farrell. [7] The biggest factor in pay difference is the choice of career and amount of hours worked. Currently, only about 55% of women (75% men) are employed or participate in the work force. [8] Women mostly choose careers involving interaction with people. This is why women avoid careers in the science, engineering, and technology fields (STEM) where a person may spend hours crunching numbers or working with equipment. The occupation women prefer has not changed significantly over time and is nearly identical to the 1950's. [9]
Men more often choose careers that are dangerous or physically demanding thus paying more. Men are the majority of all infrastructure jobs that keep civilization running like electrical engineers, waste operators, power line installers, etc. [10]
Equality
It seems more like the "wage gap" proponents are comparing all women against the top 1% of men while ignoring the top 1% of women. If the goal is to achieve perfect equality then why are proponents only demanding equality in specific jobs such as corporate board rooms and STEM fields? No one mentions quotas in highly dangerous jobs like mining and logging. A push for equality would demand pushes for equal pay and quotas in jobs where men are the minority. Men are often the minority in jobs such as nursing, day care, and teaching.
A few men occupy the top 1% of our society and most women are found in the middle social classes. "Wage gap" proponents simply ignore that men occupy most of the bottom of our society too. Men are 92% of industrial accident deaths. [11] Men make up 97% of the military casualties [12] and 80% of all suicides. [13] Men are given five times longer jail sentences when compared to women who commit the same crime. [14] Finally, 76% of homeless people are male. [15]
Topics
"What feminist don't want you to know"Further Reading
Sources:
- http://www.whitehouse.gov/issues/equal-pay#top
- http://youtu.be/DUpgoayBPJc
- http://www.census.gov/prod/2011pubs/p60-239.pdf
- http://www.aauw.org/files/2013/02/graduating-to-a-pay-gap-the-earnings-of-women-and-men-one-year-after-college-graduation.pdf
- http://www.consad.com/content/reports/Gender%20Wage%20Gap%20Final%20Report.pdf
- http://www.stanford.edu/group/scspi/_media/pdf/key_issues/gender_research.pdf
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cb_6v-JQ13Q&list=PLeQE9bYJdMi_HU07FmawDYPan9lGHHq3v
- http://economics.mit.edu/files/8754
- http://www.dol.gov/wb/factsheets/20lead2009.htm
- http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2012/tables/12s0616.pdf
- http://www.bls.gov/iif/oshwc/cfoi/cfch0011.pdf
- http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/RS22452.pdf
- http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6217a1.htm?s_cid=mm6217a1_w#tab1
- http://www.terry.uga.edu/~mustard/sentencing
- http://www.nationalhomeless.org/factsheets/who.html
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