l****z
发帖数: 29846 | 1 Now we turn from the mostly meaningless college gap to the mostly
nonexistent wage gap. It is quoted ad-nauseum that women make 75 cents for
each dollar a man makes for the exact same work (it used to be 59 cents, now
it ranges from 75 to 80). In response to this, Nancy Pelosi helped push
through congress the Fair Pay Act. (1) Furthermore, April 20th, 2010 not
only represents a day we should all get stoned out of our gourds, it’s “
Equal Pay Day.” This holiday (of sorts) symbolizes how far into 2010 a
woman would have to work to make what a man makes in 2009 alone. (2)
Obviously this is a sign of discrimination; as Jessica Valenti, founder of
Feministing.com, states rather bluntly, “the wage gap is like a big f*ck
you to women.” (3)
Unfortunately (for Jessica, fortunately for every other woman in the country
), even a faint knowledge of business or economics should immediately raise
a degree of skepticism about this dubious claim. I’ll let John Stossel ask
what should be the obvious question:
“Suppose you’re an employer doing the hiring. If a woman does equal work
for 25 percent less money, businesses would get rich just by hiring women.
Why would any employer ever hire a man?” (4)
Of course, by itself, this means nothing
Of course, by itself, this means nothing
Many people seem to believe that businessmen, (I mean businesspeople, sorry)
, care about nothing other than making money. However these same people also
seem to believe businesspeople discriminate against everyone but white,
Protestant, straight men with no handicap and well parted hair. So
apparently, businesspeople do have values other than making money: they are
racist, sexist, xenophobic, homophobic, Islamophobic, Christian
fundamentalists. Well, at least they have some principles, right?
The truth is that businesspeople discriminate in favor of the color green;
money. Market economies discriminate mightily against those who discriminate
. If it were true that men make approximately 33% more for the same work,
companies that predominantly hired women would crush companies that
predominantly hired men. Ask any business owner what would happen if he or
she could decrease his or her labor expenses 25% and he or she would tell
you he or she would soon be hiring his or her competitor’s employees (as
his or her competitor’s employees would be unemployed, because his or her
competitors got crushed).
Discrimination assuredly exists, but for such a large wage gap to be present
, there are really only four options for someone to believe: 1) There is an
all-encompassing agreement among business owners throughout the entire
country, both male and female, to discriminate against women, thereby
preventing any one business from undercutting another by hiring only women
at 75 cents on the dollar. To believe this puts you in the company of the
wildest conspiracy theorists. 2) Profits are not particularly important to a
business, so business-humans can hire based on just about anything they
want. This would make you one of the dumbest people on the planet. 3) Women
aren’t as productive as men and therefore, while doing the same job, women
provide less output (approximately 25% less) than men do. This would make
you a pretty run-of-the-mill sexist. 4) This statistic is wrong.
Before continuing on, I should note that this discussion will not deal with
discrimination that may occur with regards to hiring or promoting. Glass
ceilings and pink ghettos will not be discussed. The fallacy here is that
men and women are paid vastly different amounts for doing the exact same
work. As you will soon see, the “same work” has a very flexible definition
indeed.
What we need to recognize is that having the same job, (or the same type of
job, as these statistics are often based on), does not infer that one does
the “same work” and should be paid equally. For example, there is a much
greater demand for business professors than history professors, so business
professors will be paid more. Furthermore, the longer someone’s had a job,
the more they will usually get paid. And obviously, the more hours they put
in, the more they will get paid. And when the position is paid by commission
, any discrimination that occurs would be by the consumer, not the business-
homosapiens who employ them.
Once we recognize these things, we can start to come to grips with what is
actually happening. First, we cannot assume that men and women have the same
career aspirations in the aggregate. Second, we have to look at what
happens when men and women get married, namely, we must investigate the
marital asymmetry hypothesis.
Let’s start with the types of jobs men and women seek. As mentioned with
regards to the college gap, men and women tend to seek different
professional aims and career goals. Men are much more likely to take on
dangerous positions, as evidenced by the fact that 93% of workplace
fatalities are men. (5) Hazardous conditions usually come with hazard pay.
Men are also more likely to take jobs in uncomfortable conditions, which
brings a premium as well (if you ever watch an episode of Dirty Jobs, you’
ll quickly notice there aren’t a lot of women on the show).
Professor James T. Bennett compiled 20 major reasons for the wage gap, which
include some of the following:
Men go into technology and hard sciences more than women.
Men tend to take more stressful jobs that are not “nine-to-five.”
Men are more likely to work longer hours, and the pay gap widens for
every hour past 40 per week.
Women are nine times more likely than men to drop out of work for “
family reasons.” Less seniority leads to lower pay.
Men work more weeks per year than women.
Women place greater value on flexibility, a humane work environment, and
having time for children and family than men do. (6)
None of these things are either right or wrong, they just represent
different choices. What it does mean, though, is that we cannot say women
are paid less for doing the same work when men typically work longer, less
flexible hours in more dangerous and uncomfortable positions. Warren Farrell
’s calculations highlight the difference between the average hours worked,
concluding that men who work full time work an average of 44 hours per week,
while women who work full time average 41 hours per week. This represents a
bigger difference than you’d immediately think, as a person who works 44
hours a week makes approximately 100% more than someone who works 34 hours a
week. Warren Farrell concludes that this accounts for 70% of the wage gap
in and of itself. (7)
Furthermore, some of the explanations Professor Bennett discusses represent
the single biggest difference between the genders when it comes to wages:
marital asymmetry. In other words, marriage tends to increase a man’s
earning potential and reduce a woman’s earning potential. Regardless of
whether it’s right or wrong, women typically take up more responsibilities
at home than men do. Since women usually spend more time at home, they have
less time to work, and thereby their earning potential is reduced. Since men
have many of their domestic responsibilities taken care of for them, they
have more time to work and thereby their earning potential increases.
Economist Thomas Sowell elaborates:
“Not all domestic responsibilities can be shared equally, such as having
babies, which is not an inconsequential thing since the existence of the
human race depends on it. What it means is that women make choices that make
a lot of sense for them. For example, the choice of occupations… women
tend not to go into occupations in which there’s a very high rate of
obsolescence. If you’re a computer engineer and you take five years out to
have a child and [raise him] until the age you can put him in daycare, well
my gosh, the world has changed. You’d have to start way, way back. On the
other hand, if you become a librarian, a teacher or other occupations like
that, you can take your five years off and then come back pretty much where
you left off.” (8)
CS = Computer Science
CS stands for Computer Science
While more women go to college than men, women typically go into fields that
have less earning potential. In 2005, women received more than 60% of the
doctorates in education, but less than 20% of the doctorates in engineering
(9). Men are over-represented, proportionally, in business, finance,
accounting, engineering, computer science and medicine, the fields with the
highest earning potential. Denise Venable, of the National Center for Policy
Analysis, further proves this point showing that, “in general, married
women would prefer part-time work at a rate of 5 to 1 over married men.” (
10) Additionally, women over 25 years of age have held their current job for
an average of 4.4 years vs. 5 years for men and pay raises come with
seniority (11). This makes sense when we look at it in terms of the marital
asymmetry hypothesis. And again, a higher earning potential doesn’t mean
better, it’s simply means different. A career in education is likely more
interesting, fulfilling and flexible than a career in finance, but it comes
with less money. It’s all about the trade-offs folks.
never married
Women who work between 1-34 hours earn more than men
The marital asymmetry hypothesis and specifically, child rearing, seems to
be of huge importance here. And luckily, there is an easy way to test the
importance of it; namely compare the wages of never-married women to that of
never-married men. In 1982, never-married women earned 91% of what never-
married men did. (12) In 1971, never-married-women in their thirties earned
slightly more than never-married men (13). Today, among men and women living
alone from the age of 21-35, there is no wage gap. (14) Among college-
educated men and women between 40 and 64 who have never married, men made an
average of $40,000 a year and women made an average of $47,000! (15)
This should pretty much end any question about whether or not the wage gap
exists. Certainly there is discrimination, but it’s not as simple as
comparing gross wages. If we do that, we’d have to come to some very
strange conclusions. For example, Asian Americans make more money than white
Americans do on average (16); do business-mammals-with-the capacity-for-
higher-cognitive-abilities discriminate against white people in favor of
Asians? Since 1960, and continuing through today, black women with a college
degree earn more than white women with a college degree. In 1970, black
women who had graduated college earned 125% of what white women who had
graduated college earned. (17) Would anyone like to stand-up and make the
argument that employers discriminate against white women in favor of black
women? I didn’t think so.
So let’s just go one step further and get all controversial: should men and
women be paid equally across the board? The answer is more complex than one
would expect. People, in general, should be paid as individuals, so however
productive an individual is should determine his or her pay. Therefore, in
jobs where men typically have an advantage, say jobs requiring physical
strength, odds are the average man will be more productive in that
profession than the average women, and therefore should typically get paid
more regardless of the other factors mentioned above. In jobs where women
have a natural advantage, say jobs requiring an excellent memory (yes, much
to the chagrin of every straight man in the history of the world, the ladies
typically have a better memory, if this bothers any guys out there, worry
not, you’ll probably forget about it fairly soon) (18), women will
typically be more productive and should therefore get paid more. However,
this only applies when discussing aggregates. The differences within each
gender are far greater than the differences between the genders. Everyone
should be paid based on their individual productivity. It simply means we
have to be very careful when we are interpreting wage data.
Finally, let’s get one last thing straight, which should be completely
obvious, but apparently isn’t: being a stay-at-home mother, or father for
that matter, is morally neutral. It all depends on what the individual wants
. If a woman gains fulfillment from raising her kids, taking care of the
home and perhaps having a part-time job or being involved in her community
in another way, than staying at home is what she should do. If, on the other
hand, she would prefer a career, then there is a problem. Same goes for
career woman who would prefer to stay at home with the kids. And the same
thing applies for men as well.
Certainly there are other issues that come into play, mostly financial, and
every relationship requires some give and take, but the general principle
holds throughout. I find it ironic that liberals, who often decry
materialism, tend to judge equality based solely upon materialism (in this
case, wages). Take your standard family unit: father, mother and 2.3 kids.
There are a host of tasks that need to be completed, some family members
bring in an income and others do not. This in no way infers that one type of
work is superior to the other, since both types need to be completed. Now,
I’m not a big fan of strict gender roles because it’s collectivist
thinking; it’s gender socialism. But still, however these tasks are delved
up is morally neutral (assuming it’s a similar amount of work), it all
depends on the individuals involved. And we shouldn’t be denigrating the
work that doesn’t come with a dollar sign attached to it.
Unfortunately, that’s what we’re implicitly doing when we see the wage gap
for what it is: a comparison of apples and oranges. Certainly
discrimination exists, but the market grinds away at it with ruthless
tenacity. The concept that women earn 75 cents on the dollar is simply a
bogus statistic that simultaneously denigrates work done at home and implies
the need for some very nonsensical policies. |
|
