Dr. Warren Farrell on the gender pay gap

[phil19034]

The flip side of this discussion is that people have to accept the fact that motherhood (and especially young motherhood) is economically very expensive to women.

Becoming a mother nukes a woman’s earning potential by interrupting and slowing her educational and/or employment progress, suppressing the number of hours she can work (let alone the number of hours that she wants to work), decreasing the amount of energy available for paid work, as well as making work itself more expensive (childcare is an additional overhead expense).

The end result of this is that women have higher poverty rats.

The Straight Facts on Women in Poverty - Center for American Progress

“Poverty rates are higher for women than men. In 2007,13.8 percent of females were poor compared to 11.1 percent of men.”

“Women are poorer than men in all racial and ethnic groups. Recent data shows that 26.5 percent of African American women are poor compared to 22.3 percent of African American men; 23.6 percent of Hispanic women are poor compared to 19.6 percent of Hispanic men; 10.7 percent of Asian women are poor compared to 9.7 percent of Asian men; and 11.6 percent of white women are poor compared to 9.4 percent of white men.”

“Only a quarter of all adult women (age 18 and older) with incomes below the poverty line are single mothers. Over half of all poor adult women—54 percent—are single with no dependent children.”

“Elderly women are far more likely to be poor than elderly men. Thirteen percent of women over 75 years old are poor compared to 6 percent of men.”

“Poverty rates for males and females are the same throughout childhood, but increase for women during their childbearing years and again in old age. The poverty gap between women and men widens significantly between ages 18 and 24—20.6 percent of women are poor at that age, compared to 14.0 percent of men. The gap narrows, but never closes, throughout adult life, and it more than doubles during the elderly years.”

Some things in that article are true & others are quite exaggerated. Access to higher paying jobs for example: count how many women are associates at law firms today vs men. My firm has far more female associates than male associates. And the number of women becoming partners grows each year. There is really no such thing as male dominated careers anymore outside of sports & construction.

Law schools & medical schools have far more women than men today. Also, most colleges have more women than men studying for an undergrad degree.

In my own family, my sister-in-law makes far more money than my brother (who has a finance degree). Yet, she’s the 1 woman who works on my side of the family: my mother never really worked, my wife, 2 sisters, and my other sister-in-law are all stay at home moms. So out of 6 women in my family only 1 works. If I include my wife’s family, my mother-in-law didn’t work when my wife & sister-in-law were young, & my sister-in-law is a doctor (& single).

So only 3 out of 8 worked. If I include my 2 grandmothers 5 out of 10 worked (yes, both of my grandmothers were teachers).

 

[Xantippe]

Some things in that article are true & others are quite exaggerated. Access to higher paying jobs for example: count how many women are associates at law firms today vs men. My firm has far more female associates than male associates. And the number of women becoming partners grows each year. There is really no such thing as male dominated careers anymore outside of sports & construction.

Presumably, there’s a lot of variation in pay (both among men and women), but that parenthood hurts women’s earnings whereas it doesn’t hurt men’s earnings. Obviously, there are more opportunities than there used to be, but a lot of them don’t combine well with motherhood (like the law firm jobs, come to think of it).

The gender pay gap

“Women outnumber men in positions with lower salaries and little chance of promotion.”

“Nearly 70% of working women in the EU are in occupations where at least 60% of workers are female. The top four jobs done by American women—teacher, nurse, secretary and health aide—are all at least 80% female.”

“Data from Britain show that the age at which women’s pay starts to fall behind men’s tracks the age at which they typically have their first child (see chart). Claudia Goldin of Harvard University has found a similar pattern for college-educated American women.”

“A survey earlier this year of America, Australia, Britain, France, Germany and Scandinavian countries by The Economist and YouGov, a pollster, gauged how children affected working hours. Of women with children at home, 44-75% had scaled back after becoming mothers, by working fewer hours or switching to a less demanding job, such as one requiring less travel or overtime. Only 13-37% of fathers said they had done so, of whom more than half said their partner had also scaled back.”

“A recent American study put the motherhood penalty—the average by which women’s future wages fall—at 4% per child, and 10% for the highest-earning, most skilled white women. A British mother’s wages fall by 2% for each year she is out of the workforce, and by 4% if she has good school-leaving qualifications.”

“Often, the high cost of child care makes the decision to leave work a forced one. In America full-time child care costs 85% of the median rent. And even where it is subsidised, mothers often go part-time because the school day ends long before the working one. But part-time jobs are usually a career dead-end.”

 

[ATraveller]

In places that are the most ‘gender equal’ in the world that overall gap still exists. Motherhood does affect promotions and etc. Even with paternity leave to encourage men to leave work (which is most likely beneficial), that gap still doesn’t close. The solution, if one exists, isn’t addressing whatever the media is hyping. Also, substantially more men do dangerous jobs and that danger means bigger compensation.
Sexism relating to pay and promotions does exist in some companies but is it as rampant as some are claiming? I don’t think it is and the data doesn’t show it. No good comes out of blowing things out of proportion.

 

[blackforest]

Um, we already do both. Lots of that sweat-of-the-brow stuff. At home or in the workforce.

I’m a stay-at-home mom. The folded laundry, bathed children, clean dishes, mopped floors, and home-cooked meals don’t happen by osmosis.

 

[blackforest]

LOL! There’s this trend on the Internet of declaring an argument victorious before anyone’s had a chance to refute it. “Warren Farrell ends . . . the debate!”

Yea, no. Not quite. I listened to yours. Now you read mine. https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entr...yth-and-heres-why_us_5703cb8de4b0a06d5806e03f

 

[Theo520]

Your article doesn’t add much, it says:

• women are forced into lower paying career fields
• there are examples that aren’t explained away

It supports the need for continued vigilance, not that the 73% meme is real. The fix isn’t legal,it’s about

• accepting the motherhood impact, and that men are more suited to Construction, etc.
• encouraging STEM jobs for women
• organization focus on senior opportunities for women

What really highlights the gross bias of the writer is that she used pay to athletes as an example, how male soccer players get significantly more money. Professional sports athletes produce viewers, which generates the income for the team. Women can’t play at the same level as men otherwise there would be more women on men’s teams. women leagues don’t attract the same viewers so they don’t generate the same level of income. the owners can’t provide equal pay. A very lame example that shows the sloppy thinking of the argument.

 

[Xantippe]

Um, we already do both. Lots of that sweat-of-the-brow stuff. At home or in the workforce.

I’m a stay-at-home mom. The folded laundry, bathed children, clean dishes, mopped floors, and home-cooked meals don’t happen by osmosis.

This is actually very noticeable in a white collar husband/SAHM household. Mom’s work (especially when kids are little) is unmistakably blue collar work.

 

[Xantippe]

encouraging STEM jobs for women

[pulling out my soap box]

If you walk into any health care establishment, you will see an entire floor of predominantly skilled, well-paid female workers: nurses, physician’s assistants, pediatricians, OB/GYNs, x-ray technicians, phlebotomists, dental hygienists, etc. (I just looked up salaries for dental hygienists–OH MY GOODNESS!)

The STEM push for women ignores the fact that healthcare is largely STEM and predominantly female, as well as the fact that a lot of more conventional STEM jobs (like engineering) are more likely to heavily punish employment gaps. One of the articles that I was looking at says that there’s a huge amount of attrition of women from STEM jobs. That’s a likely reason for the continuing popularity of traditional “women’s careers” in areas like healthcare and education–they are both reasonably well-paid, as well as more tolerant of work gaps. Also, nursing offers the opportunity to work full-time in just three days a week, which is very attractive to many families.

Edited to add: A blogger I read says that healthcare and education are the contemporary version of “good factory jobs”–steady jobs with reasonable hours and good benefits.

 

[Xantippe]

Also, substantially more men do dangerous jobs and that danger means bigger compensation.

Unfortunately, part of the difficulty and danger of certain jobs comes not from the tasks themselves, but the people one deals with.

For example, one of the online personalities I’ve dealt with is a female electrician who thinks that more women should go into the trades. However, she tells hair-raising stories of sexual harassment on her job sites–stuff I would NEVER tolerate for myself or want for my daughters. (Also, I couldn’t help but notice that she has only 1.0 kids.) Likewise, one of my colleagues from my Peace Corps days in Russia wound up working in an isolated and nearly completely male blue collar environment at her site (logging? oil?)–from what she said, it sounded like a very uncomfortable and potentially unsafe working environment for a lone woman.

A lot of jobs or side-jobs are potentially much more dangerous for women–the range of unpleasant possibilities is bigger. Like, for example, how often do you see women driving Uber or delivering pizzas? It’s not that women can’t do the work itself, it’s just that prudence suggests that the extra money isn’t worth the extra personal risk.

 

[signit]

Your article doesn’t add much, it says:

• women are forced into lower paying career fields
• there are examples that aren’t explained away

It supports the need for continued vigilance, not that 73% meme is real. The fix isn’t legal,it’s about

• accepting the motherhood impact, and that men are more suited to Construction, etc.
• encouraging STEM jobs for women
• organization focus on senior opportunities for women

What really highlights the gross bias of the writer is that she used pay to athletes as an example, how male soccer players get significantly more money. Professional sports athletes produce viewers, which generates the income for the team. Women can’t play at the same level as men otherwise there would be more women on men’s teams. women leagues don’t attract the same viewers so they don’t generate the same level of income. the owners can’t provide equal pay. A very lame example that shows the sloppy thinking of the argument.

That’s exactly right.

Regarding the “motherhood impact,” that still doesn’t prove that there’s not “equal pay” for “equal work” for women. If there is a gap from that, it’s based on status as a parent and not gender per se. If someone takes time off to stay home with the kids (which I totally support) it’s not really “equal work” compared to the man or woman who doesn’t do that.

 

[JimG]

It’s true that there is a parenthood penalty which comes with staying home to care for the kids, because the parenthood work is unpaid. Hiring a housekeeper and nanny to do the equivalent work would be quite expensive.

It’s a lost cause now, but back when the encyclical “Rerum Novarum” was written, it proposed that employers pay a “living wage” for just that reason—a wage sufficient to support a family. It did not envision two working parents. Even when I took my first job many decades ago, the employer paid married men more than single men for the same job, because, he explained, “they have a family to support.” That’s now illegal, so the idea of a living wage for families is dead. But some things could be done—for example, substantially increasing the tax exemption for each dependent.

 

[stinkcat_14]

But some things could be done—for example, substantially increasing the tax exemption for each dependent.

Or people could also just lower their expectations. For example: does every child need his own bedroom, do families need more than one car, do families need 2000 channels. People who say its impossible to live on one income today aren’t trying to live like my grandparents did.

 

[signit]

It’s a lost cause now, but back when the encyclical “Rerum Novarum” was written, it proposed that employers pay a “living wage” for just that reason—a wage sufficient to support a family. It did not envision two working parents. Even when I took my first job many decades ago, the employer paid married men more than single men for the same job, because, he explained, “they have a family to support.” That’s now illegal, so the idea of a living wage for families is dead. But some things could be done—for example, substantially increasing the tax exemption for each dependent.

This is interesting, paying a married man more than a single man for the same job.

The linchpin of my argument in the earlier thread, and as some others noted in this thread, is that employers would have no incentive to pay a man more than a woman for the same work.

I was under the impression back in business school that employers might perceive a married man a better potential employee than a single man (and thus pay him more) because they might think a married man might take the job more seriously as he has a wife and possibly children to support.

Great article suggesting some of the reasons why married men earn more even after controlling for other variables:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...r-and-make-more-money/?utm_term=.1291ea4b8b38

 

[JimG]

That’s an interesting article. It seems that employers prefer married men with children.

“Men who get married work harder and more strategically, and earn more money than their single peers from similar backgrounds. Marriage also transforms men’s social worlds; they spend less time with friends and more time with family; they also go to bars less and to church more. In the provocative words of Nobel Laureate George Akerlof, men “settle down when they get married; if they fail to get married they fail to settle down.””

 

[Edmundus1581]

That’s an interesting article. It seems that employers prefer married men with children.

“Men who get married work harder and more strategically, and earn more money than their single peers from similar backgrounds. Marriage also transforms men’s social worlds; they spend less time with friends and more time with family; they also go to bars less and to church more. In the provocative words of Nobel Laureate George Akerlof, men “settle down when they get married; if they fail to get married they fail to settle down.””

I’m sure that it was true in the distant past (say 1960’s), where you could expect that the married man was both working hard to support his family and that the wife, whether SAHM or in the workforce, was, in turn, supporting him.

These days I’d expect that the married man is being harangued by a demanding wife and being driven to earn more and more to meet her expensive demands, for herself and the children, while she is both not supporting him and also demanding equal contribution to the housework and child raising. If she’s in the workforce then it only adds to the load on him because she’s spending more than she’s earning while imagining that she’s “contributing” and it’s she who needs his support. He has trouble working overtime because she’s complaining about being left at home by herself, and he’s even worrying about her seeing another man. He is also likely to, at some point, be either driven to submission by her, or abandoned - both of which will crush him psychologically and render him nearly useless at work and a basket case for the employer.

Obviously not every one will fit this description, but as a demographic average I’d consider it when employing a married man.

I haven’t read the article itself. If it has current statistics which contradict my point of view then I’d be quite happy to be corrected. My scenario describes both what happened to myself, and what I’ve seen happen to other men, almost word for word. Perhaps see it as the “risk” in employing a married man, rather than the most likely outcome.

 

[Edmundus1581]

Back to Warren Farrrell.

Even more interesting than the fact that the “gender pay gap” is a myth is to ask: Where did this myth come from, and why is still being repeated years after it was refuted? How could Barack Obama say, in 2012, that “Women (are) paid 77 cents on the dollar for doing the same work as men”, and get away with it? How can it be repeated in government and industry funded programs? (This happens in Australia, - gov and industry - not sure about the US).

I am reminded of the old saying: “A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.” [Mark Twain]

One rule I’ve learned in life is that when any individual or group invent a lie and push it, and keep pushing it after it’s been refuted, then not only are they not up to any good, but they are likely to be doing evil and must be approached as very dangerous. I learned that in entirely different circumstances, btw, and several times over (in multiple different circumstances) and long before these particular issues became important to me.

Also, the most dangerous lies are those which have some fragment of truth in them.

 

[Kei]

There are some very good reasons for some pay discrepancy. Let me explain, put down your pitchforks.

First of all, if you try to get a figure by averaging all the pay of everyone on one side and everyone on the other, of course you get numbers that are not equal. You have to take into account the field, the hours worked, the position, etc.

Next, understand that there are legitimate differences between men and women. Physically, a man is in general stronger and thus can do certain kinds of work for longer than most women can. Take for instance a fairly high paying blue-collar field: the oilfield. Most field workers are men. You do have some women. But, why do you think that is? It’s a physically demanding job that men are simply going to be better at generally speaking. It takes a strong man to do that type of work really well, so it’d take a really strong woman.
I hear often that not as many women go into STEM fields as men. But, can you think of any fields where not as many men go as women?

 

[Xantippe]

But, can you think of any fields where not as many men go as women?

Nursing, childcare and elementary education.

 

[JimG]

It’s a pretty sad picture of marriage that you have painted in your second paragraph. I hope that it is not the common understanding of the younger generation, but maybe it is. Marriage seems to have fallen into disfavor among many. Yet the Washington Post article states that marriage benefits men economically. Still, just judging by the responses on CAF when the subject of relations between the sexes come up, it seems to me that with regard to relations between men and women, we are not in a very good place.

 

[Edmundus1581]

That’s an interesting article. It seems that employers prefer married men with children.

“Men who get married work harder and more strategically, and earn more money than their single peers from similar backgrounds. Marriage also transforms men’s social worlds; they spend less time with friends and more time with family; they also go to bars less and to church more. In the provocative words of Nobel Laureate George Akerlof, men “settle down when they get married; if they fail to get married they fail to settle down.””

It’s a pretty sad picture of marriage that you have painted in your second paragraph. I hope that it is not the common understanding of the younger generation, but maybe it is. Marriage seems to have fallen into disfavor among many. Yet the Washington Post article states that marriage benefits men economically. Still, just judging by the responses on CAF when the subject of relations between the sexes come up, it seems to me that with regard to relations between men and women, we are not in a very good place.

Re: the article. I’ve had a quick look now, to compare my version of married men and work, with your initial extract from the article (above).

Firstly, I confirm that the article is recent (2015), and the sources it cites are relatively recent (eg. 2007). They certainly don’t go back to the 60’s, as I proposed.

So, in the absence of further investigation I’ll accept it as likely that married men with children are, today, more useful workers and better earners than other men - on average.

I’ll propose an important caveat. The rosy picture which may be assumed, of the married man with a sense of purpose, a supportive wife and happy home life, may be quite different from the reality - which is that he’s being driven to overwork by an overspending, demanding and unsupportive wife. Obviously, there is going to be a mixture of both cases. I expect that the statistics for married men’s working potential and earnings in their twenties and thirties could be equally accounted by both explanations. Where it will effect the statistics is in men’s late thirties and forties, as the nervous breakdowns and divorces hit, often followed by unemployment or even suicide. I’ve heard of an epidemic of unemployed men in their 50’s, and the high suicide rate is well known.

Well, rather than guessing, I thought I’d check the article again.

The anecdotes at the start are about men in their twenties and thirties and how good marriage is for their working life.

Then there’s this para:

This translates into a substantial marriage premium for men. On average, young married men, aged 28-30, make $15,900 more than their single peers, and married men aged 44-46 make $18,800 more than their single peers.

Note that the difference between 28-30 year olds and 44-46 year olds is only 15%, while salaries have probably doubled in that period - so it’s starting to level off by 44-46. After that, nothing! They don’t show the data for the remaining 25 years of men’s working lives! My hypothesis looking good.