Gender Pay Gap, where is it?

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goodcatholic

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I’ve never done a job in my life where I earned more than a woman doing the same job. Maybe I’ve lived a sheltered life.
So I ask the men here. Guys, have you ever done a job where women earned less than you for doing the same?
What jobs exactly is there a gender pay gap? Is it at the top? Like CEO’s, executives? It doesn’t seem to apply to nursing or teaching or entry level jobs, in my experience.
 
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There was a good thread on this a couple weeks back which included links to good research.

From memory, the research showed:
  • there was a 3% gap for like jobs in the same industry
  • early in their careers, women’s salary growth was slightly higher than their male counterparts
  • the gap reversed later in careers, likely when more women were having families.
  • men still dominate senior positions which skews the total comparison
 
I worked for the federal government. All jobs have a defined description and defined pay and even defined seniority raises. Everything applies equally to men and women. I’ve never seen a job advertised which gave a pay differential between men and women, even outside of government.

Do fast food places have different pay scales for men and women? I doubt it.
 
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I work as a Software Engineer. Encountering women with the same title where I’ve worked has been a little rare. Going to developer’s conferences (Where there is a larger concentration of people) the male/female imbalance is even more visible. Especially around bathrooms where there’s a long line of men waiting on the restroom while there’s no line for the ladies room.

The higher paid women that I encounter tend to be project managers who must both organize the activities of the project and are usually the client facing people.

There’s a gap here with various explanations. For my generation computers and other technology related “toys” were seen as being for boys and they were advertised as such. It’s said there was usually more encouragement for boys to go into such a field and representations in the media were typically masculine. When I look among younger people earlier in their career I see less imbalance.
 
I worked in software for a number of years and saw the same ratios. I felt women were actively groomed for advancement but there just weren’t that many in the pipeline. Marketing, Sales, HR etc. had much better balances than the dev teams.
 
goodcatholic said:
What jobs exactly is there a gender pay gap? Is it at the top? Like CEO’s, executives? It doesn’t seem to apply to nursing or teaching or entry level jobs, in my experience.
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It would be interesting to know, if it exists at all. I remember long ago being surprised to learn that, among all the “protected persons” that have proliferated under the law, the only one that applies to Catholics and Jews is at the very top of business or professional organizations.
 
I’m a guy.

I’ve never in my life heard of a man being paid more than a woman for the same job.

In fact, if this were true, wouldn’t employers give preference to hiring women so they could pay them at the lower pay scale?

The statistic you hear, that women on average earn 59 cents for each dollar a man earns, is based on 1963 and also is based on a straight-up comparison of all men and all women, not a comparison of men and women in the same jobs.

My understanding is that if there’s still a wage gap today it’s because certain jobs traditionally held by men involve undesirable working conditions (e.g., working outdoors, heavy lifting, risk of injury or death) and these jobs have to pay a premium to get people to do them.
 
There is no “pay gap”. There IS an earnings gap, and it results from the different choices men and women typically make in their careers. Women are more likely to stay home with the kids, or take time off (for kids or for whatever), or work part-time.

None of that is bad, it’s just how it is.
 
Not sure why guys would necessarily have a better handle on this than the people who are experiencing the wage gap. But I’ll answer anyway. I definitely experienced it, and the way the employer got around it was to give two jobs with identical duties (and yes, I mean identical) different names. The men got one title – and more money. The women got the other.

There was no difference in qualifications; in fact, some of the women were more highly educated than the men.
 
If that’s the case, the employer could likely be sued with a good chance of success. The NLRB might get involved. Giving identical jobs different names wouldn’t fly as a reason for pay discrimination.
 
JimG said:
If that’s the case, the employer could likely be sued with a good chance of success.
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I don’t know, one obstacle is people usually don’t know what their coworkers are getting paid. It would be difficult to even be aware of it.
 
Right, but obviously in this case the employees knew about it.

I don’t see why this wasn’t taken to the EEOC.
 
JulianN said:
Not sure why guys would necessarily have a better handle on this than the people who are experiencing the wage gap. But I’ll answer anyway. I definitely experienced it, and the way the employer got around it was to give two jobs with identical duties (and yes, I mean identical) different names. The men got one title – and more money.
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He wasn’t direct about it, but one of my professors in college suggested to us that in a hiring position that we should consider women in child bearing ages more expensive resources and might mitigate this expense by how much we decide to pay them.
signit said:
I don’t see why this wasn’t taken to the EEOC.
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I can’t speak for JulianN but sometimes there is a perceived risk to reporting on observed misdeeds that may lead to under-reporting of incidents.
 
ThinkingSapien said:
He wasn’t direct about it, but one of my professors in college suggested to us that in a hiring position that we should consider women in child bearing ages more expensive resources and might mitigate this expense by how much we decide to pay them.
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The point made was illegal but a legit concern, and measurable. Need more stay at home dads and broader paternity leave I guess. I think we are moving past that concern with far more women keeping their career when they start a family
 
JulianN said:
Not sure why guys would necessarily have a better handle on this than the people who are experiencing the wage gap. But I’ll answer anyway. I definitely experienced it, and the way the employer got around it was to give two jobs with identical duties (and yes, I mean identical) different names. The men got one title – and more money. The women got the other.

There was no difference in qualifications; in fact, some of the women were more highly educated than the men.
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If true, then this is the kind of thing one is to report. I hope you did.
 
ThinkingSapien said:
I can’t speak for JulianN but sometimes there is a perceived risk to reporting on observed misdeeds that may lead to under-reporting of incidents.
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But we have laws in place to avoid that, too. If someone tries to punish the lawful reporting of a crime, then that gets reported as well.
 
Those are both fields that tend to have unions, and additionally, had more females than males working in them.

Perhaps you were being paid less then men in other fields that require the same amount or even less education than a teacher or nurse. Do nurses have similar starting salaries as firemen and policemen?
All are responsible for the lives of others, but do firemen and policemen have to have a 4 year degree and be credentialed and take continuing education classes (usually on their own dime) in order to maintain those credentials (licenses)?
 
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