#pay gap
Source:Feminism Is For Everybody: Passionate Politics by bell hooks
Image description: In a classroom, Screech sits behind Lisa. He’s looking at her with a soft expression and a small smile. Lisa is looking toward her left with an expression of frustration and wondering. A Do Not Enter sign is leaning against the wall behind them. The caption reads “In all spheres of literary writing and academic scholarship, works by women had historically received little or no attention as a consequence of gender discrimination.”
(Happy three year anniversary, Tumblr bugs.)
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Since the dawn of time, or at least the dawn of the GPA, high school students have been hearing that grades matter. Now, a University of Miami study backs up that parental talking point: The better your GPA, the higher your income is likely to be 10 years after graduation.
But as @think-progress points out, this doesn’t mean that girls with good grades earn more than boys with mediocre ones.Quite the contrary, in fact:
A woman who got a 4.0 GPA in high school will only be worth about as much, income-wise, as a man who got a 2.0. A woman with a 2.0 average will make about as much as a man with a 0 GPA.
Other depressing findings: Girls have significantly higher average GPAs, but “men will still end up having significantly higher income later on,” Think Progress says.
And the GPA-gender wage gap continues through college and grad school:
A woman who is one credential ahead of a man will always be worth less in terms of income: a woman with an associate’s degree makes less than a man with a vocational degree, a woman with a bachelor’s makes less than a man with an associate’s, and a woman with an advanced degree makes less than a man with a bachelor’s. Even among recent college graduates with the same grades, majors, and career fields, men will make more in their first jobs.
(Chart via U of Miami)
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The NYTimes’ The Upshot takes a look at the behavior gap between boys and girls and how it plays out in the sputtering economy:
By kindergarten, girls are substantially more attentive, better behaved, more sensitive, more persistent, more flexible and more independent than boys, according to a new paper from Third Way, a Washington research group. The gap grows over the course of elementary school and feeds into academic gaps between the sexes. By eighth grade, 48 percent of girls receive a mix of A’s and B’s or better. Only 31 percent of boys do.
Andin an economy that rewards knowledge, the academic struggles of boys turn into economic struggles. Men’s wages are stagnating. Men are much more likely to be idle — neither working, looking for work nor caring for family — than they once were and much more likely to be idle than women.
How, then, do we account for persistent gender gaps in the workplace that continue to favor men, despite the academic gap that favors girls? The Upshot’s David Leonhardt explains what he thinks is going on:
The problems that stem from gender have become double-edged. The old forms of sexism, while greatly diminished, still constrain women. The job market exacts harsh financial and career penalties on anyone who decides to work part time or take time off, and the workers who do so are overwhelmingly female. …
But men have their own challenges. As the economy continues to shift away from brawn and toward brains, many men have struggled with the transition.
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Just how difficult is it to be a working parent in the U.S. these days? huffingtonpost has this sobering chart.
The U.S. lags significantly behind other developed countries in key areas such as paid maternity or paternity leave (it’s one of just three countries with no such provision— the other two are Oman and Papau New Guinea), paid family and sick leave, and affordable early childhood education. As a result, notes reporter Laura Bassett, the percentage of women participating in the workforce is relatively low:
In 1990, the U.S. had the sixth-highest female labor participation rate among 22 of the world’s wealthiest countries. Today, the U.S. ranks 17th.
Meanwhile, the White House Council of Economic Advisors has this new report on working families, part of the Obama administration’s ongoing campaign to explore ways of using federal workplace policy to improve the lives (and incomes) of parents and children. Yesterday, the White House hosted a daylong summit on working families, where President Obama told the audience,
“Family leave, child care, workplace flexibility, a decent wage — these are not frills, they are basic needs. They shouldn’t be bonuses. They should be part of our bottom line as a society. ”
Find video of that conference here.
(Infographic by Alissa Scheller for The Huffington Post.)
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The companies in MoJo’s 2012 dataset: Apple, HP, Intel, Google, Cisco, Oracle, eBay, Facebook, Gilead Sciences, and VMware.
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“At the core of economic theory is the assumption that women are supported by men. This simple assumption helps to construct the vicious circle of women’s dependence. When economists, and the members of society, assume that women are supported by men, then it is perfectly logical to put the case that women do not need as much money as men. “And what happens when it is believed that women do not need as much money as men? Why, then they are not paid for their work, or they are paid less than men. “And what happens when women are not paid as much as men? Why, they must turn to men for support. “And what happens when women turn to men for support? They stop pleasing themselves and start to please men. They flutter around, flatter and try to find favour. "And what happens when women make men the centre of attention and place their physical and psychological resources at the service of men? The flow of resources and wealth goes one way, from women to men. If there is no reciprocation, then the harder women work the richer men get. By such means, male supremacy becomes a reality.” Sally Cline and Dale Spender, Reflecting Men At Twice Their Natural Size (1987), pp. 122-3”— (via liesofthepatriarchy)
PSA: The wage gap isn’t real
So fun fact! Depending on your sources, the wage gap varies, but it really isn’t the fundamental issue when we are looking at pay inequality in the US.
There are many other factors that come into play when talking about PAY GAPS: Women have less success in gaining promotions than their male counter parts (and other Glass Ceiling effects), women are dissuaded from higher paying fields (such as STEM fields) through institutional hostility, women are expected to take unpaid maternity leave for child care when men are not (regardless of whether or not they will), women are less successful at salary negotiations and are sometimes even penalized by employers for trying at MUCH higher rates than men, work that is traditionally female dominated being undervalued on a cultural level (women might be cooks, but not chefs; nurses, not doctors; etc.), when women begin to work in traditionally male fields in higher numbers the pay for those fields drop, and men in traditionally female fields tend to be promoted more quickly and get paid more, and a myriad of others.
We know, for example Women need an additional degree in order to make as much as men with a lower degree over the course of a lifetime.A woman would need a doctoral degree, for instance, to earn the same as a man with a bachelor’s degree, and a man with a high school education would earn approximately the same amount as a woman with a bachelor’s degree.
The fact is that women, on average, DO make less than men, and the issue isn’t always direct illegal wage imbalance. The issues are often far more wide reaching and speak to a cultural misogyny that has to be confronted beyond just legislation.
I mentioned maternity leave earlier. (Did you know that the US is one of the only “industrialized countries” in the world to NOT have guaranteed paid parental leave? yeah. That’s fucked up.) The entire notion that women, more so than men, are expected to take off time from work for family is one of those cultural aspects of inequality that I mentioned.
And all this discussion fails to take into account things like disability, trans people, sexuality, and race, which makes all of these issues even more extreme and complicated.
This is a really good article to read for more information:
This is my shit!
fandomsandfeminism talked about several of the major contributors to the wage gap, including:
1. Discrimination in promotions
Women are typically overqualified compared to their male counterparts, are promoted less frequently, and are passed over for promotions when they have the same experiences and qualifications as men. For example, white male professors who do the least service and mentoring get promoted the fastest. Female managers are also held to stricter standards for promotion than men. Women with more than a high school education do not leave jobs more frequently than men, and female managers even have slightly lower turnoverthan male managers.
2. Dissuasion from higher paying fields
Millennial men are less open to accepting women engineers than older men are. Only 41% of millennial men are comfortable with women engineers, compared to 65% of men 65 or older. Women get burned out working in the tech industry because they are underpaid, undervalued, and underappreciated in their Millennial male-dominated fields.
3. Structural disadvantage
Paid family leave is not mandated in the US, but women are more likely to return to work after having a baby when they have paid family leave, and men who take paternity leave spend more time on child care later.
Investing in a universal, free childcare system, in which workers are paid a decent wage, would create 1.65 million jobs and reduce the gender pay gap. Most of the investment would be recouped through increased tax revenues and lower welfare spending. In Canada, women’s participation in the workforce increased substantially above trend levels when marginal taxes and the net costs of child care were reduced.
4. Penalties for negotiating
Both men and women are more likely to rate women as “less nice” and are less interested in working with them if they ask for more money. Women are aware of how they’ll be viewed if they ask for more money, and therefore don’t ask. Women ask for much more moneyif they’re negotiating for someone else because they don’t have to fear appearing selfish and greedy. Employers outright lieto women more often during negotiations. Furthermore, a recent study in Australia found women ask for pay raises at the same rate as men but receive them less. 19% of women vs. 33% of men got raises when they asked.
5. The devaluing of work associated with women
People view men’s and women’s work differently. There is a tipping point at which men flee an occupation, and in the absence of perfect information, workers take the percentage of female employees as a proxy for an occupation’s prestige. When teaching in the US became female-dominated, the pay decreased. When programming in the US became male-dominated, the pay increased. Doctors save lives and go to school for many years no matter where you are in the world. But in Russia, where doctors are mostly women, they are paid the same wages as secretaries, making about 12,000 US dollars a year. A study of Census data from 1950 to 2000 found that when women enter an occupation in large numbers, that job begins to pay less, even after controlling for a range of factors like skill, race, geography, and occupational crowding.
Men’s low-wage jobs demand far less in terms of skill, education, and certifications than women’s low-wage jobs, yet the male-dominated ones usually have higher hourly pay. Janitors, who are mostly men, make 22 percent more money than maids and housecleaners, who are mostly women, despite the jobs requiring identical skills.
6. Special treatment for men in female-dominated fields
Even in job fields where women dominate, men are paid more for the same roles. Men in nursing outearn women by nearly $7,700 per year in outpatient settings and nearly $3,900 in hospitals in the US after controlling for a large number of variables. Men in female-dominated fields aren’t marginalized at all; they get special treatment, are fast-tracked to the top, and receive preferential hiring (often by other men who were also fast-tracked to the top).
7.Disabledpeople,transpeople,gay people, and peopleof color also see wage gaps with their more privileged counterparts
There are many other important reasons for the wage gap, including:
8. Pay secrecy
You can’t demand higher pay if you don’t know you’re being underpaid. In the 11 US states where pay secrecy is unlawful, the gender wage gap is smaller. In government jobs, where pay transparency is required, the gender pay gap has shrunk to just 11-13 percent. Unionized workers, who also require pay transparency, have a wage gap of 9 percent.
9. Women’s unpaid labor
Women tend to put in fewer hours of paid work than men, but when unpaid work is added to the equation, women all over the world tend to work slightly morehours per day, per week, and per year than men. Women in the US proportionately still perform much more housework and childcare, such as managing children’s schedules and activities, taking care of sick children, and doing chores, than men. Men still perform only half the housework and childcare that women do. This doesn’t look like it will change soon: Fewer than half of Millennial women believed they’ll handle most of the child care, but two-thirds of their male peers believe their wives will do so. When the time women spend on unpaid work shrinks to three hours a day from five hours, their labor force participation increases 20 percent.
10. Long hours != greater contribution to company
The worth of work should be evaluated by productivity rather than time. Long hours backfire for people and companies. Managers can’t tell the difference between those who worked an 80-hour week and those who pretend to. Pharmacists have one of the smallest wage gaps because the pay is measured by productivity rather than time.
Even in workplaces that offer flexibility, however, women havereported penalties for taking advantage of flexible work options, such as loss of responsibility or longer hours than promised. Flexible work hours will work only if that attitude changes.
The point that “men earn more because they put in more hours at the company” is untrue anyway. The wage gap between women and men remains steady whether we compare employees working 40 hours a week, 41-44 hours a week, 45-49 hours a week, or 50+ hours a week.
11. Motherhood penalty
Womenearn 10% less for each child they have, while men earn 6% more for each child they have. Mothers face a lot of stereotypes at work: they get competency ratings 10% lower than other women, and they’re also called back half as often as fathers for jobs. To thecontrary,studies have found that moms are more productive workers. The thought-leadership industrial complex has even called having kids a “productivity hack.”
12. Implicit bias
Even after controlling for all variables known to affect earnings, there is still a wage gap of about 6.6% in the US. Accounting for these variables explains only about 60% of the wage gap in the US. In Australia, these factors only account for about 40% of the gap.
There are almost innumerable examples demonstrating implicit gender bias. Resumes with women’s names are given 12% lower starting salaries than the exact same resumes with men’s names. Employers are more likely to hire a male job applicant than a female job applicant with an identical record. Employers reported that the male job applicant had done adequate teaching, research, and service experience compared to the female job applicant with an identical record. If there is only one woman in a pool of candidates, her chances of being hired are statistically zero. Mentoring does not provide the same career benefits to women as men and that women are “championed” less often by senior management for promotions and raises.
Luckily, people can overcome their unconscious biases. Employers for university STEM faculty were 6.3 times more likely to make an offer to a woman candidate when the employers had been presented with an intervention, including discussion of implicit bias. Sadly, women who bring up concerns about diversity in the workplace receive worseevaluations from their bosses than men who bring up the same concerns.
13. Just blatant sexism
Married men with stay-at-home wives are significantly more likelytoview women in their workplace unfavorably, are much less likely to take jobs at companies with female board members, and pass over female co-workers for promotions.
Three-quarters of Millennial women anticipate that their careers will be at least as important as their partners, while half the men in their generation expect that their own careers will take priority.
Women are not as respected as men in leadership roles, especially by the men over whom they have a leadership role. Women in leadership positions receive less favorable evaluations because they are perceived to be violating gender norms. Male students systematically overestimate the knowledge of the men in their classes in comparison with the women despite clear evidence of women’s superior class performance.
Millennial men are less open to accepting women leaders than older men are. Only 41% of millennial men are comfortable with women engineers, compared to 65% of men 65 or older. Likewise, only 43% of millennial men are comfortable with women being U.S. senators, compared to 64% of Americans overall. The numbers were 39% versus 61% for women being CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, and 35% versus 57% for president of the United States.
There are many proven ways to reduce the gender wage gap, including:
- Mandate paid family leave.
- Invest in universal, free childcare, or at least invest in reducing marginal taxes and the net cost of childcare.
- Confront implicit biasthrough training and intervention.
- Raise the minimum wage.
- Mandatepaytransparency.
- Prohibit employers from inquiring into prospective employees’ wage histories.
- Create more flexibility for jobs by valuing productivityover contact hours.
- Remind workers of their rights.
- Performyour fair share of unpaid labor.
- Change cultural norms so it is more acceptable for moms to work and dads to take care of children.
- Support women’s ideas in your workplace. When a female colleague’s point is ignored, pile on and emphasize the point, making sure you acknowledge that it was her idea. When a qualified female colleague is consistently passed over for a promotion, ask your boss to promote her.
But we can’t get any of these done because these people are out here plugging their ears and saying “the wage gap isn’t real.” If you need more convincing of why you should help the gender pay gap, please read this post.
Now that’s what a goddess likes to see. Who’s next!
56 cents to a white man’s dollar!
America is built on systematic oppression and inequality of people of colour
White women make more than Black men too. That’s why it’s always kind of weird to me when they talk about the gender gap and leave that whole racism thing out.
That’s what I always say: the racial pay gap is more significant than the gender pay gap but it’s literally never talked about.
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