"He attributes the earnings reversal overwhelmingly to one factor: education. For every two guys who graduate from college or get a higher degree, three women do."
It's interesting itself that more women graduate than men. But equal pay means equal pay for people with similar qualifications doing similar jobs. This comparison means nothing to me.
Sadly "equal pay" means whatever you want it to mean.
At some point the nurses union in Denmark argued that their education was roughly the same length as that of an engineer, so they should be paid the same on that basic. Completely ignoring that engineers spend five years at the university vs. the 3.5 years for nursing school and that engineers are pay wildly different salaries bases on their field of work.
In my mind, equal pay is for people doing the exact same job, and the exact same number of hours, but that just my interpretation. Many will use the equal pay term to advocate for a pay rise, because they feel that their line of work is underpaid.
If someone believe that they should be better compensated, just say that, don't hide it behind "equal pay". One issue of cause it that people don't understand economy, it not necessarily about the hours you work, the responsibility you have, but about the profit you generate for your employer.
It should probably mean something to you that women are collecting advanced degrees at a rate significantly higher than that of men.
However, given the "women earn ~70 cents for every dollar a man earns" rhetoric we traditionally hear about unequal pay, which compares female earnings to male earnings outright without controlling for education, qualifications, or the "same job"[1], it would seem this comparison is done in the same spirit.
Exactly. The word "peers" in the title implies comparison between people with a similar background (education, industry, etc). But it seems the actual study just compares the average salary of all single, young, childless women vs the average salary of all single, young, childless men across the economy.
>But equal pay means equal pay for people with similar qualifications doing similar jobs.
This is a wonderful example of a double standard: when a study finds that men earn more than women, people say it doesn't matter that they aren't working in the same jobs because (as they say) discrimination keeps women from getting those jobs, but when women earn more then men, it's fine and dandy because they aren't working in the same jobs or experience levels, so no discrimination exists.
>"He attributes the earnings reversal overwhelmingly to one factor: education. For every two guys who graduate from college or get a higher degree, three women do."
If you're comparing degreed vs non-degreed folks, how is the comparison in the peer group?
Both definitions are useful. Different pay for the same work is obviously unjust at the surface because it affects individuals. But a different mixture of jobs that leads to unequal pay, while it doesn't involve anything so easy as pointing at an individual to blame, still hints at a structural problem in our society.
Might be related to the fact that white women have benefitted more from affirmative action than any other group. At least, that could explain part of the disparity in education.
I'm bothered by the implicit authority given to the word "study" nowadays.
Collecting data and drawing conclusions is much easier than contrasting assumptions for the sake of understanding the underlying issues, yet the former seems much more prevalent in public discourse.
I would further add that the credibility of the person performing the "study" is also no longer analyzed which it should be because implicit bias is a serious factor.
The problem is that science relies on consensus, multiple studies confirming the same finding, whereas most lay readers find a single study and use confirmation bias to put away their critical thinking. Most people will just read science-writing by some news website or even the NYT, which cites a single study. They then synthesize this science writing about a single study as "fact" into their head, when really you need numerous studies and even meta-analyses of studies to establish a fact or theory.
From what I gather from the article, the study doesn't seem to account for the profession, which would make it as meaningless as other gender gap studies I have seen so far. A banker or lawyer is paid significantly more than a professor or a nurse. So at the end all you are measuring is the difference in salaries between professions rather than the actual gender gap between people with the same qualification and profession.
If men or women are choosing different career paths, that too is notable and worth reporting. Papers can report the gap without going into underlying causes.
> ...the study doesn't seem to account for the profession, which would make it as meaningless as other gender gap studies I have seen so far.
Why is it meaningless? It used to be unjust that all doctors and lawyers were men. It was just understood that the wage gap then was downstream from career and employment gaps.
After having a kid I think I can see what creates the gender gap and the same effect is happening to me. Now, if there’s a conference call at 5:30 at work, I skip it. If there’s a new project that’s going to make me work extra hours I decline it. Overall I am willing to sacrifice a lot of my career for time with my kid and most women take the majority of childcare responsibility. For people without children I wouldn’t expect there to be much of a gender gap.
And it is ok, that you skip it, the difference on pay gap is men having far worse life for those few extra bucks. It is not everything about the money and your path is correct. We (men) are doing it wrong and we are the idiots. The extra money is just not worth it, but we are pushed into craving for social status (which in most cases equals to income, car, house,...) due to the fact that potential mates (females) are searching for such mans (statistically womans are marrying to mens with ~30% higher income than they have) . And idiotically as it sounds, the "equality" will just make both genders work harder, spending life at workplace. Working for "8%" less money than you will get for your peak capabilities and you will have far better life. It is just not worth it.
"Applies only to unmarried, childless women under 30 who live in cities"
This is a trend that I have personally witnessed since joining the corporate workforce as a recent college graduate living in a major city.
In general I saw my female colleagues getting promoted faster and moving up faster than their male counterparts.
In no way do I think it was favouritism, I just believe our senior management thought these young women were better prepared and organised than their male counterpart in their 20's.
Whether or not this trend continues to higher levels of management remains to be seen.
I don't think you can justify your position "these young women were better prepared and organised than their male counterpart in their 20's".
You say that women in their 20s are better at something than men in their 20s. I believe you know this is indefensible and if you would say the reverse you would get kicked out of your job.
Previous studies like these have generally shown that young attractive females make considerably more than male employees with a similar level of education and experience, but as you go up in age the trend reverses with older or less attractive female employees making less. Basically there is a bias, but it isn't so much gender in general as it is being attractive sexually (or not as the case may be). I'm not aware of any study that has tested if that applies to both genders (from the data it very clearly applies to females, but there may be a lesser effect applied to males as well), but that would be something interesting to look at. I suspect it would show there is a similar bias applied to males, but with a significantly smaller effect that's mostly lost in the noise.
Real life stubbornly resists all attempts to make it more fair.
An 8% difference in either direction is acceptable to me. It's good enough to tolerate until it's worth revisiting for further improvements. So now that we have the gender pay gap (almost) sorted out, perhaps we should tackle a problem more likely to cause societal problems: the increasing measures of wealth inequality.
Why is wealth inequality a problem? People should be free to pursue maximum compensation for their skills and abilities, not be limited because they are better at somethings than other people.
This would not be any better than women being payed less.
The entire premise of "equal pay" is that both genders paid roughly the same for the same job.
As other commenters have pointed out, these comparisons are confusing, especially when reported as headline figures.
There is clear envidence for a “gender pay gap” - in that women get paid on average less than men. Whether that is a bad thing which we need to do something about is a different question, which heavily depends on your overall gender role opinions.
Point me to the multiple variable analysis and the full report that demonstrates the clear evidence you mention. I have yet to find one and I have tried damn hard.
There's no perceptible gap in wages between almost any pair of social groups, provided we compare only similar roles. This has been solved by the market years ago.
We still need more wage transparency. Companies should be required to publicly list all wages, because lack of transparency is detrimental to the workers.
You didn't actually read the article did you? It doesn't really support your "point". If you're problem with other studies about the pay gap is that "this doesn't compare individuals across the same field and isolate solely for gender" then this study doesn't really help your point.
If your point is just that you're a dude and you're being reverse discriminated against, why not cite an 8 year old article as your best evidence! About as sound as anything else you're gonna pull out.
If we could solve the gender pay gap for working mothers, computer programmers, machine-shop workers, and other jobs where men still earn more, we might finally be able to celebrate equality between the sexes.
The adjusted gender pay gap is only a couple of percent. Maybe that can simply be explained by different behavior between men and women and is not evidence for discrimination. For example male Uber drivers earn 7% more than female drivers even though the algorithm doesn't distinguish by sex [1]. Should we force Uber to pay women 7% more to adjust for this fact?
Even so, there will be few women relative to men taking the programmer career, it's a matter of personal choice. Women have many attractive choices that compete with this one.
[+] [-] Malarkey73|8 years ago|reply
It's interesting itself that more women graduate than men. But equal pay means equal pay for people with similar qualifications doing similar jobs. This comparison means nothing to me.
[+] [-] mrweasel|8 years ago|reply
At some point the nurses union in Denmark argued that their education was roughly the same length as that of an engineer, so they should be paid the same on that basic. Completely ignoring that engineers spend five years at the university vs. the 3.5 years for nursing school and that engineers are pay wildly different salaries bases on their field of work.
In my mind, equal pay is for people doing the exact same job, and the exact same number of hours, but that just my interpretation. Many will use the equal pay term to advocate for a pay rise, because they feel that their line of work is underpaid.
If someone believe that they should be better compensated, just say that, don't hide it behind "equal pay". One issue of cause it that people don't understand economy, it not necessarily about the hours you work, the responsibility you have, but about the profit you generate for your employer.
[+] [-] kareemsabri|8 years ago|reply
However, given the "women earn ~70 cents for every dollar a man earns" rhetoric we traditionally hear about unequal pay, which compares female earnings to male earnings outright without controlling for education, qualifications, or the "same job"[1], it would seem this comparison is done in the same spirit.
1. http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2014/jan/...
[+] [-] the_grue|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vonmoltke|8 years ago|reply
Not according to the UK government: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/gender-pay-gap-reporting-overvie...
[+] [-] x220|8 years ago|reply
This is a wonderful example of a double standard: when a study finds that men earn more than women, people say it doesn't matter that they aren't working in the same jobs because (as they say) discrimination keeps women from getting those jobs, but when women earn more then men, it's fine and dandy because they aren't working in the same jobs or experience levels, so no discrimination exists.
[+] [-] PunchTornado|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] coldtea|8 years ago|reply
You can have equal or better qualifications than someone else with less or no degrees.
Just not formal qualifications...
[+] [-] BeetleB|8 years ago|reply
If you're comparing degreed vs non-degreed folks, how is the comparison in the peer group?
[+] [-] jtolmar|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jrs95|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] madshiva|8 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] nerdymanchild|8 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] vinchuco|8 years ago|reply
Collecting data and drawing conclusions is much easier than contrasting assumptions for the sake of understanding the underlying issues, yet the former seems much more prevalent in public discourse.
[+] [-] JPGalt|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] WhompingWindows|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cm2187|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] verbify|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] humanrebar|8 years ago|reply
Why is it meaningless? It used to be unjust that all doctors and lawyers were men. It was just understood that the wage gap then was downstream from career and employment gaps.
[+] [-] fipple|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] _o_|8 years ago|reply
Money is NOT everything.
[+] [-] PunchTornado|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ShadowFaxSam|8 years ago|reply
This is a trend that I have personally witnessed since joining the corporate workforce as a recent college graduate living in a major city.
In general I saw my female colleagues getting promoted faster and moving up faster than their male counterparts.
In no way do I think it was favouritism, I just believe our senior management thought these young women were better prepared and organised than their male counterpart in their 20's.
Whether or not this trend continues to higher levels of management remains to be seen.
[+] [-] PunchTornado|8 years ago|reply
You say that women in their 20s are better at something than men in their 20s. I believe you know this is indefensible and if you would say the reverse you would get kicked out of your job.
[+] [-] orclev|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] panic|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] logfromblammo|8 years ago|reply
An 8% difference in either direction is acceptable to me. It's good enough to tolerate until it's worth revisiting for further improvements. So now that we have the gender pay gap (almost) sorted out, perhaps we should tackle a problem more likely to cause societal problems: the increasing measures of wealth inequality.
[+] [-] peterhadlaw|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sudoke|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wemdyjreichert|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] throwaway309112|8 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] 1337biz|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] crispyporkbites|8 years ago|reply
There is clear envidence for a “gender pay gap” - in that women get paid on average less than men. Whether that is a bad thing which we need to do something about is a different question, which heavily depends on your overall gender role opinions.
[+] [-] JPGalt|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wu-ikkyu|8 years ago|reply
If you control for education, years of experience, and skills there is no such gap.
[+] [-] ada1981|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] camdenlock|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nukeop|8 years ago|reply
We still need more wage transparency. Companies should be required to publicly list all wages, because lack of transparency is detrimental to the workers.
[+] [-] stevespang|8 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] zeth___|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lowken10|8 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] moate|8 years ago|reply
If your point is just that you're a dude and you're being reverse discriminated against, why not cite an 8 year old article as your best evidence! About as sound as anything else you're gonna pull out.
[+] [-] throwaway2041|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jmull|8 years ago|reply
Also, as we can all see, it is still being published by time.com in 2018.
[+] [-] youdontknowtho|8 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] camelite|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] adrianN|8 years ago|reply
[1] https://web.stanford.edu/~diamondr/UberPayGap.pdf
[+] [-] visarga|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] spodek|8 years ago|reply
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zb89YALUzL4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pxtu5ZyA048
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DzEOXePU_Uo
[+] [-] zingmars|8 years ago|reply