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Gender Inequities Worsen

SATURDAY DECEMBER 23 2006 7:00 PM

Submitted by legionnaire. Edited By legionnaire.

TAGS: gender gap, wage, discrimination

It's been quite a while now since girls were expected to grow up and become a happy housewife, and maybe get a part-time job on the side to supplement hubby's income. Decades after the sexual revolution it doesn't seem to be too much of a stretch for modern women to expect to be able to enter into a career and make as much money as a man working the same job. And for a while it looked like things were improving. But apparently progress in that direction has slowed to a halt.

Largely without notice, however, one big group of women has stopped making progress: those with a four-year college degree. The gap between their pay and the pay of male college graduates has actually widened slightly since the mid-�90s.

For women without a college education, the pay gap with men has narrowed only slightly over the same span.

These trends suggest that all the recent high-profile achievements � the first female secretary of state, the first female lead anchor of a nightly newscast, the first female president of Princeton, and, next month, the first female speaker of the House � do not reflect what is happening to most women, researchers say.
[...]
But the gap is now widest among highly paid workers. A woman making more than 95 percent of all other women earned the equivalent of $36 an hour last year, or about $90,000 a year for working 50 hours a week. A man making more than 95 percent of all other men, putting in the same hours, would have earned $115,000 � a difference of 28 percent.

At the very top of the income ladder, the gap is probably even larger. The official statistics do not capture the nation�s highest earners, and in many fields where pay has soared � Wall Street, hedge funds, technology � the top jobs are overwhelmingly held by men.

Of course, some might say that fewer women have committed themselves to the hollow pursuit of trying to make as much money as possible at the expense of all other aspects of their lives. Or that providing cheap or free day care for mothers, who are still the primary caregivers in most American families.

Like so much about gender and the workplace, there are at least two ways to view these trends. One is that women, faced with most of the burden for taking care of families, are forced to choose jobs that pay less � or, in the case of stay-at-home mothers, nothing at all.

If the government offered day-care programs similar to those in other countries or men spent more time caring for family members, women would have greater opportunity to pursue whatever job they wanted, according to this view.

The other view is that women consider money a top priority less often than men do. Many may relish the chance to care for children or parents and prefer jobs, like those in the nonprofit sector, that offer more opportunity to influence other people�s lives.

Both views, economists note, could have some truth to them.

�Is equality of income what we really want?� asked Claudia Goldin, an economist at Harvard who has written about the revolution in women�s work over the last generation. �Do we want everyone to have an equal chance to work 80 hours in their prime reproductive years? Yes, but we don�t expect them to take that chance equally often.�

Measuring the number of women who are presented with the opportunity to make more money and turn it down is probably a practical impossibility, but does seem like a somewhat flimsy excuse for the continuing inquity in salaries for men and women.

Lower income employees have the advantage of numerical superiority on their side, and since there are more low income employees, patterns of discrimination are easier to spot, making lawsuits easier to file against problem employers. While the suits are not always successful they at least keep the issue in the minds of large employers. But at the upper income bracket there are fewer employees, so while similar lawsuits are possible historically there hasnt' been much luck with them, at least so far.

All of which raises the question of how to fix the problem? Attitudes have been shifting for a while, but until that change begins to be reflected in an end of the difference between salaries across genders it won't mean much.

30 Comments

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Quietus

Ottawa, KS

May 2006

DEC 23, 2006 07:46 PM

jamiebond said:
there is only one way to bring about an end to sexual discrimination.

that is to teach people that women are better.

Well we all know that isn't true.

Seriously though, assuming you did and had immense success leading to everyone eventually viewing women as superior and men inferior, then we will have the same problem with participants roles simply switched. And then we will have to deal with those problems. The best way is to keep up the current efforts, and with time the people who discriminate will pass, leaving us with a relatively nondiscriminate society.

Vestril

Coronado, CA

February 2003

DEC 23, 2006 08:27 PM

I can't say I'm too worried about this, women's college enrollment has been growing over men's for a while now, I believe there are more women in college now than men nationwide which seems like the most important statistic to track for the future. I would expect that as that gap keeps widening (which it has been) women will naturally wind up on top in the aggregate or at least in a more equitable position.

I think a certain amount of inequity is bound to remain, women carry and give birth to children which to my mind means they have (in general) a stronger bond with children and would be more likely (on average) to take time away from their careers to raise kids. I don't see this as entirely as a "problem" which needs to be solved. I agree that there should be more opportunities for care though. As far as men staying at home and caring for kids, I think there is still a great deal of social stigma attatched to that which has to fade away before we can expect it to become truly even; though personally I would love to stay at home and raise my kids when I eventually have them. That would be my dream job.

If the issue at hand is women with the same amount of experience and education not getting the jobs, or women who perform as well or better than their male counterparts getting lower pay; I am totally behind lawsuits to even things up. However I'm not sure I believe that that is a typical case these days (I'm possibly sheltered by being raised by my mom and dad--mom has generally made more money than dad despite that he had a more advanced degree until very recently).

catdad

Portland, OR

August 2002

DEC 23, 2006 08:40 PM

What if someone could develop a disease that only killed male executives with four year degrees?

NikkiIs

Drexel, MO

April 2005

DEC 23, 2006 09:17 PM

The average middle class American family can no longer survive on the income of both the husband and wife, yet the pay gap between male and female executives is an issue? Just for the record. I worked for a female owned company that payed the female workers less then the male. Her reasoning. Men do more work. I make more then my fiance. He works in a warehouse loading trucks all day. I work in a nursing home. We both make less then the states poverty level, yet too much for state assistance. Maybe that is something you can write articles about. Something that effects the majority of the people who subscribe to this site. I really can't be bothered with complaints about a female exec making 25 grand less then a male. 25 grand is all I make in a year.

NickFaust

USA

April 2004

DEC 23, 2006 09:23 PM

NikkiIs said:
The average middle class American family can no longer survive on the income of both the husband and wife, yet the pay gap between male and female executives is an issue? Just for the record. I worked for a female owned company that payed the female workers less then the male. Her reasoning. Men do more work. I make more then my fiance. He works in a warehouse loading trucks all day. I work in a nursing home. We both make less then the states poverty level, yet too much for state assistance. Maybe that is something you can write articles about. Something that effects the majority of the people who subscribe to this site. I really can't be bothered with complaints about a female exec making 25 grand less then a male. 25 grand is all I make in a year.

Wait, if you make 25,000 in a year, how are you making less than the state's poverty level?

HelloCentral

Saint Agatha, ME

February 2004

DEC 23, 2006 09:26 PM

As a woman, I think there are so many extenuating circumstances in this particular set of variables as to make any small inequality totally irrelevant due to there being absolutely no way of accurately accounting for it. I think we need to stop running numbers and look at the attitudes and observable generalities to make sure there are no obvious ways to even the field while still considering inherent differences in circumstance, and just chill out about this. right?

HelloCentral

Saint Agatha, ME

February 2004

DEC 23, 2006 09:28 PM

catdad said:
What if someone could develop a disease that only killed male executives with four year degrees?

that would involve some serious nanotechnology!

RandomNerd

Malverne, NY

January 2005

DEC 23, 2006 09:29 PM

Legionnaire hasn't ignored the issues of wage-earners. Read
this article

But I kinda see your point. When discussing the matter of vast wealth, it seems as if arguing over a disparity of salary based on sex isn't as relevant as ordinary people struggling to make ends meet. These issues are related though. Power structures and status quo and all that.

PRockGirlScout

Hawaii National Park, HI

October 2005

DEC 23, 2006 09:33 PM

I realize this is anecdotal evidence but I work at a Fortune 500 company and in my division of the company, none of the upper management and only one of the middle managers (out of 15) are female. It's depressing as hell.

jaggy

Austin, TX

October 2003

DEC 23, 2006 10:36 PM

Inque said:
I realize this is anecdotal evidence but I work at a Fortune 500 company and in my division of the company, none of the upper management and only one of the middle managers (out of 15) are female. It's depressing as hell.

Yes indeed. my wife has hit the glass ceiling of old white men. we're approaching 2010..the fuckin future...and sexual and racial discrimination still reign.

droog81

Philadelphia, PA

February 2005

DEC 23, 2006 10:41 PM

Seriously why wont the government just raise our children for us?

PRockGirlScout

Hawaii National Park, HI

October 2005

DEC 23, 2006 10:44 PM

droog81 said:
I'm not interested in contributing to the discussion so here's a reactionary comment fit for flaming!

No, thanks.

PRockGirlScout

Hawaii National Park, HI

October 2005

DEC 23, 2006 10:45 PM

NikkiIs said:
The average middle class American family can no longer survive on the income of both the husband and wife, yet the pay gap between male and female executives is an issue?

You already answered your own question. This isn't a feminist issue. It's a family issue.

ramajama

Silver Spring, MD

December 2003

DEC 24, 2006 04:54 AM

That's quite a well-to-do state if 25k is below poverty level. I seem to remember that median income in the US is like 28k. 25k is a living in some places.