WOMEN AND THE PAY GAP

And, it seems as though the U.S. is not alone in the battle. I was just reading an article about how it's the same situation in the UK(http://www.helium.com/tm/73326/despite-equal-legislation-being). Both the US and the UK are "world leaders" but can't figure out how to pay people equally. Amazing.

How silly! There's a simple and justifable reason why men are almost always paid more than women: they work harder and longer hours, and they're eager to make sacrifices for work that women often refuse to make. Shouldn't people who don't cut out of work at 5 p.m. and put in additional hours every single work be paid more than those who don't? And shouldn't they therefore be eligible for greater advancement and the bigger rewards that come from more responsibility? Of course.

Nonsense. The American Association of University Women continue to hype the pay gap between women and men that simply doesn't exist, at least not because of sexism. Numerous comprehensive studies from groups such as the American Enterprise Institute (see Diana Furchtgott-Roth's article, "Still Hyping the Phony Pay Gap", January 31, 2000 www.aei.org) as well as Dr. Warren Farrell's book, "Why Men Earn More" (Dr. Farrell was the only man ever to be elected three times to the board of the National Organization for Women) have shown that the gap is clearly not due to unlawful discrimination against women. This is one of the many bogus AAUW's "studies" that will be followed up by a call for more legislation, more litigation, and more funding to combat the inequities in our "misogynist" society.

I have a simple explanation for the pay inequity between men and women. It is best understood through a simple analogy. Suppose you’re a entrepreneur of a small struggling company and you have a opening for a critical job. This position will entail years of training and investment in the new hire for specialized skills unique to your company.

You have two equally qualified candidates in terms of education, experience, and job skills. One candidate is an avid boating enthusiast. The other is a professional golfer who participates and routinely wins regional and national golf competitions. The golfer’s clear potential is to eventually turn pro and golf the circuit full time. Which one would you hire? Which has the best payback, stability and loyalty for your company?

Gender pay inequities can be simply explained by distilling it down to probabilities. The simple biological fact remains that women statistically are less reliable, less loyal and need more time off simply because of childbirth potential—just as the golfer in my example above who’s priorities and interests may lie elsewhere in the future. Until mass sterilization is instituted or virginity pledges are reliable, expect the wage disparity between the sexes to remain.

Part of the problem is that women don't even know they're affected. We were surprised to find in our Downtown Women's Club's April 2007 survey (Women in the Workplace: Generationally Speaking), that less than half of all women don't even think they are affected.

When we asked if they were currently affected by the wage gap, only 50% of Boomers; 40% of Generation X; and 38% of Generation Y businesswomen responded "Yes." More information about the survey can be found at: http://www.prweb.com/releases/2007/4/prweb521537.htm

After 10 years Women at 69% of men vs. 80% on graduation may indicate that performance on job has not been competetive with male peers.

Many times in business I have heard women espress the viewpoint that if their performance is superior, a manager or company will automatically reward them accordingly. This fails to take into consideration that one of the goals of management is to minimize pay levels, as long as employees continue to feel valued. Men more often seem to grasp that concept and ask for their share. A sense of entitlement, perhaps?

As a female manager, I have evaluated these static’s several times with colleagues, in many cases women were earning more than men.

This article failed to address that most large, even midsized companies DO monitor pay statistics regularly and men's work attendance tends to be higher then women's. Also, the AAUW is a terrible source. They advocate bigotry, ignorance, and misused of static’s!!

Also, Cathy never once mentioned, most people who work in Human Resources are women, if the gap exists today (which it doesn't), I contend they would address this!

Because of propaganda such as this, I have lost faith in Businessweek. This misinformation hurts us (women) more than it helps us. Thanks alot Cathy!

NOW and AAUW are a disaster to young woman, who with still developing critical reasoning skills, do not as readily see the gender-bating, gender bashing, and hate mongering agenda of these two associations.

I think we should make it illegal for women to accept the same jobs as men that pay them less money than is paid to the men. The basis for this law should be unfair competition. After all, when any company needs to save money and two people do the same job just as well, who is going to be let go? The guy doesn't stand a chance.

Furthermore whenever organizations, in the future, whine about the pay gap, they should be required to turn in all the women who have accepted such jobs at less pay so they can be tried, convicted, fined and sent to jail.

I think that will fix the problem in short order.

In addition to the numerous studies that show almost no "wage gap" when you factor in tenure, skills, experience and qualifications, this article even contradicts itself.

Arnst reports that women earn 69% of men 10 years after graduation. Then in the next paragraph quotes figures that claim only 12% is attributable to gender (which would make women's salaries 88% of mens after 10 years). So why do we hear so much about the 69% figure??

I have no idea why seemingly intelligent women continue to peddle these destructive and erroneous figures. Ten minutes on google will reveal hundreds of studies showing that there is almost no "wage gap" when skills, tenure etc are taken into account. Why do some women insist on such a dogmatic victim mentality when there are so many irrefutable studies contradicting their standpoint? A case in point - a female graduate recently started in a job role in my office and found out the salary of a male co-worker was higher than hers. He was 10 years older and had 10 years in that role. She asked me for advice and asked if it was "because she was a woman?". After I stopped laughing, I suggested she go and ask him what he earned 10 years ago when he had her level of experience. Even HR advised her to drop that line of questioning. Consequently, no-one tells her anything now about salaries.

Dianne Danielson;

Please don't astroturf your own study from your own organization, here and pretend it's reputable evidence of a problem. You are clearly biased.

Also.. from your OWN study's description of the methodology you used...

"We surveyed the members of DowntownWomensClub.com..."

Beautiful selection bias. You do realize that this statement on its own COMPLETELY INVALIDATES any findings you came up with on the issue.

PS Dianne:

I really love how you call half of your membership ignorant instead of believing them. They must love that.

Why doesn't anyone say anything about the unemployment gap regarding gender. Men always have a much higher unemployment rate relative to women. Economist simply say that they can't explain this!

Why are all ACCEPTED wage gap studies conducted by feminist groups? Politicians eager for the female vote will believe any propaganda perpetuated by groups such as NOW. Is it politically incorrect to utilize data that challenges what i call the wage gap myth?

The fact that men have jobs proves there is no wage gap. If a company can increase profits by 25-30% (probably more when considering taxes, vacation, sick leave, 401k's etc....) by firing all men and replacing them with lower paid women, why wouldn't they do this? I would.

And don't mix apples with oranges and tell me how a receptionist make less than a welder. If you want welders money, get your hands dirty and become a welder.

Can anyone name a single company that has hired only women and successfully used the alleged pay gap to gain a cost advantage over its competitors? If the AAUW crowd is correct the road to profits is a no-brainer.

Unfortunately the AAUW is a hype-machine whose primary vurtues are its ability to design research protocol that assures the desired conclusion and its leverage with an unquestioning media.

Can anyone name a single company that has hired only women and successfully used the alleged pay gap to gain a cost advantage over its competitors? If the AAUW crowd is correct the road to profits is a no-brainer.

Unfortunately the AAUW is a hype-machine whose primary vurtues are its ability to design research protocol that assures the desired conclusion and its leverage with an unquestioning media.

It's fake stories like these that are the reason I stopped reading the traditional media.

Now I only visit sites like Businessweek when they're criticised by blogs.

I'm glad to see so many people in these posts preparing to stand up for what is nothing more than another attack on men - one which is no where near founded in fact as this article would have us believe.

Career choice, such as women taking safer, less labor intensive jobs, family choice, acceptable career risks - men are risk takers - as well as working hours and conditions all play a huge role in explaining the pay gap.

Once women are prepared to do the same jobs as men, same hours and conditions, same back breaking labor and risk, with very little consideration given for THEIR time with family, then women may be in a position to complain about pay.

I work in the oil industry. Every field hand who applies for a job is male. The work is labor intensive, risky, hard and the conditions are harsh. The pay is good. Yet, every time I walk past Kelly Services, every person waiting for an interview for a cushy, air conditioned, office job with no personal risk, is female.

To: James,

>...every time I walk past Kelly Services, every person waiting for an interview for a cushy, air conditioned, office job with no personal risk, is female.

Apparently it is allowing women to take all these cushy, lower-paying jobs over the hard ones paying more that is, among other things, slanting the statistics that fuel this repeated whining about a wage gap.

Maybe we should put a ceiling on the percentage of cushy, lower-paying jobs and require them to take a certain percentage of the difficult jobs that they don't like until this pay gap of theirs disappears.

Sounds like you missed your mark Cathy. Shame on you for this misandric article. This is sloppy, shoddy journalism at it's worst. The fact that there are so many negative comments to your article proves the word is out there about the lies these groups have perpetrated for so long but are now being outed by the blogosphere.

To: Dittohd

I agree with your point, Dittohd. I certainly wouldn't force someone to do a risky job with harsh conditions, but society right now is expecting it of men.

In my line of work, I am not prepared to ask anyone to do something I wouldn't do myself. I agree with the message of your post, women need to either put up or shut up. If they are not prepared to take the harsh, risky conditions that they expect men to work under, they have no right to complain about their so called pay gap.

Its this difference in choice that I see contributing in a big way to pay disparity.

I thought business week was a serious publication.

You are so right!!

If women made the same career choices as their male counterparts, they would get paid equally. Women decide to say home and raise their families. I see nothing wrong with a man staying home to take care of his children (every once in a while) but women were designed for it, especially when it comes to taking care of an infant. A woman’s physical structure was designed to nourish a child. There’s no denying that! If men had milk in their chest area then there would be no problem! Though a lot of women consider not to breastfeed (a substantial reason for that being is their bodies aren’t in a healthy state! We have processed foods to thank for that!) they are still the primary caretakers.

To give women maternity leave with pay is a discrimination against men. Men should get the same duration with pay (it would be their choice)! Equal rights mean equal time off for both sexes. The only reason a man should be paid more than a woman, perform the same job, is if he’s socially obligated to more backbreaking labor than his female counterpart because of his gender. To take advantage of a man’s strength is sexiest.

Man love to be the breadwinners! To debunk or condition that inherited primal instinct is an insult to men. But some men admire saying home. Those are probably the ones with low testosterone levels to begin with, but we all lose it eventually. Don’t believe me? Follow this link: http://www.hno.harvard.edu/gazette/2002/09.19/01-testosterone.html

Men who decide to be more family orientated lose testosterone. Not a bad thing, but you don’t want it to drop severely!

Thank you for attempting to provide a more honest perspective than we normally receive when this subject is addressed. It is my understanding that leaving the workforce is a major contributing factor in women receiving lower wages, yet is usually glossed over so we can be fed the same old inflated statistics. Those of us intelligent enough to read between the lines know the situation is not nearly as serious as feminists would lead us to believe.

Give us the statistics on a job title by job title basis, and we will see the TRUTH.

Women deserve the same pay as men, they're just as good, even beter!

Women Deserve Everything!!

It's a disgrace when we are the harder workers that women don't earn more than men! Maybe in time with pressure on polititions we will. Amazing it's 2007 and this still occurs. Should we all stay home and strike? Then they would soon see how important our roles are and struggle to function!

I think men should have higher role than women because • Man, is by nature a conqueror. His aggressive nature is meant to be utilized to bring holiness to the population and the work at large. His job may be more glamorous, flamboyant and flashy, for his work is primarily in the public arena where it is easily recognized and appreciated, whereas the products of the woman’s labor might be overlooked by the less astute. Therefore, Men should have a higher role than women.

i think men who in coal mines....etc. should be paid more than women who work in hair salons but if a man and woman are doing the same job they should be paid equally but that is rarely the case in law firms and etc. women generally do more work for these type jobs and get paid less also if a man and woman are up for the same job men are usually picked ahead of women when the woman is clearly more qualified

Since there are so few jobs which require testosterone or estrogen to perform, lost in the analyses of job performance and wages is the fact that in a knowledge based education oriented economy, it is intellectual prowess that is highly valued, or should be, since work is an intellectual endeavor.

Both testosterone and estrogen should be checked at the door, allowing the work world to be free from their undue influence - making work environments more equitable than not, and more like the equality of the classroom than not, albeit in a one room school.

Wow, I'm shocked at how biased these MEN are.. Are you kidding me right now? You don't see the gender pay gap, because you're egotistical men! You're not the ones dealing with inequality. While I'm not in the "workforce" in a permanent job, I see the struggle my mother goes through day in and day out. She works more hours a week compared to her male counterparts at the same company, and both of which hold the same position. They've been there the same amount of years (and some have been there for less time than my mother), yet she makes less money. I've also seen that in my aunts position, a male was hired in right out of college at 2000 dollars more a year, and she's been there for 13 years! That's what's wrong with the world, men TRY to run it. Women make just the same sacrifices as males in accordance to their families, and what they're willing to do, and you males cannot appreciate that they work just as hard, if not harder, than you--both at home and in the workforce.

Re: James

"In my line of work, I am not prepared to ask anyone to do something I wouldn't do myself. I agree with the message of your post, women need to either put up or shut up. If they are not prepared to take the harsh, risky conditions that they expect men to work under, they have no right to complain about their so called pay gap."

And what the women who DO take on these risky conditions? How do you explain the fact that, in many cases, even then, they still get paid less than their male peers for the same work? I agree with you that to lump all workers under the same umbrella without taking into account differing levels of job difficulty isn't a good idea. However, none of these claims about women taking on "easier" jobs explain why men and women working the same jobs earn different wages.

Also, Shaun Johnson, you contradict yourself. First you claim that men aren't meant to stay home and take care of children as much as women are. Then you argue that men should get the same parental leave as women. Why argue for paternal leave if you view being a stay-at-home dad as denigrating manhood in the first place? You can't have it both ways.