El Borak's Myopia

El Borak's Myopia

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What is the real differential?

I think I'm in trouble over at Snoop's place, or at least with Mrs. Snoop*, who after I asked "If women were really doing exactly the same work as men and getting paid significantly less, who would hire a man?" informed me that:

Uh let me answer that for you - another man. I don’t care what you think on this one Bill, I truly believe that most women are paid % less then men for the same work. The reason some people still don’t therefore hire women instead of men is b/c there are still employers (mostly in the private sector) who do not like/trust a woman for the job. That is, in part, because we (the younger women) can get pregnant. And that is a huge loss to employers, in terms of time and benefits. But I have seen study after study that shows that women’s salaries, for the same jobs, are almost always below men’s. There has to be some reason for that…… Unless you think ALL the studies are skewed?

Now either my response didn't make the Snoopian cut or it got lost in his spam filter, so I figured I'd take the opportunity here to expand on it a bit.

Jeanne Sahadi (CNNMoney) did a really good piece a few years back that illustrates the limitations of what she calls the 76-Cent Myth, that stat thrown around that says women only earn 76 cents for every dollar a man makes. Well, it's a true and valid statistic, but it states only that the median income of all working (34hr/wk) women is 76% of the median income of all working men - with complete disregard for any other factors, from the type of job worked to overtime worked to the number of years someone has been in a specific job.

In fact, it's a perfect example of a number that everyone knows and everyone has a solution for but actually tells you nothing about anything. It is used far more for heat than light.

But there is a very useful number buried within the article, an informed opinion about what actual percentage of that raw numerical difference is due to discrimination:

Heidi Hartmann, president of the Institute for Women's Policy Research: 25-33%
Gary Thornton of HR management consulting firm Thornton & Associates: 10-15%

Don't look at the fact that it is a man and a woman giving two different estimates; look at the fact that, even in a worst-case scenario, at most 33% of that raw difference is due to discrimination. That means we are already to the point of dealing with something between an 8-point difference (33% of 24%) and one quite possibly as low as 2% (10% of 24%) being due to actual discrimination**. In other words, with all non-discrimination factors eliminated, women earn 92-98% of what men do.

Now Mrs. Snoop brings up a very good point in her comment, which we will take to be that (or a big part of that) discrimination:

That [reticence to hire women - El B] is, in part, because we (the younger women) can get pregnant. And that is a huge loss to employers, in terms of time and benefits.

I'm not sure it's a like/trust issue as much as it is a recognition that there are likely to be non-salary-related costs associated with hiring women, especially young ones, and that can't but help be reflected in salary. In short, if Jill makes 90% what John makes, but was gone 10% of the year on paid maternity leave, did she get equal pay for equal work?***

But it's not just maternity leave. Moms are more likely to be primary caregivers for kids, so they take more days off with sick kids, more trips to the doctor with them, are less able to work weekends, have to be at the sitter's at 6 and so can't stay late.

Even when kids are not a factor, a woman is significantly more likely (MSNBC) to be absent from work for other reasons than a man. Which is one reason why a man with kids at home will work an average of 1/3 more hours than a woman with kids at home (BLS Statistics). In fact, a man with kids at home will work more hours than one without.

As Mrs. Snoop mentions, this is "a huge loss" to employers for hiring women, and that huge loss as is much a cost of employing someone as is salary.

Therefore while 'discrimination' may be an unresolved issue somewhere in the 2-8c per dollar range, it likely reflects the reality of equal pay for equal work: when a man and a woman have exactly the same job title, they are not working the same number of hours at it over the course of a year****. In what way is that equal work?

And if it's not equal work, why does it qualify for equal pay?

* Whom you all know here under a different moniker.

** The rest is due to legitimate differences in jobs taken, or even if the jobs are the same, experience levels. As Snoop noted, (though he was not trying to support my point): "Women NOW make up 58% of college graduates and nearly half of the labor force..." (Emphasis mine). The fact that they NOW make that up means that they did not in the past, which means that there are relatively more women entering today and relatively fewer that have been there a long time, right? When do you make more money, when you are just entering a job, or when you have been there a long time?

*** The answer is 'yes.' What she did not get was equal pay for holding an equal job title.

**** As in this NIH study of the work habits of dentists. Preliminary conclusion? "Our analysis suggests that the ongoing increase in the number of women dentists should be considered in dental workforce projections because gender has a significant relationship with hours worked." In other words, with women dentists you need more of them to service the same number of patients, not because they are not competent, but because they simply don't work as much.

Labels: feminism

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