CMV: The wage gap exists primarily because women "marry up", instead of putting in the work themselves to make the same money that men make

sivarias · 2018-04-06T15:09:24+00:00

There is an earnings gap. Not wage gap. A lot of women choose to not go into the same high paying fields that men do with white collar work. And with blue collar work, men do the more strenuous and dangerous jobs but those that pay great.

exit_sandman · 2018-04-06T16:02:41+00:00

Not exactly a challenge to your view, more of an expansion:

Men earn more because they're incentivized to do so. By women generally prefering men with money over men who don't have it.

If being able to display the ability to provide for more people than yourself is your entry card into the world of dating, you are more incentivized to acquire a job that enables you to do so.

If you have a nagging partner at home who gives you hell because you don't make enough money, this incentivizes you to negotiate harder for a raise.

And so on.

It isn't even necessary that all women have these demands. All it takes for a gap to appear is enough women behaving accordingly towards their partners, while men don't, and you'll start seeing one of the genders compromising on their dreams or risking butting heads with their bosses so they have some peace at home.

storffish · 2018-04-06T15:31:57+00:00

I think you're generalizing by looking at a minority of privileged women. the chicks I grew up with did not have the opportunity to go to college and get a useless degree. I'm not denying there are women who do, but if you're regularly encountering them you were very likely born quite a few rungs up the socioeconomic ladder. most women, like most men, are cognizant of the enormous cost of a college education, so they either pursue a sensible degree (nursing is a big one here for women) or a cheaper associate's degree at a community college (cosmetology is a big one here,) if they go to college at all. a woman who is getting all kinds of frivolous arts and literature degrees in all likelihood comes from enough wealth that college debt isn't presented as something that will completely fuck up her future. dad will help her out and then her inheritance will take care of the rest. I can tell you from experience growing up poor that college was always presented to me as a frivolous expense and an easy way to wreck your credit. you don't need it, because getting by is more important than muh passion.

the women I referenced above (nurses, cosmetologists, non-arts-majors) almost always marry men bringing in similar money. the nurse who's married to a tradesman is much, much more common than the nurse married to a doctor. on that same note, the doctor whos married to an anesthesiologist is much more common than a doctor married to a hairdresser. so they are supplementing their income and essentially doubling it (or slightly more or less) but they're not marrying up, per se. they're marrying horizontally. women obviously are more likely to marry up than men because there will always be men who make their fortune and decide they want to trade in the old ball and chain for a PYT to pamper, but women who pull that off are nowhere near the majority. if you think they are you need to get off Instagram.

what happens in the trenches where us poors operate is that jobs are coded. women are funneled into certain jobs (teaching, the aforementioned nursing and cosmetology) and men are funneled into others (auto mechanics, tradesmen, laborers) and on average the male-coded jobs pay more, though not that much more, than the female-coded ones. the percentages given in the OP are about right, 15-20%. and yes, a woman could go into construction and some do but they are working against very tangible social programming on both sides of the fence. the poorer you are, the more you tend to be raised with a sense of a gender role, a sense that you're predestined to some extent, and must fit a niche in society. it's a necessity, really. when you're poor you don't anticipate that you'll be able to spend time frivolously or on passion projects. you go to work as an electrical journeyman because it's the most interesting option of the ones available, not because it's your dream to be an electrician. the same goes for a chick who works in a daycare... that's not her ultimate passion in life, but she likes taking care of kids more than she likes taking care of old people or dyeing hair or ringing up produce so that's what she does.

aznphenix · 2018-04-06T19:25:59+00:00

[deleted]

MGTOWtoday · 2018-04-06T17:03:43+00:00

The wage gap exists because on average, men work longer hours and work harder than women. Take a look at labor statistics sometime. The more difficult and/or dangerous the work, the less likely women will work those jobs. Paying women equally to men when men work longer and harder than women is just stealing from men.

Ordinate1 · 2018-04-06T18:26:03+00:00

[deleted]

sublimemongrel · 2018-04-06T15:46:37+00:00

The wage gap exists in part because women are more likely to sacrifice career potential for their families. It’s not about getting some shitty bachelor’s degree and expecting men to provide. So if you have a couple, both with professional careers with high potential, it is statistically more likely that the woman will cut her hours, take more time off, take on less burdensome job duties, quit altogether for a period of time, etc, when that couple has children.

It goes hand in hand with the “custody gap” if you want to call it that. Men get less residential time with their kids in a divorce because they have sacrificed more family/caretaking time in order to focus on their careers and primary residential custodianship often takes into account which parent spent more time doing the caretaking.

Edit: if you can’t or won’t argue facts, don’t participate in this subreddit.

officerkondo · 2018-04-06T17:29:29+00:00

As the top comment (at the time I write this) states, it is an earnings gap, not a wage gap. Why? Because women make different choices. Here is my sample of one:

I was raised by high school graduates who worked smart and hard to become millionaires by the time they were in their mid-30s. They made a commitment to pay for their kids' four-year degrees (additional education would be on our own). I was the only son, and I have two sisters. We all had our college paid for, and we each went on to post-graduate education on our own dime. So, we had the same environment and educational opportunities. In fact, my mother would often say that she wanted her daughters to be educated so they could be self-sufficient without having to be dependent on a man.

Well, here is what happened. I became a lawyer. My two sisters both got education-related masters degrees. I now support an entire family on my income, but neither of my sisters can support themselves without a man (and luckily, they both have one).

I recently asked my mother if her wish came true. She had to admit that it didn't.

quotient_is · 2018-04-06T23:54:10+00:00

Yes, women should put in the work to make a decent living for themselves. From this perspective, men should also get paternity leave and participate in child rearing and family/elder care.

The majority of men are not motivated to do these things to the same degree as women, and the majority of women are not motivated to achieve career success to the same degree as men. Our species is largely wired for gender specialization. As long as we have equality of opportunity, there's nothing wrong with it. The earnings gap is a byproduct of, on average, divergent interests and traits between the sexes.

[deleted] · 2018-04-06T16:33:12+00:00

As someone else said, most women are not attractive enough to marry up. Furthermore, most women who ARE attractive enough do they have the social skills and connections to find a rich man to marry.

Usually, women marry within their class and they make less because they focus more on their families (such lazy women!).

A 6/10 doctor who makes $300k a year is more likely going to marry another 6/10 doctor making $300k a year, or maybe a 7-8/10 nurse or nurse practitioner making $80-150k a year. He’s very unlikely to fall in love with a 8/10 hairstylist making $30k a year.

goatismycopilot · 2018-04-06T17:05:29+00:00

The wage gap exists because

A) women don't like jobs like construction or oil rigs (these jobs pay good because they suck)

B) they don't have too.

poppy_blu · 2018-04-06T23:34:34+00:00

“The wage gap doesn’t exist ... but if it did it’s cuz hypergamy.”

K.

Millennial women are outearning men. Unemployment rates among millennials are far higher for men than for women.

So... where are all these women in your generation sponging off men?

MisterJose · 2018-04-07T03:38:12+00:00

I can't really disagree with you. I would only suggest that your use of 'primarily' is correct. There is likely some discrimination going on. The famous study was with applications for professorships, where the resume stayed exactly the same, but they only changed the name from a male to a female one. The male resumes did better. I wonder about the effects of college policy on this, ie is a female professor more of a headache and liability exactly because of the potential for harassment claims and the like, but the end result is still what it is.

exit_sandman · 2018-04-06T15:23:29+00:00

Speaking as an artist, absolutely no one gets an art degree with plans to mooch.

Electra_Cute · 2018-04-06T18:47:53+00:00

I think even when doing a multi-variant analysis of the wage gap it is impossible to isolate all of the factors to examine it properly. The data on the wage gaps lean towards the primary factor being women's choice of career and has little to do with their desire to "marry up", in fact most women are not going to marry up, they are going to marry across.

The overall wage gap would probably shrink dramatically if society had very clear expectations that women couldn't use men for their money

Who is this "society" and where can I meet them? This enigmatic person named "society" seems to be quite the obstreperous and horrendous being.

Entropy-7 · 2018-04-06T15:42:26+00:00

The earnings gap and marrying up are two different phenomena and I don't see how they are related.

abaxeron · 2018-04-06T18:20:46+00:00

The overall wage gap would probably shrink dramatically if society had very clear expectations that women couldn't use men for their money (either through dating or marriage), but instead had to earn it themselves.

VERY simplistic assumption that doesn't take into account that men and women have different behavior imperatives. Unfortunately, not only we have no idea how to arrange education to motivate women to seek their personal "transcendence" through career and mastering skills in demand, there's no evidence that such arrangement is even possible. I'm sure a lot of women here on PPD will love to jump onto my throat and tear it out, flailing their career success as a dragon-slaying magic sword, but we're not talking about you. Yes, some women are autistic. Yes, some women have higher-than-average cranial capacity. Yes, some women have genetic defects that boost their axonal growth and dendritic branching. But this ENORMOUS SOCIETAL BLOB of women who are NOTHING BUT net drain on national economies - definitely exists, is definitely observable, and you're proving nothing when you flail the fact that none of them belong into your familial or social circles. And before you jump in, No, most of women belonging to this blob aren't some Magisters of Motherhood and Care for Older Relatives either.

Fun fact: I've recently found out about a 25-year-old urban planning project in Poland called Dudziarska settlement. The idea was basically to put people in so unbearably bad conditions that it would motivate them to strive towards leaving poverty. The result, predictably, was exactly the opposite: the people who were forcibly put into those houses (for being deeply in debt, for example) turned out to be locked in poverty forever, since electric heating alone turned out to cost more than renting an apartment in another part of town.

On the other hand, let's look at some real strong independent women. Stephanie Kwolek, the inventor of KEVLAR. Marie Curie, the first and probably up until today the only Nobel prize winner in two different sciences. The Polgar sisters, strong chess players, one of whom is considered the strongest female chessmaster of all time. What do all of them have in common? (inb4 Poland - well yes, but it's not what I'd like to focus on)

- Fathers. All of them had talented fathers who dedicated enormous amount of time to teach and train them from early age.

I'm ready to bet 50 bucks that if you take your average valley Stacey and suddenly make it illegal for her to live rent-free in her boyfriend's apartment, she will not become a brilliant chemist or chessplayer. The transition from 'socialism for one sex' is necessary, but it will take at least one generation. Cutting the constant money flow from men to women is necessary, but not sufficient.

rulenumber303 · 2018-04-06T23:38:44+00:00

Are you going to make it illegal to financially support a partner who becomes unemployed?

RockinSocksII · 2018-04-06T16:09:02+00:00

Most women are not attractive enough to marry up. In addition to that, how many guys do you think are earning enough to support 2 or more people?

Ordinate1 · 2018-04-06T16:59:57+00:00

Even your numbers are off.

Women make 77% as much as men over their entire lives; 81% over a year; and 86% per hour.

This means that women work fewer hours per year and fewer years per lifetime, which leads to secondary effects.

For example, if you are an employer needing to promote someone, and you have a man who has been with you for 5 years and works 45 hours per week and a woman who has been with you 3 years and works 35 hours per week, all other things being equal, who are you going to promote? The man, obviously.

Estimates of how much impact things like that, as well as issues like career choice, impact earnings suggest that the "wage gap" might actually go the other way.

TheChemist158 · 2018-04-06T16:39:37+00:00

One thing your aren't considering is childcare. A big factor of the wage gap is women sacrificing career (going part time, not working as hard, taking time off, or quitting altogether) to raise children. If women were expected to have completely equal earning power at their husbands, we would also need to expect the husbands to be more active in child rearing.

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Eartherry · 2018-04-06T18:52:30+00:00

Would women then have to woo men with the amount of money they make? Would men continue to work? Would men stop as soon as they got married?

LifterofThings · 2018-04-06T15:45:52+00:00

I think you're overstating the premeditation of the thing. I think most women today grow up expecting to have jobs outside the home, and to have to make money. The prevailing narrative for young people is more the problem, I think -- you see it more and more with younger millennials. People largely chase passions and personal fulfillment over money (young men too). They may end up in blue-collar work after getting a degree in something useless because the reality that you can't pay your bills with a BA in social science hits them, but that's a factor that plays out after the initial "choosing" of a young person's direction in life.

When they do find a man and settle down and have a family, their priorities shift to caring for the home and the kiddos-- that stuff takes time to do well. So the man does end up subsidizing the woman's time out of the workforce, but I don't think it's so black and white to the women as "well I'll just find some schmuck to pay my way because I don't want to work"... it's just that on a fundamental, biological level for most women, once you hold that baby in your arms your career satisfaction gets demoted on your list of priorities.

[deleted] · 2018-04-06T19:27:29+00:00

It's not that women are picking the wrong field, women's work is just valued as much as men's. The more women that enter a profession, the lower the salary becomes. The more men that enter, the higher it becomes. Whatever degree women gravitate towards becomes less "useful" (i.e. lower salary).

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/20/upshot/as-women-take-over-a-male-dominated-field-the-pay-drops.html?_r=0

The source you give about the wage gap is almost 10 years old. Do you have a more recent one with the same points? There's also this article where Consad itself points out that there were flaws in the data:

https://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/the-pay-gap-is-alive-and-well-and-hurting-women

One point the study does make is that women are more likely to shape their career around childcare. Considering that women do most of the housework, it's not unreasonable to assume they are left to do most of the childcare too. Is it then a fairer question to ask, instead of women relying on men to subsidise their income, why are men relying on women so much to raise their children?