Do women actually get paid less than men?

themountaingoat · 2013-10-08T14:05:59+00:00

Is it a true statistic? Yes and no. Is it just propaganda? No. It's a shallow statistic, and people tend to repeat statistics that agree with their position without investigating and most people do not understand why.

(I can only speak about Canada - I don't know the US numbers)

The claimed wage gap is that women earn between 70 and 80 cents for every dollar a man earns. The 70% number that gets quoted only accounts for the annual salary of workers and their gender. It ignores hours worked.

If you account for hours worked, the wage gap shrinks to somewhere around 83% (in Canada, anyway) Even if you account for the hours worked difference between sexes, there is a still a male-female wage gap!

That being said, there are a host of other factors which also need to be adjusted - to name a few:

Workplace hazards (likelihood of injury)
Workplace discomforts (air conditioned office vs. sunburns or getting rained on)
Fulfilment (Child care worker vs. Factory assembly line)
Stress and risks (think jobs where you can kill people or ruin lives for failure, or where you have to risk your own reputation or assets to earn money)
Bad Working times (night shifts, split shifts)
Unpleasant environments (prison guard vs. restaurant hostess)
Years of experience/seniority (taking time off hurts your earning potential)
Long commutes
How acceptable unplanned absences are (You're sick, but have court today? Too bad for you!)
Requirement to relocate at the company's behest (Many bank managers are required to relocate every few years if they want to earn promotions)
Extensive travel required as part of job (travelling salesperson)

*All of these are borrowed from Warren Farrell's Why Men Earn More

All of these factors influence the desirability of a job and, commensurately, its pay. No one to date has been able to account for all of these factors when comparing earning between the sexes, and I challenge anyone to provide me with examples of recent situations in which a man is paid more than a woman for performing exactly the same job (accounting for the majority of the above factors).

There is also a strong economic argument for why this wage gap can't really exist. If corporations could actually pay women 70% of what they pay men to do the exact same work, then we would see many businesses firing their male workers and then rehiring women at lower rates. We would, in fact, see 100% employment among women, because no one would hire a man when they could hire a woman at a discount. In reality, we do not see this practice at all. In reality, businesses offer wages which account for the above factors. They pay more to have people wake up early, to put themselves at risk, and to work in hard conditions. It just so happens that men flock to these jobs, and women do not.

So, how do we close the gap? I say stop focusing on actual salaries. Instead, how do we get men into comfortable office jobs with regular hours and little at stake in what they do? How do we get men to overcome their socialized obligation to provide for their families at the expense of their own health and happiness (women are brought up being told they can choose to work or raise a family, men are brought up being told they must work and provide).

I believe that the real story here is that women are doing a far better job than men at achieving work/life balance. That is the gap we should be focusing on.

lafielle · 2013-10-08T13:42:36+00:00

They outsource entire factories to China due to lower wages. Clearly Chinese are paid less than Americans. However, I've never heard of a company firing all men to be replaced by women due to lower wages.

If an employer could pay an equally qualified woman less money to do the same work in the same quantity and at the same quality as a man, based purely on her gender, why would companies ever even hire any men to begin with?

Any argument that women get paid less for the same work under the same conditions and qualifications is an argument that a capitalistic economy is not motivated primarily by a desire for profit.

2013-10-09T02:35:53+00:00

They basically get paid the same hourly wages but earn less based on fewer hours worked, more likely to work part-time, takes more time off, etc.

rightsbot · 2013-10-08T13:20:16+00:00

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2013-10-08T13:30:52+00:00

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2013-10-08T16:11:07+00:00

Yes, but primarily because they do less work and choose less dangerous jobs.

They get paid equally, or nearly so (you sometimes see a 5% figure bandied about, but it's hard to know what to attribute it to) when they do the same exact job for the same period of time and work the same hours.

So, if you compare apples to oranges, it appears to be true. When you start putting apples next to apples, though, the assertion starts to break down.

jonnytechno · 2013-10-08T17:27:51+00:00

I dint see how, every job I've ever applied for had a pay figure clearly visible ... There was no lesser payment for women ...

Furthermore, are we supposed to believe that men earn more and big businesses are desperate to throw their profit away by hiring more expensive men than cheaply paid female employees ?

jabberwockysuperfly · 2013-10-08T13:39:37+00:00

a simple search will show all the discussions on the so-called gender pay gap.

http://www.reddit.com/r/MensRights/search?q=pay+gap&restrict_sr=on

giegerwasright · 2013-10-08T13:39:44+00:00

Women do not get less for doing the same work in the same position at the same company with the same proficiency for the same hours with the same time served than men. They do not. They absolutely fucking do not. In my experience, it is quite common for them to be paid more for signifigantly less. The purpose of the propoganda is to get them even more and to protect them from a necessary result of true equality; equal presence in the glass cellar. Real work terrifies them.

SHITLORDHERE · 2013-10-08T13:59:19+00:00

It's not true. It's a blatant lie.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/christina-hoff-sommers/wage-gap_b_2073804.html

http://thenononsenseman.com/nonsense/gender-wage-gap/

http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2013/08/gender_pay_gap_the_familiar_line_that_women_make_77_cents_to_every_man_s.html

http://www.aauw.org/research/graduating-to-a-pay-gap/

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/345106/equal-pay-day-debunked-three-minutes-carrie-lukas

There is no glass ceiling. Just ask Meg Whitman, Carly Fiorina, Indra Nooyi, Andrea Jung, Anne Mulcahy and many others. You get what you NEGOTIATE for compensation, NOT what you perceive you deserve. Men are better negotiators when it comes to compensation.

Factually speaking, that is not our men's fault that this occurs, IF it does occur. Do you have a scientific peer reviewed study which can be cited for this data? You get what you negotiate and what you are willing to work hard for to achieve. There is no glass ceiling. If men in similar jobs aren’t paid equally to men they compete with — and they’re not — how is it possible to mandate equal pay between genders? It isn’t. Everyone is paid what he or she is worth, and that compensation is determined by job skills, job requirements, personality, geography, industry, company size, AND negotiating skills. When a company offers a woman a salary, and she accepts it — without negotiating a better deal — she is agreeing to the amount. She can’t later complain that some man out earns her. People often cite, and blindly accept, a mysterious “statistic” indicating that women earn 70 cents for every dollar a man earns. Surprisingly, few ask how that figure was derived. It’s meaningless. Moreover, it does not factor in child support and alimony, which women receive in at least 90% of cases. And, let’s not forget the imputed income to women when men pay for their entertainment and travel. All told, according to Allianz, the financial-services behemoth, women control 60% of American wealth. Take a man earning $2M per year and another living under a bridge, earning nothing. Lump them together: each has an average annual salary of $1M. Makes sense on a calculator but not in reality. Men and women, in general, have different jobs. In addition, more women than men are in low-paying, part-time jobs. Yes, there are men and women with equal jobs in the executive ranks. But, rarely do you find women welding steel atop bridges or men changing diapers in daycare centers. So, if you take a group of women, ranging from CEO to secretary, and a group of men, ranging from CEO to Navy SEAL, the arithmetic averages of their wages will not be equal. But, because most men feel guilty for being alive, let alone walking upright, they easily succumb to this glass-ceiling wage-gap crap. If you take maternity leave you are not working ergo why should your salary level remain consistent with those who remained and are advancing? You are making a conscious decision of family over career. Live with your choices and the consequences of your decisions. That's the real world.

Unless the data trotted out and called “factual” is peer reviewed legitimate studies following scientifically accepted statistical formulas and processes which can be confirmed and checked by 3rd parties for accuracy, it is no more relevant or real than anecdotal experience.

Sasha_ · 2013-10-08T16:00:54+00:00

Oh no, not this again. Read the sidebar. Please.

Title	Do women actually get paid less than men?
Author	[deleted]
Upvotes	5
Comments	14
Date	October 8, 2013 1:18 PM UTC (12 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/MensRights
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/1nzczl/do_women_actually_get_paid_less_than_men/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/MensRights/do-women-actually-get-paid-less-than-men.1161829 https://theredarchive.com/post/1161829

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