Assuming that the wage gap does not exist, who made it up?

LockNuts · 2015-07-06T00:18:03+00:00

It all depends on how you define 'wage gap'.

The President keeps getting called out on it because he keeps saying 'for equal work'. When you control for 'equal work', the wage gap largely disappears and turns in women's favor in some fields/locations/cohorts.

Americans don't care about a wage gap based on choices, so it is critical to keep pushing the idea that the gap exists 'for equal work'.

Those three words make all the difference.

Targren · 2015-07-06T00:45:15+00:00

People who don't understand how statistics and concepts like "variables" work. It wasn't so much "made up" as born and perpetuated out of ignorance.

Libertarian__gamer · 2015-07-06T00:38:59+00:00

It's all about echo chambers. The same lines get repeated by the media and feminists so much that it becomes considered truth.

It clearly isnt

GenderNeutralLanguag · 2015-07-06T02:18:19+00:00

The wage gap is a fallacy, not a fabrication.

There really is a difference in the average wages of an average man averaged over a year compared to the average wages of an average woman averaged over a year. This is not a fabrication, it's fact.

The fallacy is that this average difference represents sexism, that women are getting paid less for the same work. The 77 cent number most often cited doesn't even consider the difference in hours worked, so it's clearly not comparing "For the same work"

iainmf · 2015-07-06T01:00:54+00:00

Women on average earn less than men on average.

Feminists interpret this as systemic discrimination and keep pushing this idea. In reality it just a indication of the differences between men and women and different choices made by men and women.

MonkeyCB · 2015-07-06T01:12:11+00:00

Women obviously. You always hear about the quota's to get women into some position, you never hear about the quota's to make sure women work the same amount of hours as men.

chocoboat · 2015-07-06T03:03:13+00:00

There is a gap. Women in total earn 77% as much money as men in total. This is because women work at lower-paying jobs, and work fewer hours. Men and women are virtually always paid the same for equal work.

The "wage gap" as it is commonly used in the media today, is a willful lie created by feminists in order to trick people into supporting their movement.

DavidByron2 · 2015-07-06T03:29:52+00:00

Historically it is related to the genuine wage gap between black and white workers (although that isn't a function of equal work for equal pay either). It seems like at the time of the Equal Pay Act back in the 1960s some people might have actually believed women could be paid less for the same work. When the law was passed to stop this, there was no change at all in the so-called wage gap. People started debunking the myth immediately, especially the part about pay for "equal work".

So i think it started off by accident more or less and was then deliberately seized upon as good propaganda past the point it was known to be false.

But I don't think the purpose is to get more supporters for feminism. The purpose is to spread hatred of men. Feminism seeks to tell women that men are evil rapists who want to oppress them all the time. Since this doesn't look like anyone's reality they have to manufacture victimhood. The wage gap is terrific for this because it tells all women that they are being persecuted by evil men, just for being women, by being paid less.

substance_dualism · 2015-07-06T06:09:33+00:00

The 78% wage gap was a contrived, misleading statistic made by speech writers working for a think tank. Research shows that when you compare equal hours worked, overtime worked, experience, and actual job-title, women make 95% of what men make.

Someone working at one of the organizations looked at data and found that they could get the most dramatic (and misleading) statistic possible if they compared the amount of money made by men and women without accounting for the fact that:

men work more hours per week
men work more overtime
men work in higher-paying but more hazardous fields
men tend to have more experience
men ask for larger raises with greater frequency
etc

So, they found that the president (or whoever) could say that women who work 35 hours or more make 78 cents for every dollar made by men who work 35 hours or more. This statistic was chosen mostly because it would not account for the longer hours and higher-paying jobs that men tend to work, which is where the lion's-share of the wage gap comes from. Technically, the president (or whoever) wasn't lying when he said that, just being horribly deceptive and willfully misleading.

Right after someone uses that statistic, they usually say something like "men and women deserve equal pay for equal work," so that anyone listening assumes, incorrectly, that the 78 cents figure means that women make 78% of what men make for each hour they work, which is untrue (they make 95% as much, when they are working the same job, for the same hours, have the same amount of experience, and so on).

Exactly who was it? You could try to track down who said it first, but it probably evolved over time. One speech writer or PR person probably manipulated the numbers just a little a decade (or so) ago, another did it even more after that, until it snowballed to the 77% number that Obama quoted during the state of the union speech. That was probably the actual hour-worked-to-hour-worked wage gap at some point, if you could find reputable data on the relative hourly earnings of men and women working the same jobs going back far enough, you could probably find the point where the figures women's groups were using started to diverge.

EvolvingRedneck · 2015-07-06T00:59:12+00:00

Many people don't seem to like him, but Stephan is thorough with his statistics

The_Nameless_Mist · 2015-07-06T05:06:24+00:00

The wage gap exists. There IS a gap between the average pay for an adult woman and the average pay of an adult man. That's not in dispute.

What's in dispute is why it exists.

Feminists and their allies contend that the gap exists because of discrimination and use it as a bludgeon to show exactly how biased and discriminatory our society is.

The rest of us have figured out that there's multiple studies, across multiple nations, that control for a lot more factors than a simple average wage by gender, and once you control for those factors (equal position, equal education, equal tenure, equal committed time to the job, etc.) the pay gap essentially disappears.

In a nation where equal pay for equal work is a legal mandate, you can still get a difference in average pay because people ultimately choose to do different jobs, work at different rates, and work in different ways. If more women work part time, work less overtime, work less shift work, work closer to home, and are more likely to maximize their holidays, sick time, STD and LTD ... there's going to be a difference between their pay and men's, and that difference has nothing to do with discrimination. The law does NOT mandate equal pay for unequal work.

Juan_Golt · 2015-07-06T06:02:27+00:00

The general rule is to take a verifiable statistic, stretch it over a rationalization, then amplify its exposure by giving to people looking for reasons to justify their behavior.

Men and women earn different amounts on average. (fact)

This must be evidence of the patriarchy oppressing women. (rationalization)

Feminism is still relevant! We need political action!

It's not so much that people are making things up whole cloth. Instead they are simply using a minor difference to elevate their influence. A formula old as time. There was a 20 point gender gap in the 2012 presidential election. It's safe to assume that several groups benefit from beating the 'pay gap' drum. It doesn't really matter if it's accurate. Welcome to politics.

Tmomp · 2015-07-06T02:35:35+00:00

I don't think you have to assume.

Wargame4life · 2015-07-06T10:49:33+00:00

statistically illiterate morons, but they didn't "Make it up" they are simply too idiotic to understand how to understand data and what is relevant and not relevant.

its as equally batshit insane and shows teh exact same misunderstanding of statistics, to go on a campaign to declare "two leg privilege" since the average number of legs for humans is less than 2, hence we all have above average number of legs, and we should all chop of a bit for "equality"

2015-07-06T14:03:50+00:00

Well you won't find any economist that supports the "wage gap". It's a cherry picked stat that confirms society is biased towards women and that the patriarchy and misogyny still exist. Feminist cling to it with their fat fingers for dear life today. It doesn't make any accountability for women's life choices. Like leaving the work force to raise their own children they have decided to have. On and on. Its a fabricated social bias that has no real dirt to grow in except for the repetitive mention of the lie.

James32015 · 2015-07-06T14:35:32+00:00

A wage gap does exist just not for the reasons they think

robomonkey94 · 2015-07-06T16:02:01+00:00

The wage gap, is smoke and mirrors tactics all circumstantual statistics at best, men usually push for higher pay than women in the same job title.

sillymod · 2015-07-06T16:16:51+00:00

It doesn't have to be a clandestine thing. You need to understand the psychology behind statistics to see it as an accidental byproduct of two issues.

Someone studied the incomes of men and women, not accounting for confounding factors and other demographic information. Found a difference between the genders..
Society has a strong need/desire to protect women.

The wage gap is real. It just doesn't indicate what people think it does. Put 1 and 2 together, and you have lots of people who latch on to the idea that the wage gap indicates a large degree of sexism towards women in wage practices.

StrikingEarth · 2015-07-06T21:19:16+00:00

There is a gap, but it's not because of discrimination. So I guess nobody "made up," the wage gap statistic, but feminists made up the way it is used.

Fact The wage gap is largely explained by the number of women who work part time (more men are FT workers), choose to take care of children (traditionally men do not stay home with the kids), use maternity leave, work overtime (men work the vast majority of OT), etc. This is backed by government statistics. I'll look up the sources if you're really interested, but this is widely accepted in academia.

Myth The wage gap is explained by sexist men/society who value female workers less and pay them accordingly. This is backed up by nothing more than some extremely rare statistical outliers.

Title	Assuming that the wage gap does not exist, who made it up?
Author	aleanacecilia
Upvotes	42
Comments	77
Date	July 6, 2015 12:06 AM UTC (11 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/MensRights
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/3c8vhz/assuming_that_the_wage_gap_does_not_exist_who/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/MensRights/assuming-that-the-wage-gap-does-not-exist-who-made.976123 https://theredarchive.com/post/976123

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