ELI5: The Wage Gap issue

bufedad · 2018-04-09T15:31:58+00:00

The wage gap is basically this:

Take all full time women's yearly salary, and divide it by the number of women working full time.

Take all full time men's yearly salary, and divide it by the number of men working full time.

Ignore hours, field of employment, education, work history, experience, etc...

Viola.... wage gap.

Now, it doesn't matter that there are more male engineers and neurosurgeons, and more female teachers and secretaries.

You have to ignore men working more dangerous jobs (93% of workplace deaths are men).

You have to ignore all the reasons men take positions that earn more than women...

But yeah, if you look at the data just the right way and squint your left eye... you can find a wage gap.

DavidByron2 · 2018-04-09T16:33:28+00:00

It's hate speech. Feminists tell lies to make people hate and despise men. Feminists have been using this same lie since the 1960s.

It's like the way that some people say Jewish people eat Christian babies. If you hear someone make this claim the best response is not to quote figures on the death rate of infants but to call them out as a bigot.

PondSpelunker · 2018-04-09T18:06:39+00:00

If you add up what ALL women make and divide it by the number of women, and you add up what ALL men make, and divide it by the number of men, the number on the women's side is roughly 77% of the men's side.

The problem is that the 77% statistic is most often thrown around to incorrectly show that women are making 77% of what men make for the same job, which just isn't true. There are dozens, if not hundreds of factors that go into different wages for two people in the same position, including everything from schedule (flexible hours generally mean lower pay because you'd be less reliably on the job) to work experience (if you've got ten years of experience with your job, you'll probably do it better than someone who just got out of college, and has no experience with the job, except for what they learned in classes), and more notably that different people negotiate their salary differently when they get raises, or when they start a new job (men tend to negotiate more aggressively, and companies don't want to pay someone more than they absolutely have to, so it wouldn't make sense for them to just give away money if they don't have to).

In the US anyway, it's been illegal to pay people different amounts because of sex (among other things) since JFK signed the Equal Pay Act of 1963.

Granted, I think a lot of people (feminists included) who bring up the supposed wage gap don't actually know how it was calculated, and why it's dishonest to act as if women make 77% as much as men on an individual level. It happens for the same reason that Christian churches don't talk about inconsistencies in the bible. It weakens their point to tell followers about it, so the details aren't widely talked about.

I hope this helps. I know some of it was already covered by other posters, but I thought some of their points could be more clearly worded.

EricAllonde · 2018-04-09T16:00:50+00:00

It's more accurately described as a "gender earnings gap", caused by the "gender personal choices about work gap".

Tgunner192 · 2018-04-09T16:45:39+00:00

Like you're 5; People who work longer hours with less time off get paid more. Men work longer hours and take less time off than woman.

goldudemk · 2018-04-09T18:21:36+00:00

The “wage gap” is like taking the boys grades and all the girls grades from a school, finding average grades (a,b,c,etc) and then concluding that the sex with the higher average grade is smarter. This is false without a doubt, as it doesnt include extra credit, the types of classes (regular, honors, ap, etc) and days attended. The wage gap is completely destroyed by the facts if you look past the emotion of “79¢” and actually learn about how that number was found

jamminnummeruno · 2018-04-09T21:23:20+00:00

The "wage gap" is caused by DISCRIMINATION AGAINST MEN since they do not have the same workplace rights as women, like equal parental leave and retirement. men are FORCED by LAW to work MORE than women.

grasshopa · 2018-04-09T15:47:00+00:00

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QcDrE5YvqTs

xNOM · 2018-04-09T21:41:52+00:00

There are many things which "determine" how much you get paid. None of which have anything to do with what's between your legs. Do you have a degree? How many years of experience do you have? Is there a hole in your resume because you quit work to take care of children/parents. Do you have a criminal record? Do you like technology?

Collect ALL of these "determiners" and put them into a list along with sex. Now survey hundreds of thousands of people randomly and find out what degrees they have, how much experience they have, do they have a hole in their resume, ..... , and what's between their legs. Then ask them how much money they earn per year.

Then do a linear regression analysis on the entire dataset to find out which of these "determiners" is significant. In layman's terms this means QUANTITATIVELY answering the question of how much influence does each of these "determiners" ALONE have on pay.

Example: Of these hundreds of thousands of people, 1092 of them all have the exact same degree, experience, resume hole, ...., but have different things between their legs. For these 1092 people separate them into men and women and then find the average male and female pay. This difference is the "unexplained wage gap" for these 1092 people. It could be due to discrimination. But it could also be due to something else which you neglected to include in your list of "determiners." But it almost doesn't matter, because this gap is SMALL.

If you just take the hundreds of thousands of people and separated them immediately into men and women and calculate the difference in average male and female pay, this is the "raw wage gap." This gap is large. This is the propaganda number that feminists love to talk about because they are stupid.

Rethgil · 2018-04-09T22:08:31+00:00

Theres countless stickies on this by now arent there?

Rethgil · 2018-04-09T22:16:42+00:00

We dont live in a Socialist system. We live in a free Capital market.

That, by definition, means there is no hard and strict "true value" of a persons work effort.

So differently successful companies can pay different people different amounts depending on competitive rates, personal skill, or celebrity status, and experience, and MARKET VALUE.

So men with experience are paid more than women who have less experience, because they took time out to have kids, or to change careers.

Dangerous jobs pay to attract people to do them. Which women dont do.

So-if a woman tells you she doesnt understand why theres a wage gap, or claims one exists, instead of an EARNINGS GAP, it simply proves she is...

A) A feminist who hates on men...

B) An idiot who is complaining about a system they dont even understand the basics of...

C) ...Or both of the above.

Okay?

alclarkey · 2018-04-09T22:22:56+00:00

The ~~wage~~ earnings gap exists, and it is justified. Women work less hours, choose less physically, and mentally challenging types of jobs, take maternity leave... etc.

Title	ELI5: The Wage Gap issue
Author	Tikylme
Upvotes	26
Comments	25
Date	April 9, 2018 3:15 PM UTC (8 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/MensRights
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/8az69g/eli5_the_wage_gap_issue/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/MensRights/eli5-the-wage-gap-issue.903088 https://theredarchive.com/post/903088

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