There Is No Male-Female Wage Gap(online.wsj.com)
online.wsj.com
There Is No Male-Female Wage Gap
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704415104576250672504707048.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
8 comments
I always figured you would assume the market is in equilibrium, unless you can prove it isn't by e.g. evidence of intentional discrimination, that sort of thing. In an efficient market -- a market in equilibrium (I took economics a long time ago) -- everyone earns what their labor is worth. Any wage gap in such a situation is by definition still fair: everyone is getting what they earn.
An Opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal isn't worth the electrons used to produce it. The Wall Street Journal specifically disclaims the truthfulness and factuality of anything in its Opinion section, and we ought to take them at their word - this is a propaganda piece, not intended to inform but to disinform.
This is just laughable:
http://www.iwf.org/about/
What that says, in disambiguated English, is that it's a propaganda house funded primarily by the Scaife and Olin foundations.
This is just laughable:
http://www.iwf.org/about/
What that says, in disambiguated English, is that it's a propaganda house funded primarily by the Scaife and Olin foundations.
this is a propaganda piece, not intended to inform but to disinform.
Can you dispute anything in the opinion piece, or is your whole argument "Look, it's in the WSJ"?
Can you dispute anything in the opinion piece, or is your whole argument "Look, it's in the WSJ"?
This is true. I'd pay extra to have someone rip out the Oped page before I pick up my paper.
So because there are more unemployed single or married men who have less education than single women with education the wage gap is closed? This is nonsensical.
The most laughable part of this is when they just throw out that single women make more than males. You might as well say "The cost of oranges and apples are relatively different if you compare orange juice to apple seeds"
Why'd they go with single women? Because married women, specifically those with kids, make a lot less money. I'd imagine if they only used black men without a high school education, there'd be an even greater pro-male wage gap.
Here's some good data to illustrate how complicated the wage gap and employment gap issues are and why overly simplistic stories like that are, well, embarrassing:
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/11/06/business/econo...
The most laughable part of this is when they just throw out that single women make more than males. You might as well say "The cost of oranges and apples are relatively different if you compare orange juice to apple seeds"
Why'd they go with single women? Because married women, specifically those with kids, make a lot less money. I'd imagine if they only used black men without a high school education, there'd be an even greater pro-male wage gap.
Here's some good data to illustrate how complicated the wage gap and employment gap issues are and why overly simplistic stories like that are, well, embarrassing:
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/11/06/business/econo...
He makes neither of the two assertions you attribute to him. He's saying the wage gap is closed because for single males vs single females, women make the same (or more). He doesn't compare single females to all males. The "wage gap" claim is that men and women make different money for the same jobs. It doesn't have anything to do with women with kids obviously making less money overall due to that affecting their career.
Not saying I agree with the article or think it pulls in the whole picture, but you are completely misrepresenting a lot of things.
Not saying I agree with the article or think it pulls in the whole picture, but you are completely misrepresenting a lot of things.
The way I read it, SHE (Ms. Lukas, a woman and the author of the post) certainly is. See:
"Men have been hit harder by this recession because they tend to work in fields like construction, manufacturing and trucking, which are disproportionately affected by bad economic conditions. Women cluster in more insulated occupations, such as teaching, health care and service industries." (comparing without demographic isolation)
"The Department of Labor's Time Use survey shows that full-time working women spend an average of 8.01 hours per day on the job, compared to 8.75 hours for full-time working men. One would expect that someone who works 9% more would also earn more. This one fact alone accounts for more than a third of the wage gap." (comparing with demographic isolation, with no mention of wage differences between men with children and women with children)
Again, my point is that saying "men and women make X money for Y jobs" doesn't make much sense, and doesn't illustrate whether or not the wage gap is closed or not and more importantly, any subset of data can be compared with another subset of data to illustrate that it is or is not closed. The author here uses really simplistic arguments to make a case that isn't true.
The fact is, that if you leave out women with children and women who've only negotiated their salary once, then the wage gap doesn't look so bad. But throw in their first jobs and women with children, and it's significant.
"Men have been hit harder by this recession because they tend to work in fields like construction, manufacturing and trucking, which are disproportionately affected by bad economic conditions. Women cluster in more insulated occupations, such as teaching, health care and service industries." (comparing without demographic isolation)
"The Department of Labor's Time Use survey shows that full-time working women spend an average of 8.01 hours per day on the job, compared to 8.75 hours for full-time working men. One would expect that someone who works 9% more would also earn more. This one fact alone accounts for more than a third of the wage gap." (comparing with demographic isolation, with no mention of wage differences between men with children and women with children)
Again, my point is that saying "men and women make X money for Y jobs" doesn't make much sense, and doesn't illustrate whether or not the wage gap is closed or not and more importantly, any subset of data can be compared with another subset of data to illustrate that it is or is not closed. The author here uses really simplistic arguments to make a case that isn't true.
The fact is, that if you leave out women with children and women who've only negotiated their salary once, then the wage gap doesn't look so bad. But throw in their first jobs and women with children, and it's significant.
Sorry I even checked and still misread the "Ms."
But isn't "men and women make X money for Y jobs" the only legitimate way to look at the wage gap? What other comparison makes sense at all? If not the above, then what wage gap are people complaining about?
Why bring women with children up? Is it not expected (in the statistical sense, not in the duty sense) that women with children will tend to have sacrificed some amount of career? Are you saying that a woman software developer makes more money for the same role as a woman software developer with a child?
But isn't "men and women make X money for Y jobs" the only legitimate way to look at the wage gap? What other comparison makes sense at all? If not the above, then what wage gap are people complaining about?
Why bring women with children up? Is it not expected (in the statistical sense, not in the duty sense) that women with children will tend to have sacrificed some amount of career? Are you saying that a woman software developer makes more money for the same role as a woman software developer with a child?
What other comparison makes sense at all?
I don't endorse it, but comparable worth is popular.
http://www.scu.edu/ethics/publications/iie/v3n2/comparable.h...
I don't endorse it, but comparable worth is popular.
http://www.scu.edu/ethics/publications/iie/v3n2/comparable.h...
Between the title and "WSJ.com" you can almost predict the entire article. One admits, however, mild surpirse that the author literally admits to only doing "a cursory review of the data," such is suspected but rarely explicitly confirmed.
Not to mention stupidity like this:
"hoice of occupation also plays an important role in earnings. While feminists suggest that women are coerced into lower-paying job sectors, most women know that something else is often at work. Women gravitate toward jobs with fewer risks, more comfortable conditions, regular hours, more personal fulfillment and greater flexibility. Simply put, many women—not all, but enough to have a big impact on the statistics—are willing to trade higher pay for other desirable job characteristics."
On one side, there's a long history of studies/research showing coercion of women into certain job sectors. On the other hand, this author says, "most women know something else is often at work". So yeah, about par for the wsj.
On one side, there's a long history of studies/research showing coercion of women into certain job sectors. On the other hand, this author says, "most women know something else is often at work". So yeah, about par for the wsj.
I'd love to see a comprehensive study of male/female wages within specific industries, because I think that would be much more informative on the relative biases specific to industries, but this link isn't it. Instead, this is an opinion piece that does not take its sources seriously, and instead uncritically hand-waves away what is quite possibly a legitimate concern.
I would have liked to see more citations and numbers, but what specifically did you think was hand-wavy?
I lol'd.
Headline is stating something completely different from the study.
Even within the study.. how about a study of wage gaps by industry rather than within the universe of "22-30 year old urban workers"? Maybe there are more male fry cooks and more female advertising execs in that age group?
When feminist groups talk about a wage gap, they talk about different pay levels for the same job, and as far as I'm aware that still exists.
Headline is stating something completely different from the study.
Even within the study.. how about a study of wage gaps by industry rather than within the universe of "22-30 year old urban workers"? Maybe there are more male fry cooks and more female advertising execs in that age group?
When feminist groups talk about a wage gap, they talk about different pay levels for the same job, and as far as I'm aware that still exists.
A plausible explanation I read about the wage gap (if there is any, contrary to this headline) blames it on the fact that wages are bounded from below (minimum wage) but not from above. If you have two groups that would normally have the same average but one is more dispersed, such a truncation on one side will lead to the gap.
There hasn't been a massive wage gap in the software engineering field since at least 1995.
http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/issuebrf/sib99352.htm
If you combine the premise of this WSJ article with the above data from the NSF, can we say that men now make less than women?
http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/issuebrf/sib99352.htm
If you combine the premise of this WSJ article with the above data from the NSF, can we say that men now make less than women?