Study: pay gap between men and women persists

Achievement gap

I've also read that the gap between boys and girls in high school success is widening and becoming a huge problem.  Boys are falling behind.  One result is that girls qualify for the better colleges at much higher rates.  Since universities don't want to end up with a female-dominated student body (it wouldn't be a selling point for most), it's now becoming harder for girls to get into the school of their choice, since the schools are actively trying to enroll more boys.  This is a bad situation for everyone. 

As women begin to outperform men in academics and the workplace, it seems that the result is going to be to reward high-performing men even more.  Women don't get the same respect, so they don't get the same pay.  Since over half of law students are now women, I wonder what that means for the future of the profession.  Will pay for lawyers go down overall, while continuing to go up for the few at the top...who will continue to be disproportionately male?

Very thought-provoking stuff.

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by: Heidi @ Tue Apr 24, 2007 at 11:41:40 AM CDT

Fewer Males being born

Not only is there an achievement gap between male and female students, colleges, universities and employers may soon have to contend with a shrinking pool of what is seen as the ideal applicant, a white male. http://www.cbsnews.c...

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by: lottie @ Tue Apr 24, 2007 at 12:41:27 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Wait a minute...

"since the schools are actively trying to enroll more boys"

WHOA!  Are we talking about Affirmative Action for (probably white) men?  I thought they AA wasn't a good thing nowadays ...

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by: Jami @ Tue Apr 24, 2007 at 11:52:20 AM CDT

It's happening, though

I read an article addressing it some time ago: http://www.usatoday....

If you go hunting for information on this topic, you mostly get articles asserting that feminism has ruined the schools for boys and it's just not fair.  I agree that we need to find solutions to helping boys succeed, but not at the expense of girls who are already doing well.

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by: Heidi @ Tue Apr 24, 2007 at 13:35:41 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Definitely

The solutions to bring boys back into the race don't have to and shouldn't affect the girls' current and future successes, but there is very much to learn from some social experiments over the past few years.  Too much Ritalin and over-done self-esteem movements haven't done our kids any favors, and too many systems out there seem to punish boys for being boys.

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by: torrentprime @ Tue Apr 24, 2007 at 14:23:01 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

All indicators show that the discrepancy

in college attendance between women and men is only present in  children with families in the bottom half of the income distribution, particularly in the bottom quintile. Not surprisingly this also produces a marked tendency for minorities to have a higher percentage of women than men attending college.

The difference is nil in the top quintile of income and is tiny in the second quintile.

Putting it simply, boys rely on access to better paid high-school-only jobs or on daydreams of fame, on theft/ drug dealing. Bottom-quintile women, particularly black women, who are ambitious know that they have to have a college education to escape the minimum wage jobs like housekeeper, LPN, waitress in non-posh place.

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by: NancyP @ Tue Apr 24, 2007 at 18:30:17 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Negotiating a better pay

A lot of these studies overlook that women don't tend to negotiate for higher salaries, while for men, haggeling for a better employment package seem to come more naturally. As the years go by, percent increases only widen the gap. Companies don't set out with some sexist anti-women compensation strategy - I learned the hard way - a company will pay you as little as possible and you have to fight and negotiate for the rest.

How about a study on why many women settle for what is given them rather than feeling entitled to, demanding and expecting more? (This carries over into other aspects of life like car buying. When I sell stuff on Craigslist, women just fork over their $ while about half of the male buyers try to haggle me down or get me to throw in extra stuff.)

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by: HPRIC @ Tue Apr 24, 2007 at 13:38:33 PM CDT

Seen it firsthand

Unfortunately, I'm a guilty party to it too.

I've been in the seat of counseling women on their job search and I can't tell you how hard it is to get women to talk about their accomplishments.  I've had to drag it out of some.

Get them into a practice interview situation and it's "we did this" or "we did that."  I tell them point blank that I don't give a flying toot about what "we" did.  I only care about what YOU did.  What was your role?  Did you have one?  If not, you need to think about getting one next time.

Until you draw their attention to it, they don't realize how much they've allowed their lives to be predetermined by others.  Bad thing is, that being the typically sensitive souls we are, we'll be told we're not being aggressive enough and leave the room crying over it, instead of getting pissed off and changing our ways.

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by: callie @ Tue Apr 24, 2007 at 15:03:36 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Figured this out years ago

The study also took into account that women gravitated toward fields that had lower pay scales, such as education, health care and psychology, while men majored in big ticket areas such as mathematics, physical science, and engineering. This raises many issues, but one that comes to mind is that those fields that are traditionally dominated by women are considered "worth less" in society because they are dominated by women.

Interestingly, when I did my "major paper" for my Masters' in Economics at the University of Maryland (roughly comparable to a thesis), I looked at the theory of "Women's work." What I found was that BOTH men and women who worked in industries with high percentages of women (e.g. healthcare or education) suffered a pay descrease because of it. The pay gap between men and women was no different, but men in industries with lots of women earned less than their male counterparts in male-dominated fields - and the women earned less than their female counterparts as well.

The difference lasted (and grew with the percentage of women in the industry) even when factoring in age, experience, degree status, time in the workforce, etc. In fact, I ran the numbers looking ONLY at unmarried men and women below the age of 26 with post-BA degrees (who were too young to have left and re-entered the workforce and very unlikely to have children) and the differences STILL held. Either women gravitate to less-valued industries, or society values industries less when women become common in them. Either way, as a man working in healthcare, I'm screwed :-)

Oh, and Jami - haven't you figured it out? Affirmative Action is ONLY bad when it helps non-white non-men. After all, when Harvard looked at the grades and SATs scores for their frosh a few years back, they found the least qualified group were the legacies, who got in because their parents were graduates. Add in the overwhelming number of white athletes who get scholarships (particularly in Division 2 schools) and it turns out white men get the most from affirmative action (defined broadly as using any criteria but school achievement to determine entrance).

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by: CPT_Doom @ Tue Apr 24, 2007 at 13:47:26 PM CDT

DUH!

and also DOH!
;)

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by: Jami @ Tue Apr 24, 2007 at 15:05:36 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Florida one of the worst for pay gap.

  The sun shine state ranked 44,

http://www.orlandose...

  Just one more reason for leaving this state.

If I make sense? it was quite by accident.

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by: HappyCat @ Tue Apr 24, 2007 at 16:49:24 PM CDT

Ever was it thus....

stats haven't moved in 30 years.

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by: NancyP @ Tue Apr 24, 2007 at 18:31:32 PM CDT

Voodo Economics

In a fair market economy, a "balance" or economic "homeostasis" is achieved when various factors, such as prices, wages, demand, supply, etc. are allowed to find their spontaneity. When women entered the workplace in significant numbers in the 1960s and 1970s, men's wages were just as threatened as women's wages underpaid. In a fair system, the imbalance would find its equilibrium over time.

But business does not have to be "fair." Especially, if it is unfettered, unregulated, and driven toward short-term profits only. And especially if illegals enter the workforce.

Willing to accept $0.60 on the dollar (which is $0.55 better than the "old" country), they undermined women's wage parity with men ($0.75 on the dollar). They also work hard, often do not demand benefits, and don't complain. They pay taxes, but cannot get their withholding back. Business and government loves them.

They don't take maternity leave, if they're men. Women's wages, as well as men's, were undermined. Parity was no longer possible, as a "foreign" component "outside" the economic system was introduced. Any time a homeostatic system has a foreign body (such as our bodies), it disrupts the equilibrium.

But business trumped even the "illegal" component; they discovered "offshore." Dare we say, Halliburton? Dubai? That also throws the system into an imbalance, and inexpensive labor is replaced by cheap labor abroad. Taxation is also diminished, but consumer prices "drop." When consumer prices drop, more people buy, which creates the "impression" of economic prowess, success, and vitality. The only problem with this impression is that the "inexpensive" laborer is displaced, cannot afford to be a consumer, and becomes dependent on various subsidies. And the "slide" into an economic "prosperity" is all to the top 1%.

Fettered capitalism in a "balanced" system would have brought economic parity to women over time, and allowed men's wages to recover, over time. But "introduce" foreign components, remove the internal pressures, and the "slide" into economic oblivion will occur.

While we all lament women's economic parity, we do not have the courage to demand our government demand business play "fair." So, all the forces that would have achieved parity have instead gone to reward the unfair capitalists who extorts his own society, and gets all the rewards, without "sharing" the wealth. Illegal labor, offshore companies, NAFTA, corporate subsidies, foreign labor -- this is not capitalism, it's GREED. And both Democrats and Republicans get pay-offs from the K-Street Lobbyists to allow our economy to falter for their political gain.

What's egregious about all this is how fully complicit nearly everyone is with "breaching" the system. Even more egregious, is the tax-cuts to the wealthiest who already reap ALL the benefits. Indeed, 98% of income increases in the past six years have gone to the top 1% of the wealthiest, while the Administration "charges" its debt to China, who buy our debts to gain re-entry into our markets.

Someone once called this VOODO economics, and his SON is now President, and Halliburton's CEO is our Vice President. No one enforces illegal labor, offshore corporations, foreign labor, or labor compliance, and we reward the extortionists with tax breaks, while selling our infrastructure to foreign creditors, like China. Instead, we have NAFTA, and who delivered that one?

We might start by doing four things: (1) Ban K-Street Lobbyists from subsidizing our politicians; (2) ban all taxpayer subsidies of corporations and businesses; (3) enforce a "closed" economic system where market forces will drive to achieve an equilibrium, and (4) disallow government deficit financing outside of wartime.

Want to bet any of it will happen? Dare anyone truly believe women will achieve economic parity without doing so?

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by: The Gay Species @ Tue Apr 24, 2007 at 19:38:01 PM CDT

Point well made,

  Nothing in the USA is being "Made In The USA"  and it will come full circle.

  And I will add, Bush with his "HOLY WAR" running the deficit way to deep, that is what we get.

  I hope "Supernutty" doesn't requie SRS in the very near future.

 

If I make sense? it was quite by accident.

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by: HappyCat @ Wed Apr 25, 2007 at 02:47:45 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

so does the pregnancy gap

Right out of college, ten years out of college, either way a woman has an equal chance of hoping out of the office and into the maternity ward.  It's not a pay gap.  It's a smart employer.

-Dick, http://www.MenAreBet...

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by: dickmasterson @ Wed Apr 25, 2007 at 02:23:15 AM CDT