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Young women in NYC earning more than young men
August 7, 2007 - 5:51am
I wonder if this trend is the same in Canadian urban centers? It would be interesting if someone crunched some similar numbers.
Somehow I doubt that single mothers are pushing up the average in NYC. My thought when reading this was to wonder whether this might be because there might be more single women without children on average in NYC than elsewhere. (Ha! I finally clicked on the link after writing this and read the article, and sure enough, that's why!) I think many professional women with children end up dealing with the "mommy track" while men with children tend not to end up on "daddy track" since unpaid domestic labour tends to mostly be done by women on average.
[ 15 August 2007: Message edited by: Michelle ]
I agree with you that it's probably due more to the fact that there are more career single women without children in those cities.
But whatever it takes!
This is an important angle on the gender-equity debate regarding compensation.
It wouldn’t surprise me in the least to hear that single professional woman (without children) earn more than single professional men (without children). Girls do better in school than boys. Girls graduate at higher rates than boys. I believe there are more women in college now than men (see Chart 2) and they do better than men in college. So, why wouldn’t that translate to higher earning potential in the work world?
So, when there is an equal playing field, it doesn’t surprise me that women excel.
And, what is the single biggest factor that tilts that playing field? I think it’s women staying home with children, not systemic gender discrimination (although the latter is doubtless a factor). How can a woman stay home with children for ten or twenty years and then expect to earn the same income as a man who has worked that whole time in a profession? That is at the heart of pay inequity.
I’ve said it before on babble but I think that until men stay home with children at the same rate as women do, there will never be gender equity in the work world, no matter what employers may do.
[ 15 August 2007: Message edited by: Sven ]
No legislation and no action by employers will change that. It has to be a social change. But, what would be a catalyst for that change?
Because the men are still hired to do the hgiher paying job discriptions where the qualifications are equal.
For example, in one of my social work classes there were 5 men and 23 women. The instructor stated that those 5 men would have team leading positions well before the women whom they graduated with would. A state ment that held true, do to the patriarchial systemic bias.
There is seldom an equal playing field because of the patriarchial system and it is not the woman's fault that it remains.
Because a woman has been working in several professions during that time period and it is people who fail to realize this, such as yourself.
Nonsense.Employers likely are hesitant - in the current environment - to hire, promote or invest in the female candidate/employee because there is a strong likelihood that they will leave to raise children.
Unless the likelihood of that happening with a male candidate/employee is the same as with a female, that bias is going to exist.
So really, Sven's arguments still stand up. It is time lost to child rearing - as well as the potential for time lost to child rearing - that is at the heart of pay equity.
It is the same, by far the majority of women go back to work after maternity leave, and men also get maternity leave here in Canada.
There is no time lost to child rearing, peoplewho think this are the largest problem there is.
So, what professions does a stay-at-home mom practice that would, for example, make her a better engineer, lawyer, surgeon, etc. and put her on equal footing with another person (male or female) who practiced the specific profession for fifteen to twenty years without interruption? It’s absurd to think that the stay-at-home mom who returns to work outside of the home after a many years’ absence should be compensated the same as those who have remained in the profession the entire time. They simply are not worth as much to an organization.
For example, going to law school teaches a person basic legal principles. But, the most valuable lawyers are those with many years of experience who can provide practical counsel to a particular client because the lawyers have seen the same or similar problems countless times. If a lawyer practices law for three to five years after law school and then leaves the profession to stay home with children full time for fifteen years, that lawyer is simply not as valuable to a firm or to the lawyer’s clients as a lawyer who practiced law full time for twenty years.
But that is not evident to people who fail to realize the reality of that, such as yourself.
It would literally blow my mind to see you produce something that says men spend equal amounts of time out of the workforce looking after children as do mothers. Luckily, there is no danger of that happening.
I’m not talking about a three-month maternity leave. The duration of maternity leave is so short that it has no effect on the long term skills a person needs to have to practice a highly-skill profession. I’m talking about leaving the workforce for many, many years to raise children full time.
Now, let’s say that a person works as an architect for five years and then quits to stay at home with the kids for fifteen years and then returns to work at your firm. Are you going to pay that architect $275,000 when the architect returns because of the “many professions” practiced while staying home?
The hard reality is that if a person can devote twenty or more years to a highly-skilled profession, such as surgery, trial law, architecture, science and engineering, and the like, they will be making much more money than a person who takes fifteen years away from the profession to raise children full time.
To say that this is all due to gender discrimination practices of employers is to not understand the problem.
Exactly. Looking at it from the perspective of employers it makes absolutely no sense to arbitrarily pay female workers less than males. To be profitable, they need to attract the best employees they can - holding back on wages of some of their staff just leaves them open to losing those employees to a rival.
Therefore, there must be some factor that reduces the "value" of female employees. It goes without saying that females are no less competent and talented than their male counterparts, so it must be something else. The answer is very likely that you have given - a tendency towards less time spent (and thus experience gained) in the workforce.
If a company can get away with paying less for it's workers it will!
Here is an example: When Safeway unionized, they got rid of most of the full time positions and now hire lots of part time people so they don't have to pay benefits.
The bottom line is profit. If they can get away with paying less they will.
In the competitive capitalist system in which businesses operate, businesses must look at every possible means of gaining a competitive advantage, and that includes attracting, and then retaining, the most highly skilled employees that it can find. Our company has about 25,000 employees worldwide and we work very hard at attracting and retaining the best possible employees. It would simply be foolish of us to arbitrarily pay women less than men, simply because they were women.
Those who look at the gender equity issue too often think it’s simply a matter of making employers “get it” that they need to pay women the same as men. But, they ignore two key factors: (1) It is in employers’ best interest to attract and retain the best employees (men and women) and (2) 99% of stay-at-home parents who take years away from their profession are women.
To simply ignore those two factors is to not look at the issue honestly.
That’s right. An employee is not chained, for life, to the first company for which the employee goes to work. And if women at a particular company are systematically paid less than men who are equally skilled and experienced, those women will leave for companies that pay equally for similarly skilled and experienced employees. If I was paid 25% more than a woman attorney who had the same skills and years of experience that I have, you can bet she would leave here in a second if our company did not correct that. But, if I have twenty years of experience as a lawyer and woman law school classmate of mine spent fifteen of the last twenty years at home raising children, it would make no sense to pay her the same as me…and no employer in their right mind—who wanted to remain in business—would.
So, I think there is a continuum. Highly-skilled professions, where years of experience are critical should have pay inequality when one person has many more years of experience than another person. At the other end of the spectrum, there should be little, if any, pay inequality, because the skills to do a job can be rapidly acquired upon reentering the workforce, even after an absence of many years.
Here's the thing, Sven. First of all, you're posting in the feminism forum when you've been told several times since your suspension that you're not allowed to post in the feminism and anti-racism forums anymore.
Secondly, how about not telling women they "don't understand the problem" of gender discrimination in the workplace, hmm?
Please, I'm asking you nicely because I don't want to ban you. Stay out of the feminism forum.
[ 15 August 2007: Message edited by: Stephen Gordon ]
I would bet very few women, if any, in those professions would choose to stay at home for 10-20 years. That is a strawman.
As above.
Here in Canada, as opposed to the USA, as I said above, the vast majority women return to work after maternmity leave is up, the fathers also get the same maternity leave pretty much, as the woman does.
If there is an assumption at play, here in Canada,leave sooned than men, they are wrong in their presumption.
First of all, I don’t believe I was asked to stay out of the feminism forum.
Secondly, I’m not telling women (or anyone else) what they must think, no more than when making an argument on any other subject. Substantively, are you saying that my arguments are off-based? Or, is it simply because I’m a man that they are “unacceptable”? In other words, if my sig other, a woman, made these same posts (and she has the identical viewpoint), would they be acceptable simply because she is a woman? How about looking at the merits of the arguments and not the gender of the arguer?
But that's not the ONLY reason for women making less than men. It would be convenient if we could blame it all on women for having babies and acquiescing to a larger share of the domestic and caring work at home, but I don't think that's really the case.
Another thread was recently posted which said that men not only feel more comfortable with asking for raises or negotiating higher pay, but they are rewarded for doing so whereas women are rebuffed when they do it. There is also the fact that, in a patriarchal society, lots of women gravitate toward gendered (low-paying) jobs and careers.
To simplistically say, well, it's women's choices that are leading to their lower pay, is not a very good analysis, feminist or otherwise.
I'm pretty sure you have been. But in case you're right, I'm asking you now. The reason you were suspended is because of outrageously rude trolling in the feminism forum, and your propensity to dominate feminism threads with your male, and not overly feminist, point of view. As a result, I would like you to not post in this forum.