Recently, I came across a post on Daily Worth, a financial blog for women, written by a young woman who had just been offered a promotion at her daily newspaper: social media editor. She was currently making $32,500, but after doing some research, realized that her new job was worth $40,000.
So she screwed up her courage -- her company was having a hiring and wage freeze, after all -- marched in to see her boss, and negotiated salary:
Although I could feel the pressure, I said it would be hard for me to take the promotion for less than $36,000... I left our meeting without accepting or rejecting the position. The next day my boss called me with an offer of $35,500 plus a monthly cell phone stipend of $75, bringing the total to $36,400 annually. I accepted.
Happy ending, right? Not by my math. What about that missing $3,600?
As we've written before, we've become used to that seventy-seven cents on the dollar business. Used to it, but still peeved. And really, it's worse than that. In a study of University of Chicago MBAs -- which allowed labor economists Claudia Goldin and Lawrence Katz to compare "apples to apples", controlling for everything from biz school courses to job experience to hours worked when it came to gender disparities -- they wrote in a Q-and-A on the SuperFreakonomics virtual book club that for new MBAs, there was a just a modest wage gap -- favoring men, of course -- out of the blocks. But here's where it starts to stink:
Fast forward 10 to 15 years, and the earnings gap between our male and female MBApples is about 40 percent for those who were observationally equivalent at graduation. But almost all of that huge difference can be fully explained by the greater number of career interruptions and lower weekly hours experienced by the women (mind you, they still work a large number of hours). One of the reasons for the large gap in earnings between male and female MBAs is that the cost of career interruptions is very great in the corporate and financial sectors. These costs are considerably lower in medicine, and somewhat lower in law and academia.
To be sure, for many women the time out is a choice, and one that works well for them and their families. Still, for those who jump back on the career ladder, they rarely make up for that lost time -- or salary. Still, though motherhood and lower-paying careers are convenient excuses, they're handily debunked by Ilene Lang, who's with the women's research group Catalyst. "From their very first job after getting their MBA degree, women made less money than men," Lang told NPR . "On average, $4,600 less."
Very first job? MBA? Well, that settles the time-off-for-kids/lesser-paid-career-track thing. And Catalyst's findings held even for women without children. For Lang, this says old stereotypes persist. "There are assumptions that women don't care about money, which is crazy!" Lang said in that same piece. "There are assumptions that women will always have men who will take care of them, that women will get married, have children, and drop out of the labor force. All those assumptions are just not true."
You mean we work for more than pocket money? But the numbers are worse than we think, according to the Center for American Progress: Working women in the United States lose, on average, $431,000 over a forty-year career. Women without a high school degree lose $300,000 on average, and women with a bachelor's or graduate degree lose $723,000 on average. In fact, the analysis shows that the more educated and professional a woman may be, the more she loses over a lifetime of work, simply because of her gender.
But getting back to that blogger from the Daily Worth, we can't help wondering if there is something else at play as well: we don't speak up. In fact, we grab that 77 cents on the dollar and say thank you very much -- or, as that blogger revealed, feel as if we are letting someone down by asking for more. Is it because we women are hard-wired to please? That we have a hard time shaking off the good-little-girl mantle? All of which comes back to bite us in the paycheck. Linda Babcock and Sara Laschever, authors of Women Don't Ask note:
- By not negotiating a first salary, an individual stands to lose more than 500,000 by age 60 -- and men are more than four times as likely as women to negotiate a first salary.
- Women often don't know the market value of their work: Women report salary expectations between 3 and 32 percent lower than those of men for the same jobs; men expect to earn 13 percent more than women during their first year of full-time work and 32 percent more at their career peaks.
And in most cases, men do. As we wrote on Equal Pay Day, a non-holiday that marks the date in April that women's salaries catch up with their male counterparts' (That's right, as compared to the dude in the next cube, from January 1 until April 14, you, sister, were working for free): Every time we change jobs and are asked for a salary history, we're at an increased disadvantage -- and coupled with this gender-based pay discrimination disparity, well -- that disparity is going to do nothing but get worse.
Sigh.
Just yesterday, I was talking with my big sister. She was asking about our book and I was grousing about the fact that, in today's publishing climate, authors have to do a lot of self promotion. "I hate it," I moaned. "And I'm no good at it."
She smiled, obviously older -- and wiser, too. "If you were a man," she said, "you wouldn't have a problem with it, now would you?"
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It's Time for Working Women to Earn Equal Pay
The Wage Gap: A History of Pay Inequity and the Equal Pay Act ...
What we need to learn more about is what issues women are having once they get married and have children. Are those women being treated unfairly or are they just making choices to accommodate their families? Articles like this one accomplish nothing and make women feel like victims.
The bottom line is that only women can give birth and since most women have children at some point, they will be taken out of the workforce for at least some period of time. Not only that, it is during the ascent of someone's career in their late 20s and 30s.
The authors state, "Happy ending, right? Not by my math. What about that missing $3,600?" That assumes that the person's research was accurate and the $40K figure was solid. It also does not explain any other factors that could affect pay beyond gender, like the financial health of the company, if the boss handed out a raise to someone else and was holding the line here, or any other of a myriad of factors.
MBAs from Univ of Chicago earn about $125K per year starting salary depending on industry so $4600 does not sound like much. A salary of $120K would be considered close to $125K. There may be factors like geography affecting the difference but not considered in the article.
The bottom line is that if a woman with the same education and experience chooses not to have children will earn essentially the same as her male counterpart.
2. Men are more likely to take hazardous jobs than women, and such jobs pay more than cushier and safer jobs.
3. Men are more willing to expose themselves to inclement weather at work, and are compensated for it ("compensating differences" in the language of economics).
4. Men tend to take more stressful jobs that are not "nine-to-five."
5. Many women prefer personal fulfillment at work (child care professional, for example) to higher pay.
6. Men are bigger risk takers than women, in general. Higher risk leads to higher reward.
7. The worst working hours pay more, and men are more likely to work these hours than women.
8. Dangerous jobs (coal mining) pay more and are more male dominated.
9. Men tend to "update" their work qualifications more than women do.
10. Men are more likely to work longer hours, and the pay gap widens for every hour past 40 per week.
Reference: "Every Feminist's Nightmare?", Thomas J. DiLorenzo, http://www.lewrockwell.com/dilorenzo/dilorenzo160.html
So, to make things "equal", a male logger (one of the world's most dangerous occupations) should be paid the same as a female clerk who works in an air conditioned office and whose most dangerous injury might be a hang nail?
I don't understand your logic, unless you just want extra money for nothing (which I suspect is the case)
Use of the hard-wiring argument validates men who use the same argument about "spreading their seed."
So, no.
Unless your "culture" is to ignore science.
Can you believe this sexist doesn't want to pull his own weight?
Men pay more for auto insurance because they have more serious accidents. Women therefore pay less and seem to have no remorse at doing so.
Since women use more health care than men, why don't they pay their fair share as men have to do for auto insurance? Why aren't men charged less for health care, so we can have no remorse in paying less?
Funny how you want it your way on both things, that is inconsistent reasoning.
http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,2015274,00.html
If women really made 77% of what men make then companies could hire 4 women for every 3 men that they hire. Those women heavy companies would put the men heavy ones out of business. It would be such an advantage that the demand for women would increase and drive their wages up and the wages of men down until there was parity. That is how a free market works.
For years NOW's website used the truck driver versus secretary comparison. They blamed truck drivers being paid more on gender. Think about it though. Truck drivers work long hours in the cab of a truck. Have to frequently spend nights away from home and don't really have any flexibility in terms of taking off an hour or two early to take care of domestic responsbilities. Women on average pick the kinds of jobs that let them balance work with other things. Frankly it is the wise choice if you ask me. Nobody says they should have worked more while on their death bed.
Also, women after having children will often take positions with flexibility or closeness to home because they are the primary care givers of the children. They are also more likely to be the ones who get called when the kids are sick or something is wrong with daycare. We can argue whether this is right or not but that is up to the individual couple who is having the children. The jobs that are most flexible tend to pay less such as school teachers (match children's schedule), nurses (tend to be paid hourly and can work off hours when spouse is home), etc.
How can an employer pay someone who has left the workforce for 6 months over the last 5 years and cannot stay late and work weekends because of commitments at home the same as a person who is willing to work whatever it takes? This is true whether man or woman.
As full-time mothers or homemakers, stay-at-home wives earn zero. How can they afford to do this while in many cases living in luxury? Because they're supported by their husband, an “employer” who pays them to stay at home.
So if millions of wives are able to accept no wages, millions of other wives are able to accept low wages, refuse overtime and promotions, work part-time instead of full-time, take more unpaid days off, avoid uncomfortable wage-bargaining (http://tinyurl.com/45ecy7p) — all of which lower women's average pay. Women are able to make these choices because they are supported or anticipate being supported by a husband who must earn more than if he'd chosen never to marry. This is how MEN help create the wage gap.
See “The Ledbetter Fair Pay Act” at http://tinyurl.com/pvbrcu