The comment on lots of small discriminations adding up over time, matters. 1% here, 1% there and soon you end up with large differences.

I also wonder if people are making other judgements and decisions. For example, remuneration is not all about pay. Flexible working hours, hours worked etc as you point out all come into the equation.

There are other ‘human nature’ factors. For example, its well known that immigrants into a country tend to converge on the same areas to live and work, at least for a couple of generations. Its a simple example of a social network. Social networks operate in the jobmarket. Its one cause of firms hiring lots of men or women. I would suspect that networking perpetuates inequalities.

The comment on lots of small discriminations adding up over time, matters. 1% here, 1% there and soon you end up with large differences.

I also wonder if people are making other judgements and decisions. For example, remuneration is not all about pay. Flexible working hours, hours worked etc as you point out all come into the equation.

There are other ‘human nature’ factors. For example, its well known that immigrants into a country tend to converge on the same areas to live and work, at least for a couple of generations. Its a simple example of a social network. Social networks operate in the jobmarket. Its one cause of firms hiring lots of men or women. I would suspect that networking perpetuates inequalities.

I wonder if reducing the wage gap would lower the birth rate. That would be a fascinating and wonderful side-effect of this change. There is even a way to check this.

Do you know if the wage gap is lower in the various Scandanavian countries? Their birth rate is well below that in the US and I’m wondering if this might be related to a lower wage gap. It would be nice to think that population reduction and increased equality could both be accomplished simultaneously.

Mostly down to good child support services.If you have good child support, you can go out and work.

Nick

Well, let me just say that as recently as ten years ago, while I was a graduate student at a university with a large and well-respected biomedical portion, a study was done of the salaries on campus (which were otherwise confidential). Even after controlling for years holding the position, and to general degrees of seniority, the women (internationally known Ph.D.s) made on average 65% the salaries of the men. The best reason that anybody could come up with was that the men tended to “game the system” more — going to other universities to get job offers, and then using those to wrangle improved deals back home — while the women tended to just admit when they were generally satisfied, and sort of wait to be rewarded at a steady pace.

But we were all appalled.

Whether it’s because of overt sexism or subtler factors such as the behavioral ones mentioned above, this is a serious issue that hasn’t yet gone away! Universities aren’t the only places where there is discretion in the assignment of pay…

second, i’d like to add that the pay gap also has serious consequences for families headed by single women and lesbian-headed families, compared to families headed by gay men and straight couples. i’m active in queer political movement(s), and it’s amazing to me how little attention is given to the difference between incomes of lesbian, bi, and trans women (and, i would add, trans men and folks who don’t identify with either gender) versus those of gay and bi men. it’s visible to me (and i admit that my evidence is rather un-scientific, based primarily in my daily observations within these movements) in the differences between LBTQ women and LBTQ men when they: a)donate money and other resources to LGBTQ organizations, b)choose and furnish a permanent living space, c)select a job, even d)go on vacation. for example, vacation spots often designated as queer-friendly–Provincetown, Ogunquit, Montreal–seem to me to be largely targeted toward gay men, who are more likely than LBTQ women to have more disposable income. again, this assertion is based on my observations alone, and income differentials within queer communities are similarly complex… but i just wanted to throw in my two… er, one and a half… cents.

perhaps the pay gap is one issue that crosses feminist, queer, and “minority” communities… yet the response to this issue must be as complex as the issue itself. i agree that it’s not just a straight-up unequal pay for equal jobs issue… but how to respond?

anyone? anyone? bueller?

Despite this, both men were given higher starting saleries. After much debate, discussion, and argument, the department finally increased the female profs’ saleries — but they raised it to be equal to the mens’ (still ABD’s). After the men completed their dissertations, they were given a raise, thus making their saleries, once again, higher than the womens’. This time the department refused to budge and raise the womens’ saleries.

And, ftr, this all occurred within the last 10 years.

But as long as that’s the subject,
don’t forget hazard pay.
There is very good research
describing pay differences based
on how likely the employee will
be injured or killed on the job.

Call it the sexism of society,
chauvanism if you like, but men
tend to be steered towards those
jobs more than women (firmen,
construction workers are just two
examples that spring to mind).

Eli Lilly has been cited for its best practices for gender fair compensation and mentoring of women. Information about it is on their website. Blue Cross is another corporation cited for best practices in reducing the wage gap.

I am interested in hearing what state legislatures have done to reduce the wage gap in their states.

So lets get started. Just lobby the states or Congress to pass a law that forces men to work less until the gap goes away and we can all move on to other matters. Has that even been considered? You all know that would work.

As all scientists know, only first or shared authorship papers *really* count, all “middle” authorships (senior authors are the principle investigator where the grad student or postdoctoral fellow applying for these grants would be working…science is a bit of an indentured servitude system, but that’s another issue) are good for is breaking ties. AS such, only measure 4 and 6 would be actually looked at by grant committees to any real extent.

Unfortunately, however, the authors of this study base their conclusions on measure 3 (see Figure 1). No data for the other measures is presented. This method gives equal weight to papers where the scientist steered and completed the majority of the research as to studies where the scientist contributed a single day’ work at the PCR machine, hardly a strong statement.

This is not to say that the women in this study did not get an equal number of first author publications as the men. The problem is that we simply do not know, as the authors do not present this data, greatly weakening their argument. Frankly, I don’t know how the authors got away with describing 5 other measures and then only presenting only one of them. They fail to even discuss if this measure is representative of the other mentioned measure.

As such, I don’t think this paper makes a strong case for your point, and I remain unconvinced. You do however mention other sources, which I will follow up on.

Thanks for a thought-provoking post.

I should note however, that a study of MRC grants in England found no bias (Nature 380(6659):438-438 Dec4, 1997), and that the Swedish MRC (on which the original study is based) has since mended its ways (Nature 390, Nov 13 1997, 204 (1997)).

Hopefully this has been a wakeup call to the scientific community, of which both I and my female SO are part.

Have any any of the above or any variations ever been considered? and if not, why not?

Also, a higher income tax on men would be unconstitutional.

Two minor quibbles:

First, I don’t think the women being steered to the lower-paying restaurants is really “occupational segregation” — I think that one is classic discrimination.

Second, you make a blanket statement about hetersexual couples consistently prioritizing the higher-paying job. I’m not sure this is true — especially when the woman earns more than the man (which is now the case for about 30% of married couples).

Nope, out of absolutely everyone I can think of, where 95% of them are University educated (thereby eliminating that being a possible wage gap factor) and many of the ladies are working in the same fields as the guys (a lot of computer people in my pool of aquaintences), unless their husband is currently unemployed, the men make more. Way more.

Oh, and these are all couples between 25-32.

So, if that’s accurate, Wookie is right to say that Elizabeth is exaggerating; but wives earning more is still more common than Wookie realizes.

For what it’s worth, I can think of a couple of couples among my friends and acquaintences (sp?) in which the wife earns more. In one case, the hubby is a stay-at-home-dad; in the other, the hubby is a writer.

* * *

Elizabeth, thanks for your comments. But although I try to be willing to admit to my mistake, in this case I think your quibbles may be mistaken.

Regarding your first quibble, I don’t know why you think that “classic discrimination” and “occupational segregation” are mutually exclusive categories.

Regarding your second quibble, I said “all else being equal they will make whichever choice favors the higher-earning spouse…. But in most cases, the person with lower pay will turn out to be the woman.”

It’s true that, in real life, “all else” is often not “being equal.” Certainly there will be cases where, due to sexism, a husband’s lower-paying job might be given priority. I should have made that clearer, so you’re right about that.

Still, if you’ll permit me a minor quibble with your minor quibble :-P , saying “all else being equal” is not the same thing as making a “blanket statement.” I didn’t mean to say - and don’t think I said - that in 100% of cases, couples faced with such a decision favor the higher-earning job.