Harvard Study: "Gender Wage Gap" Explained Entirely by Work Choices of Men and Women

The “gender wage gap” is as real as unicorns and has been killed more times than Michael Myers.
Monday, December 10, 2018
“Gender pay gap is worse than thought: Study shows women actually earn half the income of men,” NBC announced recently in reference to a report titled “Still a Man’s Labor Market” by the Washington-based Institute for Women’s Policy Research, which found that women's income was 51 percent less than men’s earnings.

The "Gender Pay Gap" Isn't What You Think It Is
What do you think of when you hear the phrase “gender pay gap”? Perhaps you think of a man and woman who work exactly the same job at exactly the same place, but he gets paid more than she does. This sort of discrimination has been illegal in the United States since the passage of the Equal Pay Act in 1963.

But that is not what is generally meant by the phrase “gender wage gap.” Instead, the commonly reported figure—that a woman earns 80 cents for every dollar earned by a man—is derived by taking the total annual earnings of men in the American economy in a given year and dividing that by the number of male workers. This gives you the average annual earnings of an American man. Then you do the same thing but for women. The average annual women’s earnings come in at about 80 percent of the average annual man’s earnings. Presto, you have a gender wage gap.

Not Exactly Apples-to-Apples
And there are differences in the type of work men and women do, which bears on their earnings. BLS data shows that, in 2017, 94 percent of child day care services workers were female, the highest percentage of any category, and that the mean annual wage of childcare workers was $23,760. By contrast, just 2.9 percent of workers in logging were women, the lowest share of any category, and the mean annual wage here was $42,310.

https://fee.org/articles/harvard-st...ed-entirely-by-work-choices-of-men-and-women/

You're not supposed to know this since it flies in the face of everything Democrats use to drive women to vote for them. Neither the media nor their Democrats will ever attack a basis for Identity Politics by telling their constituents they aren't victims.

 

There's very little worthwhile comment in that piece. Why, for example, doesn't it provide a review of decomposition analysis which isolates gender effects? However, it did make an amusing error with this comment:

"Fathers were more likely than childless men to want the extra cash from overtime, and mothers were more likely to want time off than childless women."

Without acknowledging it, it has referred to feminist economics and how, unless there is a focus on power divides, we aren't able to explain labour market outcome. I wonder how many right wingers will embrace their feminism...

 

Anyone with half a brain who has ever punched a time clock will tell you that men and women have different work ethics, just as males do. Too many variables in the workplace are present that affect the pay. Same pay is nothing more than a communist theory or a union requirement. Lazy workers are for it while highly productive workers are against it.

 

Why is it that a female dominated industry is such a low paying one?

 

You can refer to the distinction between neoclassical discrimination theory (focused on wage differentials created by employer tastes) and institutionalism (which highlights aspects such as 'crowding' effects where discrimination occurs in hiring practices, often through the transmission of societal inequalities)

 

I have no idea and don't care. But I do think market forces determine all pay. When I worked in a low paying industry I changed jobs. When I wanted to make more money I learned a trade, gained more experience, and made myself more valuable to the company. It ain't rocket science. We have a country where you can exercise a lot of freedoms.

 

I agree about moving yourself into an industry with higher pay. But you don't care that the people who are responsible for children are paid so poorly?

 

Your former option doesn't apply to childcare in many cases because of the private options that are abundant in the market. And, frankly, I'm not sure I understand your other option.

My question remains - why are people loathe to pay child minders so little? Having a child is a choice. For many, going back to work is not. But they are leaving their children with people who are earning very little over the poverty level?

 

Basic economics. Child minding isn't something that requires a great deal of training or specialized expertise and there is a large pool of candidates for those jobs relative to the demand. Its a function of the law of marginal utility.

 

The smart females here learned to weld at the jr. college and got jobs in the shipyard and the same pay scale as men. Of course it's grueling physical hard work in the heat and the cold for everybody, and you got to breathe a lot of welding smoke in small compartments. But it's equal.

Everybody was made to go out and get it if they really want it.

 

They aren't options. They are different approaches used in the economics of discrimination. They provide the means to empirically test the severity of the inefficiency.

Both refer to market failure and the illusion of a 'market wage'. Institutionalism, however, demonstrates that it's not just wage oritentated. It is also occupational.

It's certainly the case that all care industries are associated with underpayment. The market fails even further, given there is no clear productivity measure to determine wage increases.

 

Using your example, no one would be in care giving jobs. I agree with the notion of going where the money is, but there will always be a need for child minding in the country...so why are they paid so poorly?

 

The reality is that people don't want to pay a lot for those minding their children. It should require training and expertise - what could be more important than the health and development of your child? You leave them with these people ALL DAY - they spend more awake time with children than their own parents. Yet, they are paid dirt.

 

Which one?

 

Any...

 

People who are also wage earners can't afford to pay more.

 

For low pay, I assume you mean under 40,000 a year

I don't know what female dominated industries is a low paid one. The only want I can think of is pre school instructors. But most of those workers are not career workers staying in that industry for say 20 years.

Nursing and healthcare are certainly not low paid by any means. Personal care givers are mostly female as elderly females do not want men providing that care. While elderly men don't have the same qualms. I don't consider a waitress as a low pay job as the competition for waitresses is fierce.

 

There is never any thinking here, the left will seek to only find racism and sexism as the only explanations to every disparity or anomaly.

Many women are more focused on raising a family than their careers vs men who are, on average, much more focused on their careers. Raising children is the most important job a woman will ever have and they should not feel ashamed of being more focused on family than on a career, only the left makes then feel ashamed though.

Additionally, women and men are wired differently and have different preferences as far as jobs are concerned. Teachers, day care, baby sitters, nurses, secretaries.. women tend to excel in these vs men as they are better with people. These are not high paying jobs but nothing wrong with them.

To just take numbers, do some math and then depict america as racist or sexist without any analysis of what statistics show, is as honest as media saying they are unbiased or politicians saying they believe in altruism and abide by it above everything else.

 

Women outnumber men in 40 of our 50 states yet the USA ranks 51st in the world for gender equality???And we fall further down the list every year.

 

I was referring, specifically, to the poster's original content:
And there are differences in the type of work men and women do, which bears on their earnings. BLS data shows that, in 2017, 94 percent of child day care services workers were female, the highest percentage of any category, and that the mean annual wage of childcare workers was $23,760. By contrast, just 2.9 percent of workers in logging were women, the lowest share of any category, and the mean annual wage here was $42,310.

 

I think women are hard wired to have more patience (helps them raise kids) thus they are content to have simple task, repetitive jobs, that are low paying. Men are hard wired to want to build, invent, produce, and those jobs pay more for the skill. Two people working the identical job should rarely be paid the same. Too many factors to consider. I once worked next to a lady who did the same job I did and equally as good. About 3 or 4 times a shift she had to lift a heavy object and she would ask me to do it for her. Should we have been paid the same?

 

OK, I care. I care a lot. I feel for the parents and I feel for the children. Now what should I do?

 

Because there is a line of women who enjoy children, the more of a surplus of labor the lower the wages. Now if you want to take care of an infant, the money is great. Up here in the boston metro area, You get about $300 a week per kid. 3 kids and you are making 50,000 a year working from home. No one wants to change diapers so they get 2x as much. And the parents have to supply the food and the diapers. You want someone in your home expect to pay $500 unless they can bring thier own kid. And you get to write off 1/2 you house.

 

Exactly so. People want to pay as little as possible for any product or service they buy. They choose a level of service that meets their requirements at the lowest possible price. If their minimum requirements rise, such as wanting highly trained personnel, the buyers would have to pay more than they do for unskilled child minders. The market dictates that there is a demand for the lower standard care provided at the lower price.The result of the demand for low cost child care is a demand for low cost child care workers and there is clearly a sufficient number of people willing to do that work for that pay. If the supply of child care workers was insufficient at minimum wage, the wage would rise.

 

those same fools buy costly designer shoes, clothes, pets, jewelry, fancy overpriced cars, latest cell phones/devices, yet eat at mcd's & leave their kids with anyone willing to watch them for a dollar...