108 Reps profess BS - Women NOT paid less than men.
Why men earn more than women
Monday March 7, 6:00 am ET
Marty Nemko
For decades, we in the media have reported that women earn less than men. As a result, we've created a generation of angry women and self-conscious men.
A new book, "Why Men Earn More," by Dr. Warren Farrell, shows we've been dead wrong: For the same work, women earn more than men. His findings are based on a comprehensive review of government and other statistics.
Farrell is no right-wing misogynist. He ran for the Democratic nomination for California governor. He's the only man ever elected three times to the board of the National Organization for Women in New York City. And he's no intellectual lightweight; the Financial Times named him one of the world's top 100 thought leaders.
The book's main message is good news for women: If women do one or more of the 25 things men more often do, women can earn more than men.
Farrell does not encourage nor discourage women from doing these 25 things: "Each of the 25 usually requires trading quality of life for money. I just want women and men to be aware of their options so they can craft a life rather than just accept what drops in their lap."
The 25 can be reduced to three:
1. Choose careers that pay more. Because of supply and demand, you'll earn more by choosing a job that:
* is in an unpleasant environment (prison vs. childcare facility);
* requires harder-to-attain skills (hard science vs. liberal arts);
* requires longer work hours (executive vs. administrative assistant);
* is unrewarding to most people (tax accountant vs. artist);
* demands financial risk (commission-based sales vs. government job);
* is inconvenient (traveling salesperson vs. teacher);
* is hazardous (police officer vs. librarian).
Many more men than women are willing to accept such jobs, even when women are paid more. For example, women sales engineers earn 143 percent of their male counterparts' salaries, yet less than 20 percent of sales engineers are women.
2. Put in more hours. That's obvious, but key. For example, Farrell cites research that "Fortune 1000 CEOs typically paid their dues with 60- to 90-hour workweeks for about 20 years. Yet women are less than half as likely as men to work more than 50 hours a week. And women are less likely to agree, every few years, to uproot themselves and their families to far-flung places to get the necessary promotions."
Why? Because women, on average, are more involved in childrearing and other domestic activities. So, if a woman (or man) expects to rise to high-paying jobs, she may need to push harder to get hubby more involved in those activities, pay for childcare and domestic services, or decide not to have children.
I asked Farrell, "But shouldn't workplaces not expect a woman (or a man) to work so many hours that family life is undercut?" He responded, "Yes, absolutely, but we must be gender-fair. If a male corporate manager chose to take care of his children, we'd applaud him but not expect the workplace to promote him as quickly. Yet when women do the same, women's advocacy organizations often expect just that. Both men and women must accept the consequences of their choices."
3. Be more productive in the hours you do work. If women produce as much as men, the good news is they will likely be rewarded. For example, women's advocacy organizations complain that female professors earn less than male professors, but Farrell cites research that among professors who produce an equal number of journal articles, "men were likely to be paid the same or just slightly less than women."
I asked Farrell, "But apart from the 25 nonsexist reasons men earn more, isn't sexism still a factor?" He responded, "There are instances of discrimination against both women and men, but on average, no. If you knew you could hire a woman for less than an equivalent man, you'd hire women to get a price advantage over your competition. Do you think businesses so hate women that they hire more expensive men even though they'd lose so much money?"
In reflecting on Farrell's book, I wonder if, rather than denigrating men for earning more, we should respect them for their willingness to do unpleasant, but necessary, work that few women will do such as roofing, coal mining or guarding a prison -- often working themselves into an early grave. There are four widows for every widower.
And men, you might learn a lesson from women and consider trading money for quality of life.
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Women’s Figures: An Illustrated Guide to the Economic Progress of Women in America
By Diana Furchtgott‑Roth and Christine Stolba
For three decades, women have been moving steadily upward in the American work force. But according to many women’s rights advocates, considerable bias against women remains.Yet extensive data demonstrates that systematic discrimination against women in the workplace has essentially been eradicated in the United States. Individual men and women with the same education and experience enjoy equal standing and equal opportunity in the working world.
A major thesis of popular media culture in the United States is that women suffer from substantial discrimination that leaves them less wealthy, on average, than men. The apostles of that women‑as‑victims perspective use selected statistics and anecdotes to illustrate their theory. They have succeeded in introducing a few important terms and images into public discourse that advance their views. For example, women are depicted as suffering from a "wage gap," prevented from rising to positions of importance by a "glass ceiling," and funneled into lower‑paying jobs in a "pink ghetto." The putative solution is for government intervention to eradicate such discrimination to achieve parity between men and women.
Faulty methodological assumptions lie behind the conventional wisdom on that subject.Women have made considerable gains in wages, professional status, education, entrepreneurship, and electoral politics.Complaints about systematic economic discrimination against women simply do not square with the evidence.Women’s wages and education levels are closing the gap with those of men; occupational choices, experience, and intensity of work effort are what influence wages.
Educational and Professional Success
The evidence on the status of women in society is far more complex than the women‑as‑victims theory can explain. Women have made substantial progress in labor markets as a result of changes in technology, social attitudes, and laws. At the beginning of the twentieth century, education, particularly higher education, was aimed primarily at men. Many schools and colleges were exclusively for men. Today, the majority of associate’s, bachelor’s, and master’s degrees are awarded to women, as well as 40 percent of doctorates. Women not only are represented in greater numbers at the college and postgraduate levels but have also been steadily entering traditionally male‑dominated programs. In 1999 women represented 44 percent of the freshman class at Yale Medical School. In 1970 women earned 4 percent of master’s degrees in business disciplines; in 1996, 37 percent of those degrees were awarded to women. Between 1970 and 1996 the percentage of law degrees awarded to women rose from 5 to 43 percent.
The higher educational attainment of women is related to increased participation in the U.S. labor market. The percentage of adult women who work increased from 26 percent in 1940 to 60 percent in 1997. Moreover, in the 1990s, more than 70 percent of women between the ages of twenty and fifty‑four have been in the labor force. Women’s employment has more than doubled since 1968 for both full‑time and part‑time employment, with about a quarter of employed women working part‑time.
Greater numbers of women are succeeding in traditionally male‑dominated professions. In 1970 only 12 percent of pharmacists were women: by 1998, the percentage had jumped to forty‑four. Between 1970 and 1998 women’s representation increased from 5 to 29 percent of lawyers, from 27 to 66 percent of public relations specialists, and from 39 to 62 percent of psychologists. In 1998 the top five government officials elected to office in Arizona were female, and the number of women in the U.S. Congress was at a record high. Studies show that women’s chances of winning electoral office are equal to men’s. Other traditionally male‑dominated areas have shown similar growth in the numbers of female professionals.
In addition to the outstanding gains women are making in the professions, women nationwide have been starting their own small businesses and succeeding. Today, according to the Small Business Administration, over 8.5 million women‑owned businesses employ 24 million people and generate $3.1 trillion in revenue. The number of women‑owned businesses more than doubled between 1987 and 1997. Women are starting businesses at twice the rate of men. The majority of such businesses are in the service sector, accounting for 52 percent, followed by retail trade, with 19 percent, followed by finance, insurance, and real estate with 10 percent.
Comparing Men’s and Women’s Wages
Despite those gains, in January 1999 President Clinton stated that "women earn about 75 cents for every dollar a man earns." The National Committee on Pay Equity (NCPE) declared April 8, 1999, Equal Pay Day, to publicize and protest the claim that women earn only 74 percent of men’s wages. If those claims are to be believed, then American women are still second‑class citizens. But both President Clinton and the NCPECas well as other groups that routinely use those statistics, such as the National Organization for WomenCcompare the wages of all women working full‑time with the wages of all men working full‑time and fail to adjust for such crucial factors in determining wages as occupation, position, age, experience, education, and consecutive years in the work force. It is well known that the adjusted wage gap between men and womenCthe difference in wages adjusted for those factorsCis far smaller than the average wage gapCthe difference in wages found by comparing averages of men’s and women’s wages. The former is a more accurate description of earnings differentials.
How much less do equally qualified women make? Surprisingly, given all the misused statistics to the contrary, they make about ninety‑five to ninety‑eight cents on the man’s dollar, according to studies by June O’Neill of the City University of New York and Jane Waldfogel of Columbia University. The effects on wages of decisions that affect seniority and turnover are particularly important to understand. The most obvious example is the decision to have children. There is a substantial difference in pay between mothers and childless women at age thirty. However, by 1991 the pay of childless women at that age had risen to 95 percent of male pay. Eighty percent of women bear children at some point in their lives, and a quarter of women work part‑time, so a higher percentage of women’s time in their work years is spent away from work. Women, who are typically the primary caregivers for their children, consider the responsibilities of motherhood when making employment decisions, and many women choose jobs where flexibility is greater and salaries are lower. Given those choices, comparing the average wages of men and women is a misuse of statistics and a grossly misleading comparison.
The "Glass Ceiling"
Does a glass ceiling prevent American women from reaching the upper echelons of professions, simply because they are women? In 1995 the Glass Ceiling Commission released a report concluding that only 5 percent of senior managers at Fortune 1000 and Fortune 500 service companies were women and implied that systematic discrimination was the cause. Yet an assessment of the Glass Ceiling Commission’s methods raises questions about the 5 percent figure. Typical qualifications for senior management include both an MBA degree and twenty‑five years of work experience. The logical sequence of questions the commission should ask would be, first, What percentage of women meets those requirements? and, second, Of that group of qualified women, what proportion has made it to the upper ranks of corporate America? By comparing the number of women qualified to hold top executive positions with the number actually in those positions, one could draw conclusions about the existence of a glass ceiling.
Those are not the questions the commission asked. Instead, it compared the number of women in the total labor force, without reference to experience or education, with the number wielding power at large corporations. That comparison results in a statistically corrupt but politically useful figure of 5 percent. In refusing to use the qualified labor pool in its assessment, the commission reached alarming but highly misleading conclusions about women’s employment opportunities. Furthermore, large corporations are only one portion of the market, and, given recent evidence of the success of women moving into previously male‑dominated occupations, the conclusions say little about women’s participation in the economy as a whole.
Conclusion
As the above discussion has demonstrated, both the glass ceiling and the wage gap are rhetorically powerful but factually bankrupt terms. Those who insist on invoking such concepts as evidence of discrimination encourage unnecessary and harmful government intervention. Individual cases of discrimination still occur in the workplace, but laws prohibiting discrimination have been in place for more than thirty years and should continue to be rigorously enforced. What we need to recognize is that salary levels are not the only consideration for workers. Flexibility, work setting, and job interest are important to both men and women.
The personal choices women have made are perhaps the most important and least appreciated factor in women’s economic progress over the years. Decisions to enter previously male‑dominated fields of education and employment, to marry and bear children later in life, to join the work force, and to leave the work force to raise children have all had an enormous effect on whether women can achieve total parity with men. Some of those choices, such as leaving the work force for a time to raise children or working part‑time, can have a negative effect on women’s earnings. Others, such as entering previously all‑male fields, have led to remarkable gains for women in the work force.
A portrayal of women as victims of widespread discrimination overlooks an important factor: the possibility that many women do not want to reach the top of the corporate ladder. The mass media uncritically accept as the standard of equality the requirement that women’s achievements be statistically identical to men’s achievements in all areas. That standard is insidious: it suggests that something is wrong if women do not earn the highest salaries. That is insulting to all workers who choose flexibility, a friendly workplace environment, and other nonmonetary factors in the course of their careers.
The heterogeneity of the female population in this country guarantees that women will never reach consensus on all issues. From a statistical perspective, however, women have clearly made impressive gains: levels of education, wages, entrepreneurship, and employment have increased dramatically in the past several decades, and they will continue to improve. Although women faced discrimination in the past, the story of their recent success deserves to be told.
Diana Furchtgott‑Roth is a resident fellow at AEI. Christine Stolba is a historian living in Washington, D.C.