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The Wage Gap

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ryobi

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I was looking at the CONSAD study http://www.consad.com/content/reports/Gender Wage Gap Final Report.pdf

The CONSAD study is a study for the United States Department of Labor that found that all but 5% of the 22% wage gap is explained by choice and there's no evidence to suggest the 5% is the result of discrimination.

I was looking for the confidence intervals used by the study. Confidence intervals tell you how often a population parameter will be within a certain margin of error of the sample statistic (the margin of error depends on the sample size and variability) if you were to repeat the experiment many times and Damn I couldn't find any confidence intervals.

This was odd because there are always three things in scientific studies: a mean, a standard deviation, and confidence intervals.

But I figured out why there were no confidence intervals in this study. There were no confidence intervals in this study because there sample statistic and population statistic are the same thing!

The CONSAD study is so inclusive it contains every single working man and working women in the United States, their entire population.

The CONSAD study is that good! You never get studies were the sample is the entire population-lol

If you want to win a debate with feminists show them the CONSAD study showing that all but 5% of the 22% wage gap is the result of choice and there's no evidence to suggest the 5% is the result of discrimination then ask them for their study showing that there's a 22% wage gap that's the result of discrimination.

Don't worry there is no such study-lol
 
I gave up on this debate when it came out that even the Obama White House pays its female staff members something like 14% or 15% less on average then its male staff members (I forget the exact number but do recall some discrepancy anyway when it came out.)
 
thats just one workplace, one anecdote,

A 22% wage gap does exist but it's the result of choice not discrimination.

Show me a study saying there's a 22% wage gap that's the result of discrimination.
 
ryobi said:
I was looking at the CONSAD study http://www.consad.com/content/reports/Gender Wage Gap Final Report.pdf

The CONSAD study is a study for the United States Department of Labor that found that all but 5% of the 22% wage gap is explained by choice and there's no evidence to suggest the 5% is the result of discrimination.

I was looking for the confidence intervals used by the study. Confidence intervals tell you how often a population parameter will be within a certain margin of error of the sample statistic (the margin of error depends on the sample size and variability) if you were to repeat the experiment many times and Damn I couldn't find any confidence intervals.

This was odd because there are always three things in scientific studies: a mean, a standard deviation, and confidence intervals.

But I figured out why there were no confidence intervals in this study. There were no confidence intervals in this study because there sample statistic and population statistic are the same thing!

The CONSAD study is so inclusive it contains every single working man and working women in the United States, their entire population.

The CONSAD study is that good! You never get studies were the sample is the entire population-lol

If you want to win a debate with feminists show them the CONSAD study showing that all but 5% of the 22% wage gap is the result of choice and there's no evidence to suggest the 5% is the result of discrimination then ask them for their study showing that there's a 22% wage gap that's the result of discrimination.

Don't worry there is no such study-lol
Click to expand...

The idea that women are unequally payed for equal work is a myth. I'd approve of paying married men more than women and single men, but that is not in any way the current situation.
 
ryobi said:
thats just one workplace, one anecdote,

A 22% wage gap does exist but it's the result of choice not discrimination.

Show me a study saying there's a 22% wage gap that's the result of discrimination.
Click to expand...

You are missing what I was trying to say. The point is if the President's own administration cannot get this right by political assumptions, then the wage gap between women and men cannot be near as big of an issue as politics *wants* it to be. I am not saying a wage gap does not exist at all, I am saying the politics of the argument are getting in the way of honest discussion on why it might be there to some degree.
 
OrphanSlug said:
You are missing what I was trying to say. The point is if the President's own administration cannot get this right by political assumptions, then the wage gap between women and men cannot be near as big of an issue as politics *wants* it to be. I am not saying a wage gap does not exist at all, I am saying the politics of the argument are getting in the way of honest discussion on why it might be there to some degree.
Click to expand...

Read the CONSAD study for the United States Department of Labor. It tells you why there's a wage gap.
 
Paleocon said:
The idea that women are unequally payed for equal work is a myth. I'd approve of paying married men more than women and single men, but that is not in any way the current situation.
Click to expand...

That is why the gender pay gap argument is usually based on comparable work rather than equal work. Even the equal work concept is not entirely valid or there would be no such thing as a competitive bid process, regional/seniority pay differences or salary negotiations.
 
ryobi said:
I was looking at the CONSAD study http://www.consad.com/content/reports/Gender Wage Gap Final Report.pdf

The CONSAD study is a study for the United States Department of Labor that found that all but 5% of the 22% wage gap is explained by choice and there's no evidence to suggest the 5% is the result of discrimination.
Click to expand...

You also have to look at the fact that jobs that are typically held by females are paid less than same level of jobs that are typically held by males. For example, the paralegal field requires a certain level of skill, education, expertise, working long hours, professional clothing (usually). It's a semi-professional job, akin to mid-management at a corporation. Paralegal jobs pay way less than comparable mid-management type jobs that are typically held by males.

As a woman I can tell you that a person gets a sense of these things. When men start working in a field, pay tends to go up, I think. Take nursing. I think the pay in that field has gone up, now that more men are becoming nurses. But still, male nurses make more than female nurses. Same job.

Even in an occupation that women overwhelmingly dominate, they still earn less than men, a study of nurses found.

The gender gap for registered nurses' salaries amounts to a little over $5,000 yearly on average and it hasn't budged in more than 20 years. That pay gap may not sound big — it's smaller than in many other professions — but over a long career, it adds up to more than $150,000, said study author Ulrike Muench, a professor and researcher at the University of California, San Francisco.
Click to expand...
Women dominate nursing field, yet men make more


Part of the reason, I think, is that women are more hesitant to request more pay. One reason is that if a field pays a certain amount, an employer can't justify giving a raise to one employee outside of the range (this was told to me by HR). Another reason is the way women are perceived. If a woman asks for a bigger raise, she is more likely to be perceived as a problem employee and pushy...maybe even uppity ("who does she think she is?")

Bella Abzug, a politician who was an early feminist, said that equality isn't that professional women are allowed to enter a profession and get paid the same. It's when the female schlepp gets paid the same as a male schlepp.

Another reason is that men's work is more highly regarded. You might argue that a ditch digger gets paid as much as a legal secretary because it's so physically demanding. That is regarding a low level, sclepp job that requires no education and no skill as worth the same as someone who does so many things on a high level that I couldn't list them here, because it's done by men. If a woman were to be a ditch digger, then you'd say she's worth less because she's physically weaker. (Whereas, you don't argue that the men should take physical tests, and weaker men be paid less.) There's no winning. If a woman does it, it is deemed worth less.

It was decades ago, but I remember being a low level gofer at a business office (pick up the mail, distribute it, filing, etc.). When I left, they hired a guy to replace me. A friend in accounting told me they paid him $100 more a month than I had been paid. At that low level of wages, that was a lot more. For a job requiring no skill or experience.

This not only affects women's lifestyles while workng, but it also means that her Social Security will be lower. Her early lower wages affect her financial condition her entire life.

So the next time someone promotes privatizing Social Security (which means doing away with it, since there's nothing Social or Secure about that scheme), I hope you remember the millions of women who depend on the small SS checks to survive, having worked hard for decades at lower wages, through no fault of their own. Most SS beneficiaries are women.
 
JumpinJack said:
You also have to look at the fact that jobs that are typically held by females are paid less than same level of jobs that are typically held by males. For example, the paralegal field requires a certain level of skill, education, expertise, working long hours, professional clothing (usually). It's a semi-professional job, akin to mid-management at a corporation. Paralegal jobs pay way less than comparable mid-management type jobs that are typically held by males.

As a woman I can tell you that a person gets a sense of these things. When men start working in a field, pay tends to go up, I think. Take nursing. I think the pay in that field has gone up, now that more men are becoming nurses. But still, male nurses make more than female nurses. Same job.


Women dominate nursing field, yet men make more


Part of the reason, I think, is that women are more hesitant to request more pay. One reason is that if a field pays a certain amount, an employer can't justify giving a raise to one employee outside of the range (this was told to me by HR). Another reason is the way women are perceived. If a woman asks for a bigger raise, she is more likely to be perceived as a problem employee and pushy...maybe even uppity ("who does she think she is?")

Bella Abzug, a politician who was an early feminist, said that equality isn't that professional women are allowed to enter a profession and get paid the same. It's when the female schlepp gets paid the same as a male schlepp.

Another reason is that men's work is more highly regarded. You might argue that a ditch digger gets paid as much as a legal secretary because it's so physically demanding. That is regarding a low level, sclepp job that requires no education and no skill as worth the same as someone who does so many things on a high level that I couldn't list them here, because it's done by men. If a woman were to be a ditch digger, then you'd say she's worth less because she's physically weaker. (Whereas, you don't argue that the men should take physical tests, and weaker men be paid less.) There's no winning. If a woman does it, it is deemed worth less.

It was decades ago, but I remember being a low level gofer at a business office (pick up the mail, distribute it, filing, etc.). When I left, they hired a guy to replace me. A friend in accounting told me they paid him $100 more a month than I had been paid. At that low level of wages, that was a lot more. For a job requiring no skill or experience.

This not only affects women's lifestyles while workng, but it also means that her Social Security will be lower. Her early lower wages affect her financial condition her entire life.

So the next time someone promotes privatizing Social Security (which means doing away with it, since there's nothing Social or Secure about that scheme), I hope you remember the millions of women who depend on the small SS checks to survive, having worked hard for decades at lower wages, through no fault of their own. Most SS beneficiaries are women.
Click to expand...

You are all over the place here. From comparable worth, a nursing pay study that admits it has no idea why the noted pay differences exist and some babble about Social Security.

From your study link:

The study didn't examine why the pay gap exists, but Muench listed several possible reasons:

—Some women nurses may leave the work force to have children, returning to a lower pay scale than male peers who continued working during those absences.

—Male nurses may be better at negotiating pay raises, as has been suggested in research on gender pay gaps in other professions.

—Gender discrimination.

Muench said studies are needed to determine whether any of these explains the gap.
Click to expand...

The bottom line is that "I think..." is not a valid argument and can be easily refuted by saying "nope, I think..." getting us nowhere. ;)
 
Paleocon said:
The idea that women are unequally payed for equal work is a myth. I'd approve of paying married men more than women and single men, but that is not in any way the current situation.
Click to expand...
What???

Have you thought of the consequences of this?

You'll be tossing the married men out of work!

They'll be lying on their apps!
 
Job hopping is an effective strategy to boost your salary. Women are less willing to job hop and get bogged down begging for raises.
 
Chomsky said:
What???

Have you thought of the consequences of this?

You'll be tossing the married men out of work!

They'll be lying on their apps!
Click to expand...

If such were made law, it would need to be accompanied by tax credits to balance out the financial benefits of bring single people.
 
Paleocon said:
If such were made law, it would need to be accompanied by tax credits to balance out the financial benefits of bring single people.
Click to expand...

I think we have demonstrated enough problems when linking taxation benefit to marriage status, all that happens is challenge and mess. The last thing we need is linking pay to marriage status, set up nothing more than disaster on top of what we already have to contend with.
 
Paleocon said:
If such were made law, it would need to be accompanied by tax credits to balance out the financial benefits of bring single people.
Click to expand...
If you're going to give tax credits or subsidies, why not give them directly to the individuals, and leave the marketplace unencumbered to determine its best recourse & solutions?
 
OrphanSlug said:
I think we have demonstrated enough problems when linking taxation benefit to marriage status, all that happens is challenge and mess. The last thing we need is linking pay to marriage status, set up nothing more than disaster on top of what we already have to contend with.
Click to expand...

That you hold an opinion does not equate to it being demonstrated.

Chomsky said:
If you're going to give tax credits or subsidies, why not give them directly to the individuals, and leave the marketplace unencumbered to determine its best recourse & solutions?
Click to expand...

Because the market will not necessarily produce just wages and prices. Even Adam Smith didn't think wages should be left to the market's design. Also, it seems to me that it's be simpler to just assess taxes at the business level, rather than have a payroll tax.
 
It's likely that every percent of that 22% is the result of choice not discrimination. It's just that the researchers couldn't quantify the 5% due to the limitatations of their model, multivariate regression analysis.

The choice the researchers couldn't quantify is women tend to choose more compensation in the form of benefits.

However, there was a high R-value (coefficient of correlation) between benefits and other dependant variables in the model.

When there is a high R value between dependant variables in multivariate regression analysis there is said to be colinearity.

When there's colinearity you can't tell what's influencing what.

Is the depandant variable benefits being influenced by the independant variable, gender, or is it being influenced by another dependant variable in the model.

However, it's likely that every single percent of that 22% is the result of choice, not discrimination.
 
Women prefer sucessful men. Men do not prefer sucessful women. The more sucessful a man becomes the more women he has access to. With women the situation is reversed. This gives men a powerful incentive to earn more money than women have. It alone is sufficient to explain the sexual wage gap.
 
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