# Gender wage gap



## NaeKid (Oct 17, 2008)

Explained in easy to understand words, spoken by a woman.


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## Bobbb (Jan 7, 2012)

Most liberals live in a Potemkin Village type of world where what they think they see is not really a reflection of reality. Feminists are merely a subset of liberals for I've never run into a feminist who espouses conservative analysis or prescription. 

When you apply common sense to the issue that the liberal is babbling about their world view tends to be dismantled.


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## Immolatus (Feb 20, 2011)

While shes certainly makes it sound like shes saying there is no discrimination in the wage gap, at least she says its 'mostly' because of career choices, obviously admitting that there is. Because obviously there is. The actual amount due to discrimination may be small (5-10%), but it exists.
I'm not advocating for gubt intervention but there are laws against it, let the civil courts deal with it.
Discrimination in general is disadvantageous to the employer. Let them make that decision.


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## swjohnsey (Jan 21, 2013)

I don't believe it exists at all. Engineers make more than school teachers. Women don't want to be engineers. While I was a conductor for the railroad the company Missouri-Pacific RR hired half a dozen female brakemen (O.K. brakepersons). None of 'em lasted a week.


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## majmill (Jun 6, 2012)

Things today are a lot better because feminists did fight for equal wages for women!!! Yes I chose to be an RN in 1950 but I wanted to be an architect, which was not socially acceptable, unless you were very pushy and had the finances.

What I am saying is don't diaparage feminists, we are more equal today for their fighting the system the last 50 years.


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## swjohnsey (Jan 21, 2013)

Likely you made more as an RN than you would as an architect.


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## Bobbb (Jan 7, 2012)

Immolatus said:


> While shes certainly makes it sound like shes saying there is no discrimination in the wage gap, at least she says its 'mostly' because of career choices, obviously admitting that there is.


When people speak in non-definite terms, they don't necessarily agree, they more likely don't want to stake out the claim that gender-based wage discrimination NEVER happens. Someone pointing out one instance in a nation of 310 million people would invalidate a definitive claim. It's best, as a speaker or writer, to avoid staking out absolutist claims unless one is sure of the issue, such as "gravity exists everywhere on the face of the earth." A lot of people might say "Most mothers love their children" to mean that mothers love their children and the oddball freak mothers who actually hate their children aren't really worth paying attention to because they are so few and far between. We all know such mothers do exist but when we speak of "a mother's love" we speak about a mostly (see, I just hedged here) universal phenomenon.

To the point about gender-based wage discrimination:

But now there's evidence that the ship may finally be turning around: according to a new analysis of 2,000 communities by a market research company, in 147 out of 150 of the biggest cities in the U.S., *the median full-time salaries of young women are 8% higher than those of the guys in their peer group. *In two cities, Atlanta and Memphis, those women are making about 20% more. This squares with earlier research from Queens College, New York, that had suggested that this was happening in major metropolises. But the new study suggests that the gap is bigger than previously thought, *with young women in New York City, Los Angeles and San Diego making 17%, 12% and 15% more than their male peers, respectively.* And it also holds true even in reasonably small areas like the Raleigh-Durham region and Charlotte in North Carolina (both 14% more), and Jacksonville, Fla. (6%).

Here's the slightly deflating caveat: this reverse gender gap, as it's known, applies only to* unmarried, childless women* under 30 who live in cities. The rest of working women - even those of the same age, but who are married or don't live in a major metropolitan area - are still on the less scenic side of the wage divide.​


> Because obviously there is. The actual amount due to discrimination may be small (5-10%), but it exists.


Actually, it doesn't exist as you believe. It's illegal to have gender-based wage scales. Where disparity exists it is almost (see, I hedged here too) always attributable to personal choices and actions on the part of women. For instance, a recent study looked at the starting salaries of newly hired MBA students and found that men tended to have a starting salary of $4,000 more than women. Both men and women were offered the same starting salary, most men, and hardly any women, then negotiated their salary and boosted it by - now wait for it - about $4,000. Women had every opportunity to negotiate but most were more comfortable in taking the offer that was presented to them, a starting salary which was equal for men and women. It's certainly not the employer's fault that women are less comfortable engaging in hard negotiations, in an adversarial process.


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## Bobbb (Jan 7, 2012)

majmill said:


> What I am saying is don't diaparage feminists, we are more equal today for their fighting the system the last 50 years.


When a battle or war is fought and the fighting is over due to victory, then it is time to dismantle the army.

Feminism had a time and a place where it had something useful to say. That time and place is now in the past and feminism should have packed it up long ago. Today feminism is an affront to humanity.


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## cowboyhermit (Nov 10, 2012)

I will not refrain from disparaging feminist ideology and "theory" because I understand it to be wrong. 
Most of the people who believe in it or think they do are good people but that does not mean that they are correct.
I will continue to fight for equality and against discrimination as I have all my life, and that includes fighting against a fundamentally flawed ideology like Feminism.


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## Bobbb (Jan 7, 2012)

cowboyhermit said:


> I will continue to fight for equality and against discrimination as I have all my life, and that includes fighting against a fundamentally flawed ideology like Feminism.


"I will continue to fight for equality . ." is like saying "My favorite activity is sports" when you actually mean "My favorite activity is hockey."

I don't know your position but let's say that you believe that everyone should be given a fair shake, an equal opportunity, well, a leftist when he hears you say that you believe in equality might take that to mean that you want everyone to be equal, that is, any unequal outcomes which result, even in a system where everyone has a fair shake, are bad and differences must be eliminated in order to make everyone equal.

As for discrimination, that's just another way of saying that you're fighting against other people having free choices in their life, because when you eliminate discrimination you also force other people to do what they don't want to do in their lives. Me, I believe in the god-given right to associate with whomever I please and so I'm steadfast in opposing all of these buttinski anti-discrimination measures which strip people of human rights.


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## Magus (Dec 1, 2008)

More chicks than dudes getting jobs here.


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## majmill (Jun 6, 2012)

Bobbb said:


> When a battle or war is fought and the fighting is over due to victory, then it is time to dismantle the army.
> 
> Feminism had a time and a place where it had something useful to say. That time and place is now in the past and feminism should have packed it up long ago. Today feminism is an affront to humanity.


The war is not won! Just look at the thread when it was announced that women would be allowed in combat! Equality has not been achieved.


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## Sentry18 (Aug 5, 2012)

Equality cannot be achieved because we are not all equal. Of course even the word equality has been perverted to the point of it being meaningless. Just like the words diversity, political correctness and tolerance.


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## cowboyhermit (Nov 10, 2012)

No Bobbb, you don't know my position and this is not the time or place to spell out what I mean by equality, it would take awhile 

WE SHOULD ALL be equal before the law.
Equality is not sameness.
True equality cannot be imposed by a government through coercion.


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## BillS (May 30, 2011)

It's the usual feminist crap. There's a wage gap because women are more likely to have less education, less experience, and more likely to work part time. They're also likely to take years off to raise a family. And they're less likely to sacrifice their families to climb the corporate ladder. They have to use lies and distortion to fit their agenda because the truth doesn't fit it.


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## NaeKid (Oct 17, 2008)

The point that she is trying to make in the video (that _some_ people are refusing to understand) is that the choices that we make for careers dictates what kind of money that we can earn.

An 18 year old female who is working at a small bakery downtown as a new baker would not earn the same kind of money as a 45 year old female who has worked at that same job for 18 years ... it isn't the job that they are doing, it is the skills and experience of doing that job for so long that makes the difference.

That is the comparison - apples to apples. Same kind of job to same kind of job. Same gender. Different pay due to experience.

To compare the wages of someone who works as an EMT to someone who works in a bakery is not even a close comparison and gender-status does not even come into that equation, but, someone will try to say that because the male EMT-person makes more, the female baker should be paid equally to the EMT. Both can be highly skilled in their professions, but, they will never get paid the same kind of coin. It is nothing to do with their gender, it has everything to do with their job that they are paid to do!


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## cowboyhermit (Nov 10, 2012)

Leaving the workforce for a few years will, in many cases, reduce a persons salary compared to someone who stayed in and increased skills and seniority etc. 
Many of the women I know realize this and choose to make the sacrifice in wages in order to be there with their kids. 
They realize that it is not just about money, it is about quality of life. Many women that I know also actively search for part-time jobs because they will give them the money that is needed and still allow them to pursue other interests.
As a side note I have seen women who put in the effort come out of staying home to raise kids with skills they never had before or start a new business and make MORE money than they did before, but in these cases they chose to scale back so they were working less hours.


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## invision (Aug 14, 2012)

swjohnsey said:


> Likely you made more as an RN than you would as an architect.


OMG he's back. And not true... My daughter is planning on being an architect, that is her career track for high school. part of choosing the career track is talking with professionals, her starting salary should be around $65,000 and by year five should be over $100,000 if she rocks it...


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## Bobbb (Jan 7, 2012)

cowboyhermit said:


> Leaving the workforce for a few years will, in many cases, reduce a persons salary compared to someone who stayed in and increased skills and seniority etc.


You are correct sir! This dynamic though extends beyond just this scenario. Labor economists have figured out the following:

Married men earn more than single men due to labor specializations that takes place within a marriage. A single man has to do everything in his life in order to meet his living needs. A husband and wife can split the tasks and the work needed to keep two people alive and healthy in their home is not twice the amount of work needed for a single person, so this frees up some time for both husband and wife. Many married men use this free time to get a tad more proficient in their jobs and this shows up in their performance. They have the time to read the new manual on the gadget at work or read the new policy directive and so on.

Secondly, all marriages are not created equal. Here too labor economists have found some startling results. The husbands in more egalitarian marriages where there really is a 50/50 split of housework tend to perform marginally worse at work than husbands in marriages where there is a more traditional work split with the husband expected to devote more energy to career and the wife picking up the slack at home.

So your point about women's choices really flows from a First Principle - the more that one invests in a career the more value one can expect to capture from the career. We see this principle in play with women, with single men, with married men, with married men in egalitarian marriages and married men in traditional marriages. The principle holds true.


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