Yesterday, April 12, 2011 was Equal Pay Day according to the National Committee for Pay Equity, which represents feminist groups including the National Organization for Women, Feminist Majority, the National Council of Women's Organizations and others.
Here are some relevant factors behind today's Equal Pay Question:
1. With 9.3% of men over the age of 16 currently out of work compared to 8.3% of women unemployed, the economic downturn may no longer be seen as sexist patriarchy. The recent improvement in unemployment numbers comes from discouraged workers (particularly male ones) giving up their job searches entirely. Also, women tend to cluster in more insulated occupations, such as teaching, health care and service industries.
2. The mantra is that women make only 77% of what men earn for equal work. But even a cursory review of the data proves this assumption false. The Department of Labor's Time Use survey shows that full-time working women spend an average of 8.01 hours per day on the job, compared to 8.75 hours for full-time working men. One would expect that someone who works 9% more would also earn more. This one fact alone accounts for more than a third of the wage gap.
3. Choice of occupation plays an important role in earnings. While feminists suggest that women are coerced into lower-paying job sectors, most women know that something else is often at work. Women gravitate toward jobs with fewer risks, more comfortable conditions, regular hours, more personal fulfillment and greater flexibility. Simply put, many women—not all, but enough to have a big impact on the statistics—are willing to trade higher pay for other desirable job characteristics.
4. Recent studies have shown that the wage gap shrinks—or even reverses—when relevant factors are taken into account and comparisons are made between men and women in similar circumstances. In a 2010 study of single, childless urban workers between the ages of 22 and 30, the research firm Reach Advisors found that women earned an average of 8% more than their male counterparts. Given that women are outpacing men in educational attainment, and that our economy is increasingly geared toward knowledge-based jobs, it makes sense that women's earnings are going up compared to men's.
Most Americans want opportunity to abound so that men and women can find satisfying work situations that meet their unique needs. But we are most interested in your perceptions of today's equal pay situation: is it something that needs fixing or something to celebrate?
Source: Carrie Lukas, The Wall Street Journal, April 12, 2011
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