History of Feminism
Related: About this forumWhat Women Earn
MAY 11, 12 IN CJ JACKSON'S ARTICLES, ECONOMICS, HEADLINES
The Social Causes and Political Consequences of the Gender Wage Gap
Fact: According to the United States Census Bureau, the average full-time, year-round female worker in 2009 made 77% of what her male coworker earned. Obviously, the gender wage gap exists. The what is not difficult to verify. However, the why is more problematic.
Those with a strong belief in American meritocracy often claim that the gender wage gap is caused by genuine differences between male and female workers. There are two core justifications: occupations and work patterns.
It is true that men are generally more likely to go into higher paying jobs than women. Women hold less than 25% of the science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) jobs, where many expanding and lucrative careers lie. Moreover, women also take a disproportionately large amount of low-income jobs. In fact, more than twice as many women than men hold full-time jobs with earnings below the federal poverty level for a family of four. This occupational divide is often invoked to explain the differences in salary between men and women.
But it doesnt.
Much more at link.
mactime
(202 posts)This meme makes its rounds every few months, implying that women get paid 77% for the same amount/type of work. Which, if you read the study, is absolutely not true. It would be like comparing the income of a woman working at McDonalds and Warren Buffet and claiming the difference in income was due to gender.
redqueen
(115,103 posts)If you want to sling talking points, take it elsewhere.
seabeyond
(110,159 posts)attention to none of it. so i would suggest, that before you post a snarky post to show is all how brilliant you are, you might ought to educate yourself.
just sayin
cause you did not come off as being informed. especially with a couple weeks of really smart people delving into this issue.
Violet_Crumble
(35,977 posts)You want to argue about how women haven't been or aren't discriminated against, take it to GD. This isn't the group for it.
btw, for anyone interested, here's some information on the status of women in employment in Australia.
'Over a lifetime, pay inequity places women at a considerable disadvantage compared with men. According to the AMP/NATSEM Income and Wealth Report, a 25-year-old man is likely to earn a total of $2.4 million over the next 40 years, more than one-and-a-half times the $1.5 million prospective earnings of a woman.
Women are less likely to be in leadership positions within organisations. Only 10.7 per cent of executive managers in the ASX200 are women. At the board director level there are more than 10 men to every one woman, and at Chief Executive Officer level there were 49 male CEOs for every female CEO in the ASX2007.
Occupational segregation between men and women continues to exist, and male dominated occupations tend to earn more than female dominated occupations. Women are more likely to be clerical, sales and community and personal service workers, while men are more likely to be technicians and trades workers, machinery operators and drivers and labourers. Women are still substantially under-represented in the manual trades in Australia, with the number of women in manual trades being less than 2 per cent.'
http://www.fahcsia.gov.au/sa/women/pubs/general/equal_opp_review/Pages/p2.aspx
seabeyond
(110,159 posts)without a country in the titles.... i wouldnt know the difference, unless i missed something
thanks vc
Violet_Crumble
(35,977 posts)I blame it on having ten thumbs while I use this new laptop
Readers Digest version - The findings are very similar in the US and here. So much for any 'meme' that some folk would like to cling to. One thing I did notice was that here there's a far lower rate of workforce participation from mothers with young children. At first I put it down to us having better paternal leave provisions, but I suspect Sweden would have better than us.
seabeyond
(110,159 posts)i am afraid that sometime soon... lol, i am gonna have to get one. certain keys are not working well. overuse.
that is interesting. i can see different social reasons for that. maybe not as materialist a culture being one. would be interesting to look at what the reason would be. sweden actively encourages women to go back to work, from what i read in an article. though i havent spent a lot of time reading on this. also their day care program would be a big part of it.
MadrasT
(7,237 posts)Likes to dismiss this as "not real" or "not that bad". He also is the king of whataboutery -- almost any time I mention a feminist issue, he starts up with the "but but but what about MEN who are _______" <=== insert general unrelated whinge about some perceived injustice to males here.
The thing that finally got him to admit that women do not actually have anything resembling "equality" in any way, was when I said, "Look. When something approaching half of Congress, half of state governors, and half of the CEOs of Fortune 500 companies are women, you can make an argument that women have equality. Until then, no."
Then I brought up this (from the infamous congressional birth control hearing):
And said, "As long as we have a world where that can even be thought of by anyone as OK, women do not have equality."
There was no response other than, "That's really disappointing, you're right."