Why there is a gender wage gap

[lisa needs braces]

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_9RFA17johnQ/S88Y1pyRKwI/AAAAAAAAAtE/Yf63dwl1wxU/s1600/deaths.jpg

http://blog.american.com/?p=12653

[Florestan]

Discrimination??? Women as coal mine workers??? 

These guys are really nuts.

[springrite]

Here in China, true, not enough women are in top positions. But once they are there, there doesn't seem to be a pay gap.

BTW, I will be a guest panelist at the First Annual Chinese Women Executives Conference in Beijing next week. There will be many female CEO's there.

[Josquin des Prez]

Discrimination??? Women as coal mine workers??? 

These guys are really nuts.

I would assume that they are being sarcastic. The gender wage gap myth is one of the many feminist sacred cows that remains accepted in society despite obvious evidence of the inherent statistical fallacy behind the gap.

[Josquin des Prez]

Here in China, true, not enough women are in top positions.

True, affirmative action hasn't caught on among the Chinese yet, not to the extend it has in the west. That might explain their growing economic presence while the west sinks further into the toilet with each passing decade. 

[Xenophanes]

That is terribly confused.  The guy has a bad case of foot in mouth disease.

Pay equity is equal pay for equal work.  The fact that two jobs from the same employer requiring equal work are classified differently for women has absolutely nothing to do with the death rates among miners. Are miners the best paid workers, BTW? Are construction workers paid more than cops?

[Josquin des Prez]

If women were getting paid 20% less for doing the same job, companies would hire nothing BUT women. There is no discrimination attributable gender gab:

http://www.the-spearhead.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/Gender-Wage-Gap-Final-Report.pdf

[Josquin des Prez]

Bernard Chapin tells it like it is:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxdupF4Qvjk&playnext_from=TL&videos=mSCi8BLTMio&feature=sub
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hgO9Gi19bu0&playnext_from=TL&videos=mSCi8BLTMio

[knight66]

There is no discrimination attributable gender gab:

Ah-ha...try this.

'About 5,000 women council workers have won a sex discrimination case that could cost taxpayers £600 million in payouts.

Female employees at Birmingham City Council, including careworkers, cleaners and clerical workers, were excluded from bonus payments offered to male colleagues on the same pay grade.'

Times on-lin....

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/law/article7110014.ece

Mike

[Josquin des Prez]

Ah-ha...try this.

'About 5,000 women council workers have won a sex discrimination case that could cost taxpayers £600 million in payouts.

Female employees at Birmingham City Council, including careworkers, cleaners and clerical workers, were excluded from bonus payments offered to male colleagues on the same pay grade.'

Times on-lin....

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/law/article7110014.ece

Mike

I'm not sure how that is supposed to prove anything. It seems that the council was discriminating between outdoor and indoor jobs. For instance, here's what Stefan Cross was quoted saying in another article:

"He has said 90% of the people affected were women, but his firm had also won claims on behalf of up to 100 male clients, who were employed in roles that had traditionally been considered women's roles such as caring and cleaning."

http://sain.sunsite.utk.edu/cgi-bin/textonly/0124/news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/west_midlands/8648118.stm

Did female garbage bin workers receive any bonuses as well? What about female grave diggers? Here's another quite by Stefan Cross:

"Birmingham's defence is that the men's jobs are harder, the men are special."

Birmingham's defense is that the jobs were harder, from which Stefan Cross infers that the men were special, even though, by his own admission, men who took up many of those women's job didn't receive any of the bonuses as well. Further more, what was the criteria for awarding bonuses in the first place? Did the men work harder perhaps? Put in more overtime? Met specific targets? Inquiring minds want to know.

BTW, did you even read the report i linked to?

[knight66]

You are missing the point...which I knew you would.

It is not that the jobs are attached to a salary scale, it is that specific jobs fall within specific grades. The grades have across the board pay scales, for all jobs on those scales. However, some jobs attracted bonus payments. The jobs that attracted bonuses were jobs habitually done by men. Ergo....institutional sex-discrimination. It does not matter that some jobs had men in what were considered women's roles. The point was they tied the jobs to gradings for pay and specific jobs fall within the grades and they then gave bonus payments only to jobs that attracted men.

It may be that some jobs are physically harder, but other jobs need different but equally valid skills.

Now whether some jobs deserve more money is another issue. The ruling flows from the way the grading structure was set up.

There are other examples here of sex discrimination cases being found against the employer, it is still a live issue, despite what you want to believe.

Mike

[Josquin des Prez]

However, some jobs attracted bonus payments. The jobs that attracted bonuses were jobs habitually done by men. Ergo....institutional sex-discrimination.

Ha, so it is not sex-discrimination, it is institutional sex-discrimination. One wonders why women didn't take advantage of this system by applying for jobs habitually done by men. Personally, i don't buy it. The rationale behind the bonus payments is inherently tied to the specific nature of the job. That those jobs were "habitually" done by men is incidental. If men were to "habitually" take those jobs which are currently occupied by female workers they would not be receiving bonuses.

[knight66]

Of course you don't buy it, I knew you never would. You are completely biased. Your crack about women taking the jobs they might not be physically suited for....typical of you; as you suggest that because men are stronger they are worth more. Clearly there were some in the Local Authority who were equally wrong headed in that opinion.

Also your stressing of it as being institutional discrimination does not reclassify it out of genuine sex-discrimination.

Never mind the what-if scenarios. The court decision rested on what actually happened.

Anyway....I will be off into the blue sky from tomorrow, so you can post your obtuse arguments unopposed by me, but don't imagine silence is any form of agreement.

Mike

[Josquin des Prez]

Of course you don't buy it, I knew you never would. You are completely biased.

And you are not?

Your crack about women taking the jobs they might not be physically suited for....typical of you; as you suggest that because men are stronger they are worth more.

Its just standard logic. If male workers are capable on taking on particular jobs that women are forced to eschew due their general physical frailty, i suppose that makes men more valuable as a work force. Whether they should be compensated accordingly or not is another argument. The Birmingham City Council apparently thought as such.

Also your stressing of it as being institutional discrimination does not reclassify it out of genuine sex-discrimination.

Except the women in question were discriminated against only in so far as their occupational choices were concerned. You were the one to bring out the idea of institutional discrimination precisely because no direct individual discrimination ever occurred. The men were compensated more not because they were men, but because of the type of work they were doing. Men who worked along side women did not receive any additional compensation.

Never mind the what-if scenarios. The court decision rested on what actually happened.

Courts are notoriously biased in those matters. I think i'd rather see the facts for myself.

[knight66]

You are a hoot. My bias? I just read the court's argument in judgement. I wonder why that makes me biased?

As I outlined, you value the atributes of men above those of women. Some of these workers were care workers, a rather more skilled job than picking up rubbish and putting it onto a bim lorry. But then, that is how you see the world.

Mike