Dear Mr. Manners:
When we talk about the wage gap for full time workers, do we mean the $65,902 median income white families earn compared to the S126,705 earned by India Americans (List of ethnic groups in the United States by household income)? Meaning, white families earn about 52 cents for every dollar of those American’s who originally immigrated from India. Or to put it in more feminist vernacular, Indian American families earn more before the middle of July, than white families earn for the entire year.
Perhaps we mean the data such as that provided by The Journal for Black Education, showing that college educated black women out earn college educated white women (https://www.jbhe.com/news_views/47_four-year_collegedegrees.htm).
Or could the wage gap mean the greater average earnings of people with an Asian background of both sexes compared to whites (Asian Men Win the Hourly Earnings Race in America … https:// www.newsmax.com/…/2016/07/01/id/736658).
Maybe it’s the gender fatality gap. Economist Mark Perry came up with a concept called Equal Occupational Fatality Day.” Based on 2014 numbers, Perry observed that it will take up to January 2027, for women’s total workplace deaths to equal that of men’s for the year 2015. (www.investors.com/politics/commentary/how-come-nobody-talks-about-the-gen…).
While the media does not discuss the death gap, it is not true that bad experiences in the workplace are not a topic. There is the issue of sexual harassment that does get attention. Or perhaps you have not heard this subject being discussed by the media? But by focusing on this issue, feminists are missing a major area of male dominance. In his 1993 book “The Myth of Male Power”, Dr. Warren Farrell observed that of the worst rated jobs according to The Job Almanac, 24 of 25 were dominated by men. Despite this, we still contend that male domination is a myth.
As far as wage difference’s among ethnic groups, without context they tell us little to nothing about discrimination. However, they are a lot more informative than the male, female wage differences. For instance, we know from the data that families from India, overall are earning a lot of money. This contrasts with the male female gap, which does more to distort than illuminate.
We here that women make less for the same work. In truth, among many other factors, the gender wage gap does not even control for the number of hours for the full-time worker that it is based on. Nor for instance, does it consider couples whose work behavior is partly based on the decision for the man to be the primary provider, while both work full-time.
The original pay gap statistic of women earning 59 cents for every male dollar did not even allege that discrimination was the reason. In fact, the evidence is it did the opposite. Professor John Gordon wrote about it in an article published in the anthology “Men Freeing Men”. He inquired to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights about the study. Gordon noted that they wrote back, telling him that the main reason for the discrepancy’s was “that women took off to care for children.” He also noted that they explained, that among “childless singles-salaries are virtually identical. (Men Freeing Men, 1985, New Atlantis Press p.277)”
Warren Farrell’s 2005 book “Why Men Earn More”, dealt with more current data. Farrell found that among single college educated men and women with no children, men earned 85 cents for every $1 women earned (Why Men Earn More. 2005, p xxi FarrelI). Farrell cited some other interesting data in the book. Part-time working females, working the same hours as men, earned more than men. Where men can’t discriminate, female owned businesses, women earned 49% of what male business owners earned. He also noted that female top executives attained that status at companies at a younger age than men in those positions, and put in less hours to achieve such status.
How useful is the wage gap data in determining discrimination? Raising the total earnings for women can actually increase the statistical gap cited by the media. As I mentioned, the data is based on full-time workers. Consider for instance, married women who leave the workplace after having a child. If they come back into the workforce to work full-time, they raise the total earnings of women. However, if they earn learn less than the average full-time female employee, they raise the male, female income differential. Similarly, women moving from part-time to full time work, while increasing the total income for women, often lower the average female fulltime average salary.
Television programs such as the PBS show “To the Contrary”, discuss the wage gap. But is the show a cause of lower average pay for female television journalists, by having an all-female panel? Being on PBS, the program most likely pays less than the average news show. Meaning each woman’s salary on the program lowers the average female TV personalities salary.
The same phenomenon is most likely true of network daytime television programs that hire only female on air people such as, “The View’” and “The Real”. Add to that “The Talk”, whose first full-time male host was hired after 13 women had already held that position. As far as cable, there is the “ Fox News” daytime show “Outnumbered”. It features one male panelist out of the five people who host the show. Of course, the wage distortions can go both ways. Lower than average earning women who left full-time work during covid, lowered the gender wage gap.
The most discriminatory practice a workplace can engage in is hiring zero from a particular group. This has an interesting statistical effect. The more one discriminates in hiring against men in lower than average paying jobs, the larger the wage gap becomes in favor of men. When you see offices that only hire women for front desk jobs, you are seeing jobs contributing to the gender wage disparity.
I call people who conclude that women’s mean salary being lower than men’s as proof (or even evidence) that women are discriminated in the workforce, as followers of “Grizzly Bear Economics.” This is based on the fact that those who believe this, are using the intellectual reasoning of the average Grizzly Bear
Sincerely,
More than I can Bear.
Dear Bare:
First, Mr. Manners is baffled. Based on what you said, how can it be that people don’t trust the media? Mr. Manners is a proud member of the school of Grizzly Bear economics. The way to determine the truth, is the way the media does. Which is citing earning differences without putting them in any context at all. Meaning full-time working women making less than men is the problem. Thus as you point out, women going back into fulltime work, is bad for women’s earnings because it raises the pay gap, thus making women poorer.
How then do we solve this problem of this anti-female discrimination? We fire all low paid; female receptionist and replace them with unemployed homeless men. This raises women’s mean wage and lowers men’s. The firings and hirings end when the average wages of the sexes are equal, or in other words, the end of discrimination.
