Updated 10 November 2007
The term “gender gap” generally refers to the observed inequity in earnings, whereby men earn significantly more than women both on average and when performing the same job, although there are also discussions of gender gaps in representation in certain areas of society such as education and politics. This gap varies between countries, so obviously social factors are crucial.
There are a ton of sexist rationalisations for why it is right and proper that the gender earnings gap should continue to exist. The most common one is that men are more willing to work in risky professions which pay their workers a risk premium. A problem is, that argument assumes a perfect market in which a risk premium actually is paid to workers in more danger of bodily harm, but there is absolutely no evidence that there generally exists a large enough risk premium paid to certain workers to account for any significant fraction of the gender earnings gap. The empirical evidence simply doesn’t support it.
Image Source: US Dept of Labor,
Knowledge gets the biggest pay premium
The Dept of Labor’s article from which the above image is sourced states:
In sum, the duties most highly valued by the marketplace are generally cognitive or supervisory in nature. Job attributes relating to interpersonal relationships do not seem to affect wages, nor do the attributes of physically demanding or dangerous jobs.
Second problem is, most examples of high risk professions are those “glamour” risk professions which pay well over a living wage. The arguments brought up usually fail to include the workers on low wages who are truly most at risk of fatal injury, as seen below:
Image Source: US Department of Labor, Fatal occupational injuries by industry, 2003
I doubt that anyone believes that agricultural labourers are paid a risk premium despite experiencing more than twice the risk of fatality of construction workers, do they? So, there’s obviously more going on in how well remunerated some professions are than just the perception of bodily risk and hard, dirty work.
So, if men choosing jobs which compensate them with a risk premium is not the explanation, what is it? Cue the gender essentialist arguments about how women just naturally choose less financially rewarding jobs for various reasons that are allegedly innate and immutable (despite the fact that the gender gap in earnings is much less in other countries and even virtually non-existent in a few). However, the empirical evidence again does not support the argument that work patterns alone are sufficient to explain the gender earnings gap [link].
Let a minor Greek Goddess explain further why those rationalisations are made and why they are wrong: Echidne of the Snakes did an excellent 3-part series on the Gender Gap last year (1. Theory, 2. Empirical Evidence and 3. Addressing the Wingnuts).
Addendum: Further Reading
(actual books)
Joyce P. Jacobsen, The Economics of Gender
ISBN10: 0631207279
Jane Humphries, Gender and Economics
ISBN10: 1852788437
Francine Blau, Marianne Ferber and Ann Winkler: The Economics of Women, Men and Work.
ISBN13: 9780131851542, ISBN10: 0131851543
Many more books on economics and gender listed here.
Filed under: 101, FAQ, gender gap | Tagged: FAQ, feminism, gender, gender gap, sexism
Clarence,
The issues you bring up are all gender challenges that men could address as a group. For example:
• Do too many men assume that their wives want social status, when they (the wives) might prefer more time as a family?
• Does society condition women to be successful ‘through’ a man rather than achieving fulfillment in their own right?
• Does society place too much importance on winning as a substitute for success or fulfillment (e.g. the school system, sport, the corporate world)? Does this pressure particularly target boys more than girls?
• With a lot more mothers now working, is it either fair or practical for men to keep assuming they (men) must work long hours?
As for your point about court orders and alimony, there is no inevitable connection between divorce and men choosing to work long hours. Children’s financial needs do not automatically increase on divorce.
Traditionally, society puts pressure on both women and men to assume that mothers become the principal child-carers after divorce. Yet, this also locks divorced mothers into limited work options, increased domestic overheads and continued financial dependence on an often hostile ex-husband.
If anything, the ability for women to work and support themselves after divorce is just as important an issue for men as it is for women.
Not only is there a gender pay gap and a gender hours gap, there is also a gender child-care gap.
Marcus,
I can’t speak for all feminists here – and no feminist can, really – but I’m never all that interested in “recruiting” men into feminism, like it’s an army or a club. Feminism is a system of ideas… You can explain it, learn about it, understand it, appreciate it, disagree with some interpretations of it, etc., but you can’t belong to it or recruit people to it.
Feminism is specifically a system of ideas about cultural patterns involving gender. Patterns, not generalizations. If you don’t fall into the pattern, then it isn’t about you.
Marian:
because I believe they have a right to do what they want to do. And even if they didn’t, I think you’re missing the fact that other people working hard benefits us in some ways. Although the increased competition may drive down the wages of labor, it’s not a zero-sum game. I’m glad emergency room surgeons and medical researchers work hard; I’ve benefited from that. Cheaper labor can also result in cheaper consumables for the rest of us.
I don’t think I’m ignoring that at all. I’m directly questioning whether it’s a self-help issue at all. Some people really do enjoy their work or the money it brings in. If they’re happy, who cares?
I have no idea what “feminised” means, but I think there is some pressure on companies to offer maternity leave now that there are families with two income-earners. However, I suspect that part of the reason for stagnant wages is the increased reliance on two incomes in a family. Less married couples can’t help, either, since people are willing to accept lower wages. Again, even assuming this is the case, I don’t think non-providers have a responsibility to stay out of the workforce just so wages go back up.
Since you’re quoting me, would you mind telling me in which comment I referred to “deceitful” feminist generalizations?
tiqtoq:
Apparently it’s more complicated than that. In addition, after the value is set, it tends to stay static. You’ve also got to take into consideration that people are probably getting booted out of the house, so now they’ve got two housing expenses, and that’s the most expensive budget item for most people. And you can get thrown in prison if you don’t pay, unlike any other type of debt in the U.S. So, while I would take a different tone in making Clarence’s point, the point seems valid to me: there are strong legal and social incentives for men to work harder, and these are not within the control of “men as a group.” They are certainly not within the control of individual men, much less the average individual man paying child support.
In terms of womens’ preferences, again, you’re missing his point. Of course women may be conditioned to prefer certain traits over others. And of course men as individuals can do their best to choose partners who will respect them even if they earn a little less. (And of course they won’t always find such a partner.) But, as a group, women’s preferences too tend to be a little different. And this can affect the behavior of men as a group.
I don’t exactly know what Clarence’s point is, but my point would be that it’s neither a “self-help” issue for men or something that men “as a group” can solve. It’s a big, tangled mess, and I’m completely uninterested in assigning blame and responsibility to either men or women. It’s just more complicated than that.
Court ordered child support (which is not alimony, which is almost unheard of in Australia):
Here either parent can apply for a child support order to be reassessed in light of changed in financial circumstances (better or worse).
We don’t have that either.
Actually, you’ve fully missed mine. I don’t argue at all that perceptions of the group-preferences of men and women strongly affect the behaviour of both genders. The problem is that the perceptions may often be far from the reality. I’ve known too many couples who didn’t even discuss the issue of *if* they would have children, let alone how many, to have faith that most people actually ask their partners nearly as much as they should about what each of them actually wants rather than what they think the other wants.
tiqtoq:
Well, that’s the whole question. Do women prefer men who are higher income-earners, and is it more of an issue for women (as a group) than men (as a group)? It’s a difficult thing to quantify, but my guess is that, yes, women tend to prefer higher income-earners, and, yes, it’s probably more of an issue for most women than it is for most men.
We’re not just talking about couples. Single men would have an incentive to earn more, too, if women really prefer higher-earning partners. And again, the original claim was that working long hours at dangerous jobs is a “self-help” issue for men. That is a claim about a society-wide issue, so you’ve got to talk about behaviors on average, not the behaviors of one or two individuals.
And none of this addresses Clarence’s observation that, even if there are absolutely no social norms strengthened by women that encourage men to be providers, there certainly are legal norms that do so. So men do have a stronger incentive than women, at every point in their lives, to be financially independent, and that is neither within the control of men as individuals nor as a group. (I’m not sure how men would really help themselves as a group, either–did I miss the man-group meeting and the man-vote? I want in on that.)
Bari, I’m bewildered why you are asking feminists (who are questioning, rejecting, deconstructing and attempting to restructure rigid gender roles) to argue against the idea that traditional gender roles that encourage women to depend upon a man as the breadwinner are a bad idea.
The primary feminist emphasis may well be one of women ensuring their own independent financial security, but the fact that such a change on women’s family/work balance would also benefit men’s work/family balance has always been part of the argument as well. It’s a win-win situation for both sexes.
tiqtoq:
Am I asking that? I don’t think so. The issue being discussed here is whether or not men working more dangerous jobs/longer hours is a men’s “self-help” issue. That’s what I’ve been addressing with my past few posts. I took that to mean that men, collectively or as individuals on average, without any change in the behavior of women on average, could change the situation by ignoring societal pressures and doing what is in their rational self-interest.
My point is purely the following: first of all, there may be some people who work more or do more dangerous work because they like the work or the money. If they’re happy, its not a self-help issue. For better or for worse, if you’d rather have these people slow down, you are potentially asking them to engage in self-hurt. And secondly, even if we consider individuals who would rather not work long hours or at dangerous jobs, I don’t think the incentives that pressure men into those lines of work are entirely within their control, either as individuals or collectively. Part of those incentives are certainly under the control of men and women stronger than them, and others are, quite frankly, exclusively under the control of women, feminists or not. That’s not to say that women are evil or anything like that–it’s just saying that the gender system isn’t simple enough to assign goodness and innocence to one sex and blame and badness to another. Frankly, I’d be bewildered if you thought people working in poor conditions were entirely in control of their circumstances, but your and Marian’s earlier comments seemed to indicate that you did.
tiqtoq:
The real way to benefit both sexes is to address issues that affect both sexes: for example, by fixing the disparities in family law. If the emphasis is on affirmative action, gender taxes, etc., then one sex is clearly benefiting at the expense of the other. And, quite frankly, if men are asked to compete harder for the same jobs or the same amount of money, the underlying pressure on men to provide is likely to get worse.
As the feminist self-help movement has done exactly that, gradually changing and expanding once restrictive gender roles through ignoring societal pressures and doing what is in their rational self-interest, then yes: why can’t men gradually work on changing unfair work expectations for men in exactly the same way?
It is going to be easy? Hell no. Will there be otherwise very attractive people of the opposite gender who simply don’t get it and therefore, for the sake of your own integrity to the principles of working for change, you will have to regretfully decide not to pursue? Hell yes.
Is an examined activist life worth the harder struggle to find a compatible partner, acknowledging that indeed it may never happen? Feminists say yes.
All rigid gender role expectations restrict the options available to both sexes and stifle the possibilities for both sexes. There is no one “real way” to address all the issues: there are many equally valid ways to chip away at the mountain with our teaspoons.
Not from women who are willing to pull equal or greater income-earning weight than their partners it won’t.
haha okay. I guess we just have a different definition of self-help. I don’t consider many parts of feminism self-help because they involved changing policies and unexamined attitudes in society. (e.g. attaining suffrage, working for financial independence for women, etc.)
I was mostly jumping onto Clarence’s point, which is that disparities in court orders for child support and alimony could certainly create a strong incentive for men to be financially independent. Some men will undoubtedly ignore these incentives, but not all will. If that’s right, those things would have to change for equality in the workforce, whatever you want to call the process of changing them.
I’m sure other commenters here know more about those issues than I do, though. My impression has been that fathers rights’ organizations really are fighting for more equality in family law courts (which is self-help, I guess) and that they are quite fiercely opposed by womens’ rights organizations like NOW. Of course, because that’s not something I know a lot about, maybe my impressions are just wrong.
Yes, I think there are lots of ways to address issues that affect both sexes. Affirmative action and gender taxes, two examples I listed, fail to do that. They both ask employers and men to engage in charity for the sake of all women.
You keep thinking of everyone as being married. Most people are single. The two examples I gave, affirmative action and gender taxes, both increase pressure on men to compete harder. In many cases, advocates want men to slow down, but they’re simultaneously making the treadmill go a little faster for men.
Bari, will you please stop conflating radically different concepts by writing of them as pairs?
Affirmative action and gender tax: one concept is mainstream progressive thought, one concept is an extremist platform of minor political figures in only one or two countries. Very different things.
Child support and alimony: one is the necessary financial support of children through their dependent years, the other is so archaic a concept that the Family Law system in Australia ceased to recognise it decades ago.
I am certainly willing to discuss child support and affirmative action with you. I am not going to waste my time and yours discussing gender taxes and alimony.
Affirmative action doesn’t only apply to women. AA asks only that if an employer has several equally qualified candidates for a position, that they choose the applicant who “looks” least like the rest of their staff rather than the one who “looks” most like the rest of their staff. No charity, simply diversity.
Child support is paid for the benefit of the children. Most couples who separate without taking it to court presume that the mother will remain as the primary child carer, because that is how they have structured their relationships before the separation. The presumptions of the courts reflect this practice in the broader society.
Perhaps I wouldn’t have assumed that you were speaking of men as half of a couple if you didn’t keep on using the term “provider”.
tiqtoq:
I probably didn’t make myself clear. Here’s what I said:
Bari:
I’m arguing that there is more pressure on men to earn at every point in their lives. Even if a man is single, he will feel the pressure to provide. Just take a look at a personals site sometime and see how many women specify in the ad that they don’t want a man who is living at home, unemployed, etc. Then see how many men ask for something similar in their ads. You’re right that this is a norm that many feminists want to change. So we agree, right??
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/markeaston/2009/06/womens_minister_used_misleadin.html
I like how everyone has their own personal anecdotes that they feel somehow disproves the statistics and their specific situation is even remotely representative of social trends. For the record, I work full time, so does my boyfriend, I don’t earn as much, and when we get married and have children which one of us do you think will be forced to switch part-time in order to raise the blighters?
While everyone is happily decrying Harman as a ‘man-hater’ for publishing perfectly accurate statistics (just not the ones you find more comforting), only one person has managed to point out the underlying problem that everyone likes to ignore – which is that the pressure is still on women to go home and look after children. Direct all the blame you like at women for ‘choosing’ badly paid work, but think for a second about why they do this. It’s all about children. The pay gap is actually very small, right up until marriage and suddenly women don’t fare as well as men.
Take, for example, the recent enlightening research that shows while there is no discrimination between a childless man and a father, the discrimination between a childless woman and a mother is 100%. A woman with no children will always get a job before a woman with children. If a couple decides to have children, it is the woman who will be pressured to give up her career, both by societal expectations and the structure of the job industry that targets most child-related benefits and breaks at women.
Even if you want to ignore the wider issues of sexism and discrimination that has pushed so many women into part-time work and deny this has any relevance to the pay gap issue, and want to focus instead on the pay gap just in full-time work, that’s still a significant gap. While people are busy raging at Harman and simultaneously denying sexism is a problem while calling her a Harper or a man-hater or any other sexist insult we can think of for a woman who’s vocal about gender equality, the actual issue passes without hardly a remark at all.
-taken from a commenter-why not explain this instead of using “the biggest number you can find” as is used by dodgy PR people everywhere-how can feminism be taken seriously if we don’t use numbers appropriately?!
I am a feminist, and I hate this-puts the movement back and prepares people to lash back-disappointing.