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    _MCA_Sarah Hedgecock
    5/28/14 2:34pm

    Perhaps sensing controversy, the authors note that note that "the comparisons of earnings in this report are on a broad level and do not control for many factors that may be important in explaining earnings differences."

    So in other words, this is a useless report as those "factors" (industry, education, experience) are kinda important in this discussion.

    Don't let facts get in the way of your propaganda. The wage gap almost disappears when you make apples to apples comparisons.

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      YaJagoff_MCA_
      5/28/14 2:41pm

      "As the report implies, some of the lower earnings can no doubt be attributed to unpaid or extended family leave, which is another discussion entirely. But family leave alone cannot explain why women at the top of their fields–CEOs (79.9 percent), physicians (71.7 percent), and lawyers (78.8 percent)–still earned less last year than even that 81-cents-to-the-dollar baseline."

      Did you read the entire report?

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      HypnoCat_MCA_
      5/28/14 2:43pm

      Right. And of course getting those apples is a completely fair and equal process for both men and women, starting at birth. Nope, no sexism anywhere along the way.

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    kobayashimaroonSarah Hedgecock
    5/28/14 2:34pm

    Won't anybody provide a mansplainer?

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      thisisamazonmankobayashimaroon
      5/28/14 2:49pm

      I'll try, it's been a while but here we go.

      Of course women don't earn as much as men, men work harder and have more education.

      ..

      How did I do?

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      kobayashimaroonthisisamazonman
      5/28/14 2:52pm

      Needs more "women are nurturers, they prefer to stay home and raise children."

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    Make.SenseSarah Hedgecock
    5/28/14 2:48pm

    So is the 81 cents to the dollar for specific jobs or just generally all women and all men?
    Because if it's just all women and all men it's not that wierd.

    Like at my university, we have mainly a bunch of different engineering programs, but there's also a teacher, some business and a nursing program. Looking at all the engineering programs, there are about one woman per 10-15 guys on average.
    Go to the nursing and teacher programmes, there's 15-20 girls per guy. Who earns more, an engineer or a nurse?

    Just pointing it out, but at least part of the problem is not due to women being women, it's due to women generally choosing different carreers than men. All of the women studying nursing at my university could of course have applied for any engineering program, but they don't want to. If you then compare the salaries of graduates of my university where a big part the guys are engineers and a big part of the girls are teachers or nurses of course there will be a huge difference in pay between women and men. Simply because they chose different carreer paths.

    If you look at a female engineering graduate and and a male engineering graduate, same grades and same degree, I'm pretty sure they'll get about the same amount of money, more depending on how though they dare to be at a salary negotiation.

    If these studies were conducted on a profession by profession basis, I'm pretty sure that men and women would earn pretty much about the same, within a few percent that probably is not related to your sex.

    Also, if women are earning so much less, wouldn't it be cheaper for companies to just employ women? Because men and women being equally qualified is not really the issue, just about your sex giving you more or less money.

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      EasttoMidwestMake.Sense
      5/28/14 3:32pm

      Why do you think it is that a) women and men choose different professions, and b) that professions traditionally chosen by women pay less than those traditionally chosen by men?

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      Make.SenseEasttoMidwest
      5/28/14 4:11pm

      Well, on a) I can speak only by my own experiences, but I'm studying civil engineering, and most women only sees it as "Loads of Math" and "Advanced stuff". They don't really care about technology in that way, not really interested in math etc. The problem with few female engineers I think is because fewer women have an interest in tech and to get in to how it works. Then why it is like this I cannot answer. I think in most fields that are non-technical, like business, law, medicine (except nursing) etc. there's an even distribution of men and women, and they are going to earn about the same when they're done. So simply put, men and women in general have different interests that causes this.

      And this brings me to b) A lot of jobs related to technology (Even if it's a very broad term) and engineering earns a lot of money because there is a lot of money in those industries. Huge projects, big budgets, a lot of private companies and so. Then teaching and nursing for example At least here in Sweden those people are hired by the counties or municipals, and in general there are less money in anything related to the state compared to private companies.

      I cannot answer you with full certainty, but different carreers give different future employers, and different industries have different amount of money.

      Then why women rather go into nursing, or teaching I cannot answer either, but that's just the way it is. Here also, a lot of male teachers make less than their female counterparts.In a lot of countries however teachers are considered a nicer profession than here in Sweden and teachers can earn as much as engineers in some cases. But there's a lot of interest in anything related to technology or development or construction etc, and women have less interest in that for some reason that probably lies within how society is.

      Also, I've had this discussion with friends. There are some professions women cannot do as well as men, like firefighting as they genetically cannot get as strong as men (or at least not as easily/without steroids). I don't mean to be negative to women at all, but say you're caught in a burning building somehow, do you rather have a strong man that you know can carry you out no matter what, or a woman that would be weaker and struggle more with getting you out? However these are not high-paying jobs though.

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    QueryOnQwertySarah Hedgecock
    5/28/14 2:34pm

    Not really that surprising that women pharmacists make more money that women CEO's. There are significant barriers of entry to becoming a pharmacist, anyone can become a "CEO". There are many people who are CEO's of non/barely-existing businesses.

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      Sarah HedgecockQueryOnQwerty
      5/28/14 2:41pm

      Yeah, my theory for that discrepancy was that pharmacists are in demand, whereas anyone who makes an app can be a CEO.

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      IAmNotADamnWriterSarah Hedgecock
      5/28/14 2:51pm

      It's easier than that, I'm the CEO of this comment.

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    FredDorfmanSarah Hedgecock
    5/28/14 3:03pm

    The impact of family leave on earning potential is not "another discussion entirely." The two largest factors in the pay differential are family leave and the fact that physically challenging fields like mining, agriculture and construction, which are relatively high-paying jobs that don't require college degrees, are overwhelmingly worked by men. The Economist reported earlier this year that if you control for those two factors, women's pay is 91 percent of men's.

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      Sarah HedgecockFredDorfman
      5/28/14 3:08pm

      Okay, so I mostly meant that wasn't a discussion I wanted to have in the post itself because it was getting long.

      But for what it's worth, I think paid family leave for both men and women, something like the Swedish model, would definitely help toward remedying the situation (although it wouldn't completely fix it by any means). There are lots of good "other discussions entirely" in others' comments, too!

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      Mr.McMoneyBagsSarah Hedgecock
      5/28/14 3:44pm

      There's no situation to be remedied. Men work more, men get paid more. In a ton of industries where physical exertion is necessary, men perform jobs that women cannot due to physical limitations - and that's before the potential risk of losing an employee to pregnancy for 25% of a year. Contrast a 100% male company and the same company but 100% women...one would definitely work more than the other. end of story

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    Emerald D.V.Sarah Hedgecock
    5/28/14 2:32pm

    #notallmen

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      SubstitutionRealitySarah Hedgecock
      5/28/14 2:35pm

      Isn't the goal to be paid equally and not so much earning equally?
      These are two distinct things and the latter is much more affected by things like personal choices on when/where/how often one works.

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        Sarah HedgecockSubstitutionReality
        5/28/14 2:53pm

        They certainly don't give enough information here to assess earnings based on elected time off, etc.

        But those choices can often be at least partially attributed to social expectations. They aren't brought up so much in regard to men's earnings: women's lower earnings are often attributed, like I noted, to taking extra maternity leave. But very few people mention men's overall higher earnings as being due to choosing not to take any kind of parental leave, because that's not what's expected of them.

        We clearly don't have enough information here, and I'd love to see more in-depth assessments for the same year. But part of it is systematic, and we can at least begin uprooting the deeper issues by talking about the more obvious ones.

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      MeowthrandirSarah Hedgecock
      5/28/14 2:42pm

      We could take a cue from bakers to let the world know we knead more dough!

      Couldn't help myself.

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        CoyoteLouMeowthrandir
        5/28/14 8:38pm

        How does this post only have three recommends?!

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        MeowthrandirCoyoteLou
        5/29/14 10:56am

        I know, I was hoping for at least a baker's dozen.

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      troylSarah Hedgecock
      5/28/14 2:38pm

      how about comparing women's wages to minority (black and Hispanic) male wages. What does the data say there?

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        Sarah Hedgecocktroyl
        5/28/14 2:46pm

        According to the report: "Women's-to-men's earnings ratios were higher for Blacks (90 percent) and Hispanics (88 percent) than for Whites (81 percent) and Asians (73 percent)."

        That's within racial groups; they don't sum up intersectional numbers. I'd love to see more in-depth information for the same year.

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      DickFromageSarah Hedgecock
      5/28/14 2:35pm
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