For years now, I’ve had questions about the often-quoted gender pay gap. Not necessarily doubts, but questions.
The gap theory refers to a difference in men and women’s compensation for working the same jobs, with the same responsibilities and the same seniority for the same number of hours.
Former U.S. Sen. Phil Gramm, along with co-authors John Early and Robert Ekelund, recently wrote a book titled “The Myth of American Inequity.” Recently The Wall Street Journal published an article by the authors explaining their findings — that no such inequity exists.
For starters, the authors agree — and validate — that today’s women in the workplace earn 84 percent of what men earn. But the WSJ article caught my attention because it attempts to explain the “why” of the gap.
First, let’s agree that men and women doing the same work should be paid equally. As with many comparisons, however, the devil is in the details.
Consider one of the book’s key findings:
“The pay gap is the natural economic result of choices men and women make, including how much or how little to work and which occupation to enter. The 84 percent figure is arrived at by dividing the average annual pay for women who work full-time all year by the average annual pay for men working full time for a full year.”
Yet that comparison is misleading because full-time, year-round work is defined so broadly.
How many hours men and women work
The U.S. Census Bureau defines full-time work as 35 or more hours a week. Among full-time workers, a big gender gap exists in how many hours men and women work over those 35 hours.
According to federal statistics, men worked two full hours more per week than women, a two-hour difference that amounts to a quarter of the pay gap.
As for working less than five hours per week, women earned 105 percent of what men earned.
Let’s also agree that all workers gain more earning power as they gain experience. As a result, on average, women over 40 have three fewer years of workplace experience than men of the same age.
It’s also a given that many women drop out of the labor force at some time to give birth and raise children, which alone s for about a third of the observed pay gap.
Men and women also make different choices in of occupations and education. In general, men tend to choose higher-paying jobs, which is evident in their chosen college majors.
Only one of the highest-earning college majors graduates more women than men, while nine of the 10 lowest-earning majors graduate more women.
Also, men are more likely to select occupations with greater financial risk, jobs that pay commissions on sales. More women are attracted to teaching, while men are more likely to take jobs with physical risk, such as construction, where pay is higher owing to the risk .
In fact, men die on the job 12 times more than the rate of women and suffer 50 percent more injuries.
More and more women are becoming CEOs
The good news is that more and more women are becoming CEOs, physicians, lawyers, dentists, engineers and entering other higher-paying professional fields. The increases in recent decades have been astounding, led by a shift in the roles of men and women in the home.
Men are clearly taking on more, though not nearly half, of the responsibilities in the home and taking care of dependent family .
Indeed, the choices men and women make about how many hours to work, whether and how to share parental and household duties, which occupations to enter, and what type of education to pursue have changed drastically in most of our lifetimes.
As a result of these very positive trends, the gender gap continues to close.
We all make choices in our lives that effect our careers. Stay-at-home dads, which I personally think is a wonderful trend, will find themselves years behind in their paid work experience, just as some mothers do.
It’s an ongoing balance to do what is right for ourselves, our families and our careers.
In my book, that challenge will never change.
Blair is co-founder of Manpower Staffing and can be reached at [email protected].
