Why only women?
Because of the pay gap: Women earn 78 cents for every dollar a man earns.
I would save 22 cents per “man hour.”
If I were to own a PR firm, I would make even more money in salaries: Forty six cents per salary dollar according to PRWeek Salary Review 2016:
…the continuing salary chasm between genders, particularly at more senior levels. Overall, men earn $125,000 and women $80,000.
Why don’t we see profit-driven companies with 100 percent female workforces?
Why would anyone ever hire a man?
Because the 78 cents on the dollar pay gap is a myth.
Pay Gap Myth Promotion Runs Rampant
If you say something frequently enough, it slowly gets incorporated into the public consciousness.
For full-time, year-round workers, women are paid on average only 77 percent of what men are paid. —The National Organization of for Woman
On average, full-time working women earn just 78 cents for every dollar a man earns. —The White House “Your Right to Equal Pay” website
And let’s not forget the ever-erudite legions of actors (nearly all of them with economics degrees from Oxford and Harvard) who have the deepest of insights.
It’s our time to have wage equality once and for all, and equal rights for women in the United States of America. —Patricia Arquette
77 Cents and Fuzzy Math
What does the 77 or percent pay gap figure actually represent?
The answer lies in how this number is calculated.
It takes the average of what all women, working full-time, year-round, earn and compare that number to what all men working full-time, year-round, earn.
Voilà, women earn 77 percent of what men earn.
Red flag: The 77 percent pay gap does not compare men and women doing identical work.
This is one of the central reasons that critics condemn the mantric repetition of this figure—for it cannot possibly be the statistic that reveals systemic gender discrimination in the workplace.
What the 77 Percent Pay Gap Does Not Consider
Hours Worked
The average man working full-time worked almost two more hours per week in 2014 compared to the average woman.
Type of Work
Men represented 92.3 percent of workplace fatalities in 2014 because men far outnumber their female counterparts in the most dangerous, but higher-paying (e.g. logging, mining, roofing) jobs.
In contrast, women show a demonstrated preference for lower risk occupations with greater workplace safety and comfort, and they are frequently willing to accept lower wages for the greater safety and reduced probability of injury or death.
Marriage and Motherhood
- Single women who have never married earned nearly 94 percent of male earnings in 2014 (but that does not control for anything else such as hours worked, age, experience, education, occupation, children, etc.).
- Women, more than men, leave the labor force for child birth, child care, and elder care.
- Women, especially working mothers, tend to value “family friendly” workplace policies more than men, according this Department of Labor study.
The Charles Arment Rule
If I may add a potential difference between the genders from my experience.
I was a a zealot when it came to raises and promotions.
I defined myself by nothing more than my earnings.
I had a rule, and that rule was to discover what all coworkers made and ensured I was the highest paid.
I have found that throughout my life, women defined themselves in a more comprehensive manner.
They may have included earnings into their self-concept, but they did not define themselves by their paycheck as I and several of my male associates did.
Everyone is Best Served by Truth
I leave you with a quote from Christina Hoff Summers:
It is not my claim that women no longer face discrimination in the United States. There is no evidence I can see or most responsible economists can see of systemic wage discrimination against women, but of course there are is still workplaces where women are being shortchanged. But here’s the bottom line: Women who are struggling economically or coping with gender bias their gonna be best served by truth, careful research, not hype, spin, factoids, advocacy data—we will all be better served by truth.
Beating Gini Dietrich to the Punch
So what accounts for the ridiculous circumstance that Gini experienced with her potential speaking engagement?
That was one heck of a one-time pay gap.
I don’t have a theory or an answer to this.
Perhaps you do.
