Wednesday, March 23, 2016

Women Do Make Less Often

This study is fascinating.  Thoughts?

"Although the “adjusted” gender pay gap is smaller than the often-cited comparison of average male and female pay, it remains an important and statistically significant gap. It persists even after comparing men and women with the same job title, at the same company, and with similar education and experience—a large gap that is clear in the data."

Glass Door Pay Equity Study
CNN Money Summary

5 comments:

jerrye92002 said...

Having not read it, and not identifying the author's bias, I can only believe that this is simply statistical proof that statistics can pretty much tell you anything you either already knew, or wanted to believe. I'm impressed that they got as far as "same education and experience, same job title and same company." That's a big improvement in the analysis. HOWEVER, did they investigate the differences between MEN with the same job title and company? I think those qualifiers-- men and women with equal education, experience, job title and employer-- would be a vanishingly small set. I can imagine men with "department manager" titles making vastly different amounts, since engineering managers (with BS degrees) make more than Accounting managers (with BA degrees). Especially if you compare them at different locations. I know engineers in Tuscaloosa get paid less than engineers in Minneapolis.

And even if it's true, what are we going to do about it? Life isn't fair, and having government get involved makes it less so. Every time.

John said...

Maybe you should read it.

jerrye92002 said...

OK, I read through the first part of it. It says that the usual feminist cant of "$.76 per dollar" does not hold true once the statistical adjustments for industry, job title, etc. are added. That alone reduces the pay gap to something like 5%. The study then goes on to examine additional factors and discovers that two thirds of that gap can be explained by things relating to the particular employee, meaning the "unexplained" pay gap is something like 1.7%. I would guess that employment location might make at least that much difference, since it costs more to hire an employee in Minneapolis than in Tuscaloosa.

If the "unexplained" pay gap was much larger and was explained by either overt or unrealized discrimination, there might be a case for government action, as undesirable as that might be, to correct any egregious wrong. That doesn't seem to be the case here, so I think we can put this issue to bed. Want to bet Hillary has NOT read this?

John said...

I thought it was interesting how much the difference varied by profession.

jerrye92002 said...

I'm surprised the difference wasn't greater. Most women make poor stevedores, while men are poor dental hygienists. Just average physiology should make more difference than what was found, I think, but apparently people "self sort" into their occupations based on their skill, and get paid accordingly. No discrimination except that based on ability to do the job. On to the next "crisis" before it "goes to waste."