From: pprior@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Paul A Prior)
Subject: Re: Tax Breaks for Decent White Folks
Organization: The Ohio State University
Date: Fri, 31 Jul 1992 16:05:27 GMT

In article <1992Jul30.235059.21466@fid.morgan.com> sethb@fid.morgan.com (Seth Breidbart) writes:
>In article <1992Jul30.172023.7622@midway.uchicago.edu>
>hasn@midway.uchicago.edu (Sheheryar Hasnain) writes:
>>In article <1992Jul30.163736.5073@midway.uchicago.edu>, thf2@ellis.uchicago.edu (Ted Frank) writes:
>>> 
>>> In article <FS_FUCHS.92Jul30163734@rcsw66.rcvie.at> fs_fuchs@rcsw66.rcvie.at (Kurt Fuchs) writes:
>>> >Probably, cause women are still quite underpaid (among other
>>> >discriminating stuff) compared to men.
>>> 
>>> Maybe thirty years ago.  Certainly not today.
>>
>>  Ted, Now you've really displayed your ignorance. I Forgot that you memorize
>>  a lot in the law school.  If only they taught you how to think!   Not what
>>  but how!
>
>Oh, so you can deduce by pure logic that women are quite underpaid
>compared to men?
>
>The most recent comparisons I've read about indicate that the
>differential is quite small, when people with similar educational and
>training backgrounds, and similar amounts of time in the workforce,
>are compared.  Single women earn (on average) 95% as much as single
>men.  Married men earn more than single men, and married women earn
>less than single women.  So blame the differential on marriage.
>:

Article 37169 (16 more) in soc.men:
From: dgross@polyslo.csc.calpoly.edu (Dave Gross)
Subject: FAQ -- 59 cents to the dollar?
Date: Tue, 14 Apr 1992 18:11:43 GMT
 
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS:
Don't women still only earn n cents for every dollar men earn?
 
FEATURED MYTHBUSTERS:
* Dr. Warren Farrell, author of "The Liberated Man" and
  "Why Men Are the Way They Are."
* Michael Levin, author of "Feminism and Freedom"
* The 1992 Information Please Almanac
* Stewart Schultz
 
Item:  Ronald Reagan, George Bush, Geraldine Ferraro and Walter
Mondale agreed on but one statistic during the 1984 election:  that
full time working women earn "59 cents to the men's dollar."
 
The importance of this statistic?  Millions of couples, planning
children, focus on the man's career due in part to the greater ease it
is assumed the man has in producing income.  And for many women, the
belief that "women still get paid but 59 cents to the men's dollar..."
encourages women to "marry up" for economic security.  He feels
pressure to be the "up."
 
She perceives a "great American man shortage" because she overlooks
millions of creative, intelligent, sensitive, single male artists,
actors, writers, photographers, and musicians unless they have the
"potential" for earning more than enough to support themselves.  If
they fail, they become ineligible, or rather, invisible.  Fearing
invisibility to women, men learn success is the best preventive
medicine to avoid the cancer of female rejection.
 
The statistic, then, helps the women's movement recruit.  It does not
encourage women to pursue careers.  Nor men to pursue careers they
enjoy more even if they earn less.
 
After a full year of researching pay equity for "Why Men Are the Way
They Are," I discovered 13 variables that make the "59 cents"
comparison a myth.  Here are a few of the more startling.
 
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (USBLS) reports men who work full
time average eight hours more per week than women who work full time.
Their equal classifications -- "full time" -- make them appear equal.
But the eight hours difference makes "full time" unequal.
 
Men are much more likely to hold two work-place jobs.  But statistic-
ally, he is considered one full-time worker.  So we are often
comparing his two jobs to her one job.  This does not mean women work
less than men.  Full time working women put in more work time at home.
But they put in less at work and this is what the statistic compares.
Let's look more closely.
 
When the USBLS says "full time" they mean as little as 35 hours per
weekworkplace.  And why black mothers with young children earn one dollar
for each 59 cents white mothers with young children earn:  they are
more involved in the workplace. (No one dares assume it is because
black mothers benefit from discrimination.)
 
If women really earned 59 cents to the dollar for the same work as
men, what business could possibly compete effectively by hiring men?
At any level?
 
One of the most important reasons women's and men's full time pay
differs is because of their career choices.  Both sexes have equal
knowledge that engineers will average a higher income than French
Literature or Art History majors.  Yet even in 1986, more than 90
percent of engineering majors are male and more upational segregation in the
   determination of gender wage differentials in the United States for
   the period 1960-1984 is assessed using data obtained from the
   United States census, Bureau of Labor Statistics, and previous
   empirical studies. Analysis indicates that: (1) occupational
   segregation plays less of a role in explaining wage differentials
   than do traditional human capital variables; (2) earnings profiles
   generated with data that include a %female measure of occupational
   segs starting and current salaries of exempt
   employees hired between 1976 and 1986 by a large, private firm. In
   1986, the ratio of women's salaries to men's was 88 percent. With
   controls for year of hire, potential experience, degree, college
   major, firm tenure, performance, and job title, the ratio is 94-95
   percent for the full sample and 97-98 percent for college
   graduates.  Women's 1986 salary disadvantage can be traced largely
   to their salary disadvantage at the time of hire: with an27, 1990, 159-180).
 
Obviously, these choices are not made in a cultural vacuum.  The
question is whether the asymmetries are prior or caused by
discriminatory hiring/promotion. Studies show that currently, for the
most part they are prior and personal.
 
Thus, trends such as "36% of married male physicians and 100% of
married female physicians had spouses in the work force."
 
-- 
--------pprior@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu----(614) 621-8240----------------
Paul A. Prior    Ban anchors, not reef tanks   "With friends like this,   
3rd year medical student		          who needs anemones?"
The Ohio State U. College of Medicine   Tobacco Kills- Please don't smoke!
Newsgroups: alt.discrimination,alt.politics.correct,soc.men