From: bhv@areaplg2.corp.mot.com (Bronis Vidugiris)
Subject: Re: statistics and questions
Organization: Motorola Land Mobile Products Sector
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 1992 22:47:47 GMT
Followup-To: alt.feminism

d writes:
> 
> 
> In article <1992Sep26.132403.19468@panix.com> gcf@panix.com (Gordon Fitch) writes:
> >   I've seen it repeatedly said that women who have put in
> >   the same time get the same money and the same promotions;
> >   may do a little bit better, in fact.  "Time" refers to
> >   both hours per day and years of employment.  
> 
>   References, please?  I'd very much like to see proof of this; there
> are many things that I have seen repeatedly that aren't true :-)  This
> would give me more hope if it were so (pardon my doubt... *smile*)
> 
>  -- d

Here's a mixed bag of references.  I've personally seen the IEEE data
and the Census Bureau data.  Someone at one time posted data similar to
the IEEE data for other professions, but unfortunately I didn't save a
copy of it :-(.  But the IEEE data wasn't that far off the mark from the
other stuff I've seen for specific professions when the data is ALSO
controlled for work experience.

Not all of this data agrees entirely on the ultimate 'cause' of the
wage discrepancy,  but it does tend to show (IMO) that equal pay
for *equal work* (specific job, hours worked, job experience) isn't the real
issue behind the 'wage gap'.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
1990 IEEE salary survey.

IEEE data - median earnings of male and female IEEE memebers (Electrical
Engineers by definition) vs sex and experience.  Note that data on hours
worked was collected, but not published vs. gender, so these are earnings
figures rather than earnings per hour.

---

1990 IEEE salary survey.

Experience   Number        Median   
             M    F        M     F     Ratio
<= 3       318   41       33.7  35.0   1.04
3-4        292   30       40    34.4    .86
5-6        342   44       44    42.3    .96
7-9        458   45       50    49.5    .99
10-14      769   37       58    52      .90
15-19      597   21       64    58      .91


--------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: schultz@unixg.ubc.ca (Stewart Schultz)
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: Re: About "marrying up" and glass ceilings


Studies indeed show that correlates of experience account for most or
all of the current wage gap in several professions.

Polachek, Solomon William (State U New York). 1987. Occupational
   Segregation and the Gender Wage Gap. Population Research and Policy
   Review 6, 1, 47-67.  The role of occupational 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
   segregation are not ideal for testing human capital predictions,
   yet nonetheless, yield parameters consistent with neoclassical
   theory; and (3) lifetime work considerations, eg, the degree of
   one's labor force intermittency, are important in determining both
   occupation and wage. It is concluded that government
   antidiscrimination policies based on outcome measures are generally
   inefficient; rather, incentives must be created for women to
   participate in the labor market on an equal basis with men.

Gerhart, Barry (Cornell U). 1990. Gender Differences in Current and
   Starting Salaries: The Role of Performance, College Major, and Job
   Title. Industrial and Labor Relations Review; 43(4), pages 418-33.
   This study examines 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 an
   adjustment for starting salary, the 1986 salary ratio rises to
   96-99 percent for the full sample and 98-100 percent for college
   graduates.  The apparently greater female disadvantage in starting
   salary than in subsequent salary growth may stem from the smaller
   amount of job-relevant information available on applicants than on
   current employees.

Raymond, Richard D.; Sesnowitz, Michael L.; Williams, Donald R. 1988
   Does Sex Still Matter?  New Evidence from the 1980s. Economic
   Inquiry; 26(1), pages 43-58.  Recent analyses of gender-based
   salary differentials among university faculty have focused on
   colleges and universities which are quite different from those used
   in earlier (pre-1975) studies. To facilitate comparisons with
   previous studies, the authors examine gender earnings differentials
   during the 1983-84 academic year at Kent State University, a school
   similar to those studied in the pre-1975 period. The results
   suggest that after controlling for differentials in
   productivity-related characterisitcs and market influences, there
   is little evidence of gender based salary discrimination at Kent
   State during 1983-84.

Uhlenberg, Peter; Cooney, Teresa M. (U North Carolina) 1990. Male and
   Female Physicians: Family and Career Comparisons. Social Science
   and Medicine 30, 3, 373-378. Family and career characteristics
   resulting from an increase of US female (F) physicians (MDs) are
   ascertained, utilizing data on a nationally representative sample
   of MDs (N = 1,159 Fs and 882 males [Ms] ages 30-49) drawn from the
   5% Public-Use Microdata Sample of the 1980 US Census of the
   Population and appended records of spouses. Findings include that F
   MDs earned less money and worked fewer hours per week and were
   about 5 times more likely to be working part time. Gender
   differences in marriage patterns among MDs were greater than among
   the general population: also, fewer Fs were married or
   child-bearing, and more Ms were married with families. Ms with
   families appeared to become more involved with work than Ms without
   families, while the opposite was true for Fs; 64.3% of M MDs had
   wives not in the work force, and no F MDs had husbands not working.
   Cross-country comparisons with Australia, GB, and Sweden reveal
   similar findings.

Other personal factors, not easily measured in these studies, have
been documented recently, e.g.:

(1) Relative deprivation: women generally are more satisfied with a
lower wage, and less motivated to compete.  "...women are equally
satisfied with less pay than men -- the paradox of the contented
working woman. Relative deprivation theory provides a framework for
understanding how women's paradoxical contentment may contribute to
the gender wage gap: women may be content because they do not perceive
a discrepancy between the pay they want and the pay they receive."
(Journal of Social Issues 45(4), 1989, 117-133.)

(2) Marital asymmetry: Women value the husband's career over their
own, and make professional compromises. "...if the husband's career is
given a higher priority, moves and job changes will tend to improve
his employment prospects, whereas many moves are likely to force wives
to leave jobs that are well matched to their skills and experience.
Conversely, when the husband is well matched to his current job, an
emphasis on the husband's career might prevent wives from searching
for a more satisfactory job in another location."  (Social Science
Journal 27, 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."

-S. Schultz
---------------------------------------------------------
MYTH: WOMEN EARN 59 CENTS TO THE DOLLAR FOR THE SAME WORK AS MEN
by Warren Farrell
Reprinted without permission from Men's News Vol. 2, No. 2 May-Jul '88

Item: Ronald Reagan, George Bush, Gerraldine 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 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 statistically, 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 week, as
few as 26 weeks per year.  Women are much more likely to work 35 hours per
week; men much more likely to work 40-60 hours per week.  Women are much more
likely to work 26 weeks per year, men 52 weeks per year.  Equal pay is not
equal.

None of this is women's fault.  Women are still forty-three time more likely
than men to leave the work place for six months or longer for family reasons
-- a couple decision.  But if she returns to work her income is impacted.
Even professional women have ten fewer years in the workplace by the time they
reach their fourties than professional men.

All of this helps us understand why women who have never been married earn 93%
of what men earn; they are more involved in the workplace.  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 them same work as men, what
business could possible 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 a French Literature or Art History
major.  Yet even in 1986, more than 90 percent of engineering majors are male
and more than 90 percent of French Literature majors are female.  As for
secretaries, 99 percent are female.  Why?  If a man is a secretary, he knows a
female secretary will look right past him to a male executive.  He knows the
male physician will marry the female nurse, but the female physician will not
marry the male nurse.

Men, then, narrow their career options to jobs everyone knows pay more whether
or not they enjoy the work.  Including jobs that involve a 600 percent higher
incidence of work-related accidents (over 2 million disabling injuries and
14,000 deaths each year).

The myth that women earn 59 cents to the dollar for the same work as men
reinforces traditional roles.  It does not encourage women to control their
own lives.  It does encourage women to find male "success objects."  In brief,
the myth may be good for the women's movement, but it is not good for women.


========================
Send comments/flames to: forsythe@convex.com
Convex does not filter outgoing posts and is not responsible for the contents
	therein.



-- 
August -- When mothers call their Selective Service Board to see
     whether they ever draft ten-year-olds.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Women earn _what_ on the dollar?

So, you say that women 'only earn 59/62 cents on the dollar.  Well, not only
is this not for the same JOB - it's not even for the same amount of time
worked!  Here is some more data on the topic, which besides looking at
earnings per hour figures to normalize for the time worked looks at the
number of years of work and current job experience.  This is important because
women are (mostly) newer to the workforce than men, and have significantly
less average experience than men, which affects their earnings potential.

This data, however, still does NOT directly look at the effects of career
choice on earnings, though an interesting multivariate statistical analysis on
the effect of the percentage of females in an occupation (and 42 other
statistical variables) on earnings is done.

The report also includes a dozen references on other studies of the 'wage
gap'.

Source:  "U.S. Bureau of the Census, Current Population Reports, Series
P-70, No. 10, Male-Female Differences in Work Experience, Occupation, and
Earnings: 1984, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C., 1987

Overview:  Women earn, on the average, around $.70 cents on the dollar when
hours worked is accounted for, and about $.75 (computed from 'percent gap
explained figures documented in this reference) when differing experience
levels between men and women are accounted for.  This figure  does not include
*any* sort of adjustment for the type of work done.  Studies comparing how
men and women do in the *same* occupation are best addressed by different
studies than this one.

The ratio of earnings per hour for women/men tends to be much closer to 1 for
younger workers than older ones.  One can hypothesise that the older workers
are not receving the full benifits of AA/EEO (which was passed before they
entered the workforce for many of the workers), or one can hypothesise that
older female workers are running into 'glass ceilings', or one can
hypothesise that men are more driven and motivated to achieve success in
their chosen careers by social factors, and hence gradually gain a relative
advantage over women, or one can hypothesis that younger women are more
interested in pursuing a carreer than older women and therfore tend to choose
more profitable careers or any combination of the above and maybe more.

The report also performs a multivariate analysis of the data as mentioned
previously.   Besides the experience figures, an important statistical
variable for predicting earnings was found to be the percentage of female
workers in an occupation.  A high percentage of female workers was correlated
with lower earnings per hour for _everyone_ both male and female, in an
occupation.  In 2 of the 3 cases the correlation coefficient was noticeably
higher for women in an occupation than men - in the other case, the
correlation coefficient was slightly lower.

For pctfem, the multivariate correlation factors were:

Not high school graduate:  male (-24%) female (-34%)
High school graduate:      male (-22%) female (-21%)
College graduate:          male (-19%) female (-42%)

A correlation coefficient of -24% means that one would expect 24% lower
earnings from a hypothetical person working in a job with all females compared
to what the hypothetical person would earn if they worked in a job with
no females.

---

data with education and work experience, omitting job tenure.

education                <= 12yrs       12-15years        16yrs+
           all           not hs grad     hs grad          college grad
work                                                      
exp.      M    F     R    M    F     R   M     F     R    M     F    R

<=5       6.83 5.48 .80   5.21 4.49 .86  6.36  5.13 .81   9.15  7.42 .81
5-9       8.15 6.62 .81   8.15 6.62 .81  6.54  5.01 .77  10.71  8.88 .83
10-19    10.77 7.78 .72   7.84 5.86 .75  9.93  7.25 .73  14.03 10.32 .74
20+      12.22 7.80 .64   8.89 5.69 .64  11.59 7.55 .65  17.19 11.44 .67


Percent of (all) workers having specified work experience vs gender

work                   
exp.      M    F     R 

<-5     8.8  14.3  1.63
5-9    18.5  27.9  1.51
10-19  32.3  35.1  1.08
20+    40.4  22.8   .56

---

Notes on methodology:

From 'Definitions and Explanations'

Earnings per hour:  Information on earnings per hour was obtained directly for
persons paid by the hour.  For those not paid by the hour, earnings per hour
was calculated by dividing total wages and salaries recieved during the month
by an estimate of the total hours worked during the month (number of weeks
worked multiplied by usual number of hours worked per week).  [The included
survey shows that they asked for 'approximate rate of pay figures before
deductions'  either per hour, week, month, or year (in that order) and also
asked 'how many hours does (did) ......  work per week'. - bhv]

The data in this report are primarily from the 1984 Survey of Income and
Program Participation (SIPP).

Comparision of this data with other sources:

The primary source of data on trends in earnings ratios is the Current
Population Survey.  The Bureau of Labor Statistics has calculated ratios based
on mean and median usual weekly earnings of full-time wage and salary workers.
The estimates for calender year 1986 (latest at time of report - bhv) are
.69 (based on a comparison of medians) and .70 (based on a comparison of
means).  (This means distinctions of mean vs. median is probably not
important to the figures - bhv).  The difference between these 1986 estimates
is not statistically significant.  An estimatate of the ratio for 1979 based
on mean earnings is not available; the estimate of the 1979 ratio based on
median earnings is .63.