From: hekunze@jeeves.uwaterloo.ca (Herb Kunze)
Subject: Re: statistics and questions
Organization: University of Waterloo
Date: Tue, 29 Sep 1992 13:37:41 GMT

In article <lc6li5INNoea@jethro.Corp.Sun.COM>, zen@death.Sun.COM (d) writes:
> If American women are so equal, why do they represent two-thirds of all
> poor adults?  Why are nearly 75% of full-time working women making less
> than $20,000 a year, nearly double the male rate?  [Note -- that's
> double the amount of men making less than 20K a year, not that they're
> making double the amount men make -- d]
> ...
> Why does the average working woman's salary still lag as far behind the
> average man's as it did twenty years ago?  Why does the average female
> college graduate earn less than a man with no more than a high school
> diploma (just as she did in the '50s) -- and why does the average female
> high school graduate today earn less than a male high school dropout?
> ...
> Why are nearly 80% of working women still stuck in traditional "female"
> jobs -- as secretaries, administrative "support" workers and
> salesclerks?  

  I always find it interesting when statistics are used to compare the
  "average man"'s salary and the "average women"'s salary.  I'm not sure
  why anybody expects (or *demands*) that they be the same and screams
  in outrage when they aren't.   
   
  Ignoring the second paragraph above for the moment, the average
  salary difference is quickly explained.  It seems clear that men or
  women working in the positions listed in paragraph three should be
  on the low end of the pay scale in any corparate heirarchy.  So,
  the "problem" is that mostly women are in these jobs and that mostly
  men are in the upper echelon jobs.  The average salary difference
  is a result of this "problem."  I've quoted the word "problem" 
  because there are many explanations other than the dreaded d-word
  for why we have this situation and it's unclear to me that all are
  bad.  That's not to say that the d-word isn't a possible explanation
  either - I'm not arguing the existence of discrimination; I'm just
  arguing the shoddy use of statistics.  

  The second paragraph again misses the mark by comparing "average"
  men and women.  The local newspapers here (Canada's national Globe
  & Mail, The Toronto Star, and the Toronto Sun) all recently had
  articles stating that after looking at statistics researchers had
  concluded that the "average" Canadian woman earns 67 cents on the
  dollar compared to the "average" Canadian man.  Some journalist
  took the time to investigate the statistics and learned many 
  interesting things (I have the article at home and can post it if
  you are interested).  "Average"ness aside, it was postulated that
  when talking about somebody's worth on the job market the most  
  important thing is that person's education.  So, the statistics
  were compared for different education groupings (i.e. finished
  high school but no university; finished univeristy; no high school;
  etc.)  At each comparatively equal education level, the earning
  difference was suddenly not so drastic.  As I recall, university 
  educated women earned 94% (definitely 90+, I believe 94) of what
  university educated men earned.  They also looked at married vs.
  single people and how that skewed the statistics.  Rereading the
  second paragraph above, I guess that from this batch of statistics
  anyhow, it appears that a few of the questions asked are not 
  true in Canada.  
                                                        Herb...
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