From: dgross@polyslo.csc.calpoly.edu (Dave Gross)
Subject: FAQ -- 59 cents to the dollar?
Reply-To: dgross@polyslo.CalPoly.EDU (Dave Gross)
Organization: Zen Fascists for Jerry Brown
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
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 times more
likely than men to leave the workplace 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 forties than professional men.

	All of this helps us understand why women who have never been married
earn 93% of what men earn; they are much 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 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 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.

					-- Warren Farrell

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

"Michael Levin points out in `Feminism and Freedom' [that] single women whose
 educational and work-history patterns resemble single men's earn similar
 amounts of money to such men -- varying, depending on age bracket, from
 93 per cent to 106 per cent of what men make."

				-- "The Myths of Feminism" by Nicholas
				   Davidson.  National Review 5/19/89

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

	Comparison of Median Earnings of Year-Round, Full-Time
	Workers 15 Years and Over, by Sex, 1960 to 1989
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Year		Women's earnings as a percent of men's
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1960		60.7 ****************
1965		60.0 ************
1970		59.4 *********
1975		58.8 ******
1980		60.2 *************
1981		59.2 ********
1982		61.7 *********************
1983		63.6 ******************************
1984		63.7 *******************************
1985		64.7 ************************************
1986		64.3 **********************************
1987		65.0 *************************************
1988		66.0 ******************************************
1989            68.0 ****************************************************

Source:  Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census
-- The 1992 Information Please Almanac

*******************************************************************************

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

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
-- 
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- dgross@polyslo.CalPoly.EDU -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Observers were asked to comment on the feelings expressed by a nine-month-old
infant.  If the observers were told the infant was a boy, they labeled the
crying "anger."  If they were told it was a girl, they labeled it "fear."