Thursday, December 9, 2010

The Wage Gap

After a particularly trying day of interviewing laborers, I tossed and turned, trying to get some sleep before getting up to do it all over again (It's Groundhog Day!  ... again.).  Then my thoughts came back to that ever-elusive dissertation topic of mine.  I finished this semester with a gender study, particularly the underrepresentation of women in male-dominated (high paying) industries and leadership.  And it occurred to me, after interviewing no women for jobs that pay a barely-high-school-eduated man more than what a PhD earns at the average university, is the wage gap still a problem?

You bet your apron-clad ass it is.  Women have made great strides and now make one-fifth less than men do in similar jobs - ONE-FIFTH - 20% - are we listening out there??  All right, give me the argument that we've made improvements since 1979, when the Bureau of Labor Statistics started comparing salaries and found the wage gap to be 40% - oh, we're on a roll now!.  The BLS released their Highlight of Women's Earnings in 2009 in June of this year and reported that woman make only 80% of a what a man does for the same work.  (This doesn't even begin to go into the minority wage gap either.)  Does this outrage you?  It should!  Read the full report here:

http://www.bls.gov/cps/cpswom2009.pdf

Now, let me play devil's advocate.  Women often have to jump out of a career trajectory for varying amounts of time if they want to have children.  Some women take a few weeks off, some take years off, to raise their children, which puts them further behind men in wages.  The BLS, and many other researchers, have found this not to be true for men, who might take a week or two off after the birth of a child, but they are largely unharmed when they "have it all."  If it sounds like I'm being sarcastic and pedantic, well, I am.  Here's the thing.  When women stay home, they aren't NOT working.  Most women I know who stay home aren't in their pajama's sipping bourbon and watching The Young & The Restless.  No.  They chase after their children, making sure they are clean, educated, enlightened.  They volunteer, they help out at schools.  They clean, relentlessly - even if they have a a housekeeper, I guarantee you they will clean before the housekeeper arrives.  They shuttle children, and maybe their husbands, to work, to appointments, to social events, to community activities.  Most women work harder at home than they would at work.  And - AND - they are still refining valuable skills and expertise they can use on the job.  They are life counselors, schedulers, problem solvers, chefs, housekeepers, nurses, and negotiators.  Why would we de-value this experience when they come back to work and make them start over at the bottom of the ladder?  Women who stay home support their husbands in a job.  They take care of domestic duties so the husband can focus on his job.  And what are they paid for this work?  Nothing.  And even worse, they are penalized when they return to the workforce, finding that all their work at home was still rewarded with no paycheck, and men still make more money than they do.

Where do we start?  I found Catalyst Blog, a group of researchers who study this sort of thing, read it here:
http://www.catalyst.org/blog/tag/wage-gap

The Paycheck Fairness Act, which targets eliminating the wage gap, was blocked by Senate, which ironically is comprised of, ready for this, it's shocking data - 83% men.  Yep, only 17% of the Senate is represented by women.  I don't know what the answer is.  We've made improvements, but it isn't enough.  When Susan B. Anthony, Betty Friedan, Gloria Steinham, Virginia Wolfe, and all the many fantastic women fought to gain equality, they envisioned true equality, where men and women earned the same money for the same work, where men and women were both respected for what they do.  This dream still hasn't materialized.

I think I just found my dissertation topic .... (It's Groundhog Day! ... again.).

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