fandomsandfeminism talked about several of the major contributors to the wage gap, including:
1. Discrimination in promotions
2. Dissuasion from higher paying fields
3. Structural disadvantage
Investing in a universal, free childcare system, in which workers are paid a decent wage, would create 1.65 million jobs and reduce the gender pay gap. Most of the investment would be recouped through increased tax revenues and lower welfare spending. In Canada, women’s participation in the workforce increased substantially above trend levels when marginal taxes and the net costs of child care were reduced.
4. Penalties for negotiating
5. The devaluing of work associated with women
People view men’s and women’s work differently. There is a tipping point at which men flee an occupation, and in the absence of perfect information, workers take the percentage of female employees as a proxy for an occupation’s prestige. When teaching in the US became female-dominated, the pay decreased. When programming in the US became male-dominated, the pay increased. Doctors save lives and go to school for many years no matter where you are in the world. But in Russia, they are paid the same wages as secretaries, making about 12,000 US dollars a year. A study of Census data from 1950 to 2000 found that when women enter an occupation in large numbers, that job begins to pay less, even after controlling for a range of factors like skill, race, geography, and occupational crowding.
Men’s low-wage jobs demand far less in terms of skill, education, and certifications than women’s low-wage jobs, yet the male-dominated ones usually have higher hourly pay. Janitors, who are mostly men, make 22 percent more money than maids and housecleaners, who are mostly women, despite the jobs requiring identical skills.
6. Special treatment for men in female-dominated fields
There are many other important reasons for the wage gap, including:
8. Pay secrecy
You can’t demand higher pay if you don’t know you’re being underpaid. In the 11 US states where pay secrecy is unlawful, the gender wage gap is smaller. In government jobs, where pay transparency is required, the gender pay gap has shrunk to just 11-13 percent. Unionized workers, who also require pay transparency, have a wage gap of 9 percent.
9. Women’s unpaid labor
Women tend to put in fewer hours of paid work than men, but when unpaid work is added to the equation, women all over the world tend to work slightly more hours per day, per week, and per year than men. Women in the US proportionately still perform much more housework and childcare, such as managing children’s schedules and activities, taking care of sick children, and doing chores, than men. Men still perform only half the housework and childcare that women do. This doesn’t look like it will change soon: Fewer than half of Millennial women believed they’ll handle most of the child care, but two-thirds of their male peers believe their wives will do so. When the time women spend on unpaid work shrinks to three hours a day from five hours, their labor force participation increases 20 percent.
10. Long hours != greater contribution to company
Even in workplaces that offer flexibility, however, women have reported penalties for taking advantage of flexible work options, such as loss of responsibility or longer hours than promised. Flexible work hours will work only if that attitude changes.
The point that “men earn more because they put in more hours at the company” is untrue anyway. The wage gap between women and men remains steady whether we compare employees working 40 hours a week, 41-44 hours a week, 45-49 hours a week, or 50+ hours a week.
11. Motherhood penalty
Women earn 10% less for each child they have, while men earn 6% more for each child they have. Mothers face a lot of stereotypes at work: they get competency ratings 10% lower than other women, and they’re also called back half as often as fathers for jobs. To the contrary, studies have found that moms are more productive workers. The thought-leadership industrial complex has even called having kids a “productivity hack.”
12. Implicit bias
Even after controlling for all variables known to affect earnings, there is still a wage gap of about 6.6% in the US. Accounting for these variables explains only about 60% of the wage gap in the US. In Australia, these factors only account for about 40% of the gap.
Luckily, people can overcome their unconscious biases. Employers for university STEM faculty were 6.3 times more likely to make an offer to a woman candidate when the employers had been presented with an intervention, including discussion of implicit bias. Sadly, women who bring up concerns about diversity in the workplace receive worse evaluations from their bosses than men who bring up the same concerns.
13. Just blatant sexism
Three-quarters of Millennial women anticipate that their careers will be at least as important as their partners, while half the men in their generation expect that their own careers will take priority.
Women are not as respected as men in leadership roles, especially by the men over whom they have a leadership role. Women in leadership positions receive less favorable evaluations because they are perceived to be violating gender norms. Male students systematically overestimate the knowledge of the men in their classes in comparison with the women despite clear evidence of women’s superior class performance.
Millennial men are less open to accepting women leaders than older men are. Only 41% of millennial men are comfortable with women engineers, compared to 65% of men 65 or older. Likewise, only 43% of millennial men are comfortable with women being U.S. senators, compared to 64% of Americans overall. The numbers were 39% versus 61% for women being CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, and 35% versus 57% for president of the United States.
There are many proven ways to reduce the gender wage gap, including:
But we can’t get any of these done because these idiots are out here plugging their ears and saying “the wage gap isn’t real.”. If you need more convincing of why you should help the gender pay gap, please read this post.