From Chance News, submitted to Chance News by Bill Peterson, based on a posting from Joy Jordan to the Isolated Statisticians e-mail list:
Exploiting the gender gap
New York Times, 5 September, 2005, A21
Warren FarrellFarrell is the author of Why Men Earn More: The Startling Truth Behind the Pay Gap — and What Women Can Do About It (AMACOM, 2004)
This article was published for Labor Day, and it opens by citing a demoralizing, often-heard statistic: women still earn only 76 cents for each dollar paid to their male counterparts in the workplace. Farrell maintains that such comparisons ignore important lurking variables. He claims to have identified twenty-five tradeoffs involving job vs. lifestyle choices, all of which men tend to resolve in favor of higher pay, while women tend to seek better quality of life.
Here are some the factors discussed in the article. Men more readily accept jobs with longer hours, and Farrell reports that people who work 44 hours per work earn twice as much as people who work 34 hours per week. Similarly, he finds that men are more willing to relocate or travel, to work in higher risk environments, and to enter technical fields where jobs may involve less personal interaction. Each of these choices is associated with higher pay.
Even head-to-head comparisons of men and women working in the “same job” can be tricky. Farrell observes, for example, that Bureau of Labor Statistics data consider all medical doctors together. But men opt more often for surgery or other higher paid specialties, while women more often choose general practice.
As indicated by the subtitle of his book, however, Farrell intends to provide some positive news for women. He claims that in settings where women and men match on his 25 variables, the women actually earn more than men. He also identifies a number of specific fields where women do better. One of these is statistics(!), where he reports that women enjoy a 35 percent advantage in earnings.
I haven’t read the book so can’t comment on the analysis, but it seems like a great discusison topic for class.
Very interesting, but the abstract manages not to mention the elephant in the room; pregnancy. Single women, with similiar education and background, make about as much as men. Almost all of that 24 cent loss is accruing to married women. This means that the cost of the decision to raise a child is almost entirely born the mother, in terms or foregone wages.
Angie Beeman and I have responded with force to his analysis on a substantive level.
herel
I read the response "with force". I suggest next time trying logic. Your piece is mostly just speculation about how women's lives are tougher and a recital of old statistics (where did they come from?). This one seems particularly absurd:
"A recent CDC report documents that homicides account for 11% of all occupational injury deaths among male workers, but for 42% of all occupational injury deaths among female workers."
It is pretty obvious that the reason for the high percentage of homicide deaths for women comes from the fact that their work places are generally safer and that there are not as many other deaths.
Again, a more complete and transparent use of statistics would either help prove your case, or more likely reveal a set of tortured statistics
People might want to read a series on the wage gap posted here:
http://www.amptoons.com/blog/archives/category/ec…
There are some interesting results, which seem to have physical danger correlated with lower wages.
Actually the response is backed up by a large number of government and academic sources. It was written for a general and non-academic audience. So it is not really "…mostly just speculation."
If you want to call me and discuss this further my number is listed on my webpage:
http://vm.uconn.edu/~twv00001