81–82 of 82 posts
One sort of rational explanation for a lower wage is that females might get pregnant and need leave for that, although that probably does not justify the difference (I haven't done the calculations). That is also why insurance prices offered to females / males are often different insofar the law allows it.
This is fundamentally one of the biggest cultural changes we have to make. You have to be ok with talking about your personal earning. In a lot of places talking about earnings is more taboo then talking about sex, and sex is generally taboo. Company culture of not talking about earnings only helps the company. It allows them to pay lowest market value for anyone, under the (often true) hopes that they don't know the…
The big reason for the taboo against talking about income is jealousy. Almost every job feels harder than it looks, and almost everyone feels more skilled at their work than they look. So if you tell someone your salary, your job probably feels more difficult to you than it looks to them, and you probably feel more productive than they think you are. If you make the same or more than they do, there is a very high ris…
Their salaries gave me the incentive to demand a big raise from my employer. Which I did and didn't get, so I quit and got myself a much better paid job.