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Why Do Women Earn Less Than Men? Evidence from Bus and Train Operators [pdf]

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Re: Why Do Women Earn Less Than Men? Evidence from Bus and Train Operators [pdf]

#21

Post by Antimachides »

door5 wrote: post #9

Men take more overtime, women do more domestic work, men are paid for overtime, women are not paid for domestic work. Is this not unjust?

You act like it's 1820 still and there's still domestic work to be done. The washer and dryer do the work, the dishwasher does at least half the work, the water is already gathered and available to pipe, dinner comes in trays, fat doesn't need to be made into soap, butter doesn't need churning, clothes don't need sewing, etc. etc. The life of a house wife is easy. Take the kids to school, pop a xanax, binge on daytime TV for 8 hours or whatever, pick the kids up, make them a quick dinner, go back to TV or help with a little homework, repeat with miscellaneous responsibilities sprinkled in. Any "job" you can do in your pajamas, well, you've just got to wonder you know? Funny that when a man can get an extra day off from all the overtime mommy's "tough" job can become his luxury: a day with his kids.

Re: Why Do Women Earn Less Than Men? Evidence from Bus and Train Operators [pdf]

#22

Post by nearbuy »

door5 wrote: post #9

Men take more overtime, women do more domestic work, men are paid for overtime, women are not paid for domestic work. Is this not unjust?

If you're talking about singles, then no, not really. You do domestic work for yourself. Men still have to do cleaning and maintenance at home, or pay someone else to do it, or live with the fallout.

If you're talking about couples who share an account, it doesn't really make a difference. The couple ends up with the same amount of money and domestic care whether one spouse does more or if they share responsibilities equally, as long as the total work hours at work and at home are the same.

If you're talking about a couple where the husband works and the wife stays home and the husband fully controls all the finances, then yes, that's pretty unfair.

Re: Why Do Women Earn Less Than Men? Evidence from Bus and Train Operators [pdf]

#23

Post by warp_factor »

The coverage on this subject is more and more made to follow a feminist/sexist narrative that wants to prove that the world is patriarchal and against womens.

the common saying "0.70$ for every 1.00$ of a man" is when you average all the women salaries against all the man salaries. It doesn't take into account specific individuals or interests.

I believe the main issue here is that womens are on average more interested in having a better quality of life (as shown with overtime in this paper), and are also less pushy during salary negotiations.

Re: Why Do Women Earn Less Than Men? Evidence from Bus and Train Operators [pdf]

#25

Post by mattnewton »

jldugger wrote: post #18
wallace_f wrote: post #2

Can someone explain to me what's wrong with this: If women make $0.70 for every $1.00 a man makes, and women are underrepresented in many lucrative fields, then: an arbitrage opportunity necessarily exists. In other words, if there is systemic sexism, then there exists a profit opportunity for entrepreneurs to buy-up typical companies and replace expensive, scarce male labor with cheaper, less-scarce female labor.

This is the Greenspan argument. In his own words: > I always valued men and women equally, and I found that because others did not, good women economists were cheaper than men. Hiring women does two things: It gives us better-quality work for less money, and it raises the market value of women. But in order to arbitrage this, you have to be willing to pay women and men differently. It's not impossible to see a market…

I think that hit the nail on the head: once you see the arbitrage opportunity, to exercise it you must knowingly discriminate against women, which is unethical and likely illegal.

Re: Why Do Women Earn Less Than Men? Evidence from Bus and Train Operators [pdf]

#26

Post by tbrownaw »

wallace_f wrote: post #2

Can someone explain to me what's wrong with this: If women make $0.70 for every $1.00 a man makes, and women are underrepresented in many lucrative fields, then: an arbitrage opportunity necessarily exists. In other words, if there is systemic sexism, then there exists a profit opportunity for entrepreneurs to buy-up typical companies and replace expensive, scarce male labor with cheaper, less-scarce female labor.

The market is not efficient.

Even if there really was a pay gap of that magnitude, it could still persist in the short run (compare to, "in the long run we are all dead"). The wonderful thing about high-prestige fields is that nobody really knows how to measure productivity.

There's also the possibility of bias in school or training programs, which would lead to differences that the labor market is not responsible for because they exist earlier in the pipeline.

Re: Why Do Women Earn Less Than Men? Evidence from Bus and Train Operators [pdf]

#28

Post by warp_factor »

wallace_f wrote: post #14
koboll wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, you could have said the same about blacks in the decades between emancipation and the civil rights movement. Certainly, there were some people who took advantage of those arbitrage opportunities to some extent. But in the case of anti-black racism, it truly was a case of human prejudice outweighing market incentives, for a very long time.

In fact, when the dial was turned up all the way on prejudice and discrimination, slavery was the result, as an extreme version of this ability to arbitrage the pay gap. As insane and unjust as that was, that really existed. Today, if there is a pay gap it would be exploitable, no? Salaries are typically the by far the most expensive cost for most tech startups. Discrimination against women is illegal and socially sh…

Because there is no such opportunity. This whole "0.70$ per 1.00$ from men", doesn't take into account different professions for example.

Re: Why Do Women Earn Less Than Men? Evidence from Bus and Train Operators [pdf]

#29

Post by TaylorAlexander »

monochromatic wrote: post #13
door5 wrote: post #9

Men take more overtime, women do more domestic work, men are paid for overtime, women are not paid for domestic work. Is this not unjust?

Seems pretty just. Who would be paying for the domestic work, anyway?

One of the original complaints of feminism was that we had developed a culture where both men and women work all day long, but women’s work was unpaid domestic work while the men got the paycheck. That gave men huge power over women in a society that still relied on the women’s work.

So we can identify a problem. The society (of the 1960’s and before in particular) required women’s work, but women were not compensated for their work. Given how critical that work is for society, it does strike me as a real problem.

A secondary question is what to do about it, which I believe you are asking. That is much more complicated. We have identified a problem, but perhaps have not identified a solution. However the lack of a solution does not mean it is fair to ignore the problem.

I bet feminists have suggested lots of solutions to this, but it’s telling that you and I (I expect) are both ignorant of them.

However, I do think this expectation of necessary unpaid work is unfair. Can anyone comment on proposed solutions to this in the feminist literature? Thanks!

Re: Why Do Women Earn Less Than Men? Evidence from Bus and Train Operators [pdf]

#30

Post by [deleted] »

nearbuy wrote: post #22
door5 wrote: post #9

Men take more overtime, women do more domestic work, men are paid for overtime, women are not paid for domestic work. Is this not unjust?

If you're talking about singles, then no, not really. You do domestic work for yourself. Men still have to do cleaning and maintenance at home, or pay someone else to do it, or live with the fallout. If you're talking about couples who share an account, it doesn't really make a difference. The couple ends up with the same amount of money and domestic care whether one spouse does more or if they share responsibilities…

[deleted]
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