Feminists (and others) is there any objective evidence that explains the existence of a male-female wage gap?

Question

The last time I asked this the question, I may have come across as biased, and I didn't get many responses. The question is as stated above- is there any objective evidence that explains the wage gap? I have my own sources, and I may post them later, but I would like to see things from a feminist viewpoint. Hopefully the sources will rely on statistically sound studies and not merely biased rhetoric.

Answer 1

I really don't currently have the time to do some real scholarly research (and that would be a bit harder to share over the net), so my results are from internet searching, although I did pay close attention to the sources.



I do want to say, though, that the idea of "objectivity" is a problematic one--in other words, how does one define "objective"? It is my argument (and the argument of many philosophers) that because human beings are subjects, we cannot really take an objective approach, even as we try to (though some do try more than others). For me, I prefer sources that declare their biases rather than trying to mask them.



As for the sources you list, I am not trying to discredit them, but I noticed many from mainstream media and wikipedia. The news media does tend to take a slant (whether that slant is conservative or liberal), and wikipedia is only as accurate as the last person who edited its content, so I don't particularly see these as objective sources. That doesn't mean that they are necessarily faulty, but they should be scrutinized, not automatically taken as unbiased truth.



That said, here's what I found:



This source is from the White House; it is from 1998, so it is a bit dated, but it basically argues that although the wage gap has significantly narrowed, "there still exists a significant wage gap that cannot be explained by differences between male and female workers in labor market experience and in the characteristics of jobs they hold."

http://clinton4.nara.gov/WH/EOP/CEA/html/gendergap.html



This next source gives a chart of the wage gap from 1970-2004 based on both race and gender. It lists its source for the info as "The U.S. Current Population Survey and the National Committee on Pay Equity."

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0882775.html



This link is from the same site, but gives and overview with charts, including the one above. According to the site, the source for the statements in this overview is "The National Women's Law Center." It argues that "in 2005, women earned 77% as much as men," which has gone up 1% from the 76% that I had learned a few years back, so it seems that it is still narrowing, which is promising.

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0763170.html



This chart, from the "National Committee on Pay Equity," a "coalition of women's and civil rights organizations" (so you may see this as biased) gives the same percentage of 77% for 2005.

http://www.pay-equity.org/info-time.html



This source says the gap is widening, which goes against my other sources--the article names the US Census Bureau as its source (but this is a case where one would especially want to look at that primary source).

http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/censusandstatistics/a/paygapgrows.htm



Finally, I am also including this source, which talks about negotiation of pay and the wage gap. The article lists studies that could also be looked up as primary sources.

http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/censusandstatistics/a/paygapgrows.htm



I'm going to stop there b/c i always write these super-long answers. I just wanted to add that i think you'll find your answer by compiling lots of info and closely evaluating the quality of sources, and I hope my research contributed to that a bit.

Answer 2

Wage gap doesn't exist as such - what exists is that the ladies are now complaining that they haven't been moved into the top and best paid jobs immediately upon demand, since, in most cases, just like men in the same position, they haven't done the yards involved. It's a tactic called 'moving the goal posts' - every time they 'achieve' something, they demand more, and say they're being 'discriminated' against when they don't get it immediately, conveniently leaving out the fact that most people are in the same boat. When they have done the hard yards, they can have the jobs. Incidentally, I worked for a female candidate at the last Federal election, and happily so - just didn't work out. She was, however, a real woman and not a 'feminist', and worked damned hard.

Answer 3

The problem with statistics is that each different organization has a different set. I am not aware of any universally accepted set of statistics but ALL of them show men do out earn women. Where this is more prevalent and puzzling is in the educated individuals... We can argue for thousands of years about the reason's why women make less money with similar education and experience but the fact remains that women do earn less. I personally see much improvement, I have not had any trouble climbing the ladder at my firm and am well paid for the work that I do, but I do still see subtle differences... By the way I read somewhere that women will catch up with men at an estimated year of 2042 (however I have also read that we will never catch up)...



http://www.womensmedia.com/new/Lips-Hilary-gender-wage-gap.shtml



The above link says that part time employee's are left out of the statistics.....

Answer 4

http://www.pay-equity.org/docs/NYTwagegap.htm

http://www.pay-equity.org/PDFs/athletics2007.pdf

http://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/1999/12/art2full.pdf

http://www.pay-equity.org/ChicagoTribune.html

http://www.iwpr.org/pdf/R334_BWStateEconomies2006.pdf

This is some of the information I had around. The wage parity is lessening thanks to a lot of lobbying by women's interest groups. Robinson what I often wonder about are the unregulated jobs out there that take serious advantage of people. As much as we loathe to admit it there are still sweat shops and terrible working conditions that fall through the cracks of government mandated legislature. My concerns are about those women and men that are brought in for domestic labour or to work in the agricultural or other sectors that do not have any type of supervision. I watched a documentary and I will try and find the name of it, but in effect it showed the terrible conditions that in this case Mexican and Caribbean people were forced to work under to try and make enough money to take home to their families to survive. They were so afraid to speak out on serious safety issues and horrible long hours because they feared the repercussions and they would also be responsible for transportation costs. This happens a lot with female domestic labour as well. Any thoughts on this?

Answer 5

They take the total of all wages to get that number....it does not compare same job to same job....as a larger number of females work in temporary or service jobs that pay less to accomodate a family.... you will have the difference

Answer 6

please post what you got cause everything I have heard of is outdated and I wonder how true it really is...