How many husbands do you know who stay at home with kids when the wife is working? I can think of one instance off the top of my head. The number in the other direction is so high I can't even count them all.

I don't think we'll ever see pay equity until the percentage of men staying home with kids equals the percentage of women staying home with kids.

[ 06 June 2007: Message edited by: Sven ]

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I asked Harvard economist Claudia Goldin if there is sufficient evidence to conclude that women experience systematic pay discrimination. "No," she replied. There are certainly instances of discrimination, she says, but most of the gap is the result of different choices. Other hard-to-measure factors, Goldin thinks, largely account for the remaining gap -- "probably not all, but most of it."

The divergent career paths of men and women may reflect a basic unfairness in what's expected of them. It could be that a lot of mothers, if they had their way, would rather pursue careers but have to stay home with the kids because their husbands insist. Or it may be that for one reason or another, many mothers prefer to take on the lion's share of child-rearing. In any case, the pay disparity caused by these choices can't be blamed on piggish employers.

June O'Neill, an economist at Baruch College and former director of the Congressional Budget Office, has uncovered something that debunks the discrimination thesis. Take out the effects of marriage and child-rearing, and the difference between the genders suddenly vanishes. "For men and women who never marry and never have children, there is no earnings gap," she said in an interview.

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There are lots of professions were men and women enter the workplace in equal numbers and the men end up earning more money and advancing up the corporate ladder faster than their female colleagues. To blame it on marriage and child rearing choices is an insult.

The article doesn't take into account that jobs that are predominantly filled by women are paid much lower than jobs of equal importance and responsibility that are held by men.

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Originally posted by laine lowe:
To blame it on marriage and child rearing choices is an insult.

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Are those choices irrelevant?

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Originally posted by laine lowe:
Well maybe if child rearing wasn't predominantly practiced along gender lines, women wouldn't be making that choice.

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Originally posted by laine lowe:
To blame it on marriage and child rearing choices is an insult.
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Are those choices irrelevant?

I don't think so. And, any fair analysis of the issue must take those choices into account, no?

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The fact is that marriage and especially child rearing are fundamental parts of human existence and always have been.

Child rearing is also a key biological, as well as social, part of human survival as a species.

The fact the our oppressive capitalist dominated economy, and many of the bosses that profit from it via their dictatorial control over capital and business, often harms people who choose to do basically what human beings have done since there have been human beings clearly show that it must change to better facilitate people's choices, not the other way around.

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Originally posted by Steppenwolf Allende:
So it’s clear that piggish employers are the obstacle to freedom for working people, not people’s families or parenting choices.

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Would you argue that, say, an attorney who works for three years, takes twelve years off to raise children, and then returns to work as an attorney should be compensated the same or nearly the same as a colleague who started working as the same time but who choose to work in the practice full time for the same fifteen-year period?

Normally, it’s the women who elect to stay at home and the men who elect to stay at the office. That personal decision significantly contributes to pay disparity between men and women.

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Originally posted by laine lowe:
The article doesn't take into account that jobs that are predominantly filled by women are paid much lower than jobs of equal importance and responsibility that are held by men.

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Actually, I think it does. It says that one reason is because female university graduates often pursue careers that pay less, like teaching, psychology, and humanities.

I don't see this article as problematic, personally. I've often thought that the reasons they outline account for much more of the disparity now than when employers were openly paying women and men different hourly rates based on gender.

For instance, this is really important:

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The divergent career paths of men and women may reflect a basic unfairness in what's expected of them. It could be that a lot of mothers, if they had their way, would rather pursue careers but have to stay home with the kids because their husbands insist. Or it may be that for one reason or another, many mothers prefer to take on the lion's share of child-rearing.

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I would add to this that many mothers MUST take on the lion's share of child-rearing because in many cases (not all! don't get all defensive now, guys!) if she doesn't do it, it doesn't get done.

This is a big problem, and it's a social problem that needs to be addressed and fixed. Men work a paltry three hours more per week than women one year out of university? Well, how does that compare with the fact that women do two thirds of the unpaid work? No wonder women are cutting back more and more on our paid working hours as we get older and have families.

Also, I think it's true that women don't tend to choose the more male-oriented career paths that tend to make more money, like high finance, engineering, science, etc. Those careers are still quite male-dominated. So what are we doing about it? As we often say to people who claim that women were "given" the vote - feminists have never been "given" anything - we've had to fight for it and take it.

So what are we going to do about the fact that we shrink away from lucrative careers, we accommodate the men in our lives by doing more around the house and cutting back our paid work so that they can work longer hours, etc.?

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Would you argue that, say, an attorney who works for three years, takes twelve years off to raise children, and then returns to work as an attorney should be compensated the same or nearly the same as a colleague who started working as the same time but who choose to work in the practice full time for the same fifteen-year period?

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This is highly hypothetical, because it doesn't take into consideration all the factors involved.

First, it would depend on what, if anything, has been agreed to between the lawyers and the boss. That's yet another reason why unionizing and collective bargaining are so useful.

Second, if someone takes that much time off to raise a family and then goes back into the same trade, it would be likely that, regardless of what pay scale they would agree to, that they would have to return to school for upgrading that the person who stayed in the workforce would likely get while working.

Third, even if the pay scales are the same for both, it would be more than likely (at least in a union situation) that the person who stayed working would have far more contributed pension and other retirement, vacation and health and welfare benefits than the person who took time off.

As most would expect, a single woman who has never married makes more salary than a stay-at-home mother, indeed they make more on average than most other women. However, single unmarried men make less than married men. I recall reading that in Businessweek... around 30% less after correcting for age. There could be various factors, maybe on average women are more attracted to men who are more reliable, more educated, taller, more ambitious, more sociable; all qualities which would also raise a man's salary. I recall the authors of the article said it was evidence of gold-digging. I doubt it. Some people I've told it to think it may be because married men have more to live for, or they get mor support, or companies like the image of the family man.

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Originally posted by Michelle:
500_Apples, feminists have long known the reason why married men earn more than unmarried men. It's because women do two thirds of the unpaid work at home. So, if you've got one of those women living with you, you've got lots more time to devote to your paid work than you would if you had to do your own laundry, cook your own meals, clean your own bathrooms, etc.

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I often discuss that statistic with other people, to see how they react. I get really interesting responses.

As my friend Sarah said, it really depends on whether the salary differential is around before or after the wedding. If married men get salary appreciation in the years following the wedding, then it's likely because of what you say, and also because they just might be happier and have more to live for. On the other hand, if they already had elevated salaries, then it's due to other factors, possibly the correlations I suspected. (That being tall, well-groomed, educated, sociable, reliable, ambitious will lead to both a better career and more sexual desirability).

[ 05 June 2007: Message edited by: 500_Apples ]

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Originally posted by Steppenwolf Allende:
So as to how fair the situation would be would depend on some of these considerations.

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[ 05 June 2007: Message edited by: Michelle ]

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What do WE do about it? Men aren't going to do anything about it - they benefit from it! It's up to us.

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Not exactly, Ms. Dworkin II. Economically, most men DON"T benefit because their wives stay at home to raise the kids. In my own experience, it was tough as hell financially, and we, as a young couple, barely avoided bankruptcy.

This is one reason why I sometimes get so mad at those right-wing so-called "family values" frauds is that the corporate capitalist economics they are so loyal to are fundamentally anti-family, since they place so little value on what is in fact one of the most important functions in any society--turning what should be an honoured opportunity into a huge burdensome sacrifice that a majority of working people can barely afford.

I think most sane people would agree that birthing and raising the next generation of human being is the most important function in ensuring human survival. Certainly every society I know of had some level of understanding of this in the ancient past.

But our economy doesn’t. One would think that jobs involving child rearing, day care, early childhood education, etc., being so important to raising our kids, would pay at least a comfortable level rate, instead of making up the lower rungs of the public sector pay grid (especially when we pay hockey players like Todd Bertuzzi $8 million a year to shoot a puck around and punch people in the head).

I remember reading about various campaigns in the 1980s that rallied around the slogan wages for Housework. While the term itself sounds ridiculous, the idea behind it was thought-provoking, in that it suggested that since raising a family and keeping a home is so oppressive under a capitalistic economic framework, yet is so important to our survival, why don’t we start paying ourselves to do such important work?!

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Originally posted by Steppenwolf Allende:
Not exactly, Ms. Dworkin II. Economically, most men DON"T benefit because their wives stay at home to raise the kids. In my own experience, it was tough as hell financially, and we, as a young couple, barely avoided bankruptcy.

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First of all, your anti-feminist insult is obnoxious. If you want to discuss this with me, then don't pull shit like that on me.

Secondly, men DO benefit from it career-wise when their wives put their careers on the back-burner in order to do more at home. I'm not talking about women giving up their jobs entirely, I'm talking about women who put themselves on the "mommy track" so they can do all the work at home that hubby seems not to notice needs doing, or is far too busy with his career to notice. Or who relocates multiple times to follow her husband's career while taking lower-paying jobs along the way.

[ 05 June 2007: Message edited by: Michelle ]

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You are proving Sven's point there quite nicely.

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Originally posted by Steppenwolf Allende:
Second, if someone takes that much time off to raise a family and then goes back into the same trade, it would be likely that, regardless of what pay scale they would agree to, that they would have to return to school for upgrading that the person who stayed in the workforce would likely get while working.

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At least in the context of law, no amount of school will equal actual years of practice. Even after three years of studying law, a new lawyer knows very little about practicing law. A lawyer develops a sense of judgment through years of practice (what are the practical and likely consequences of doing XYZ?). I know the same is true for accountants (I used to be one) and is probably true for most professions.

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Originally posted by Michelle:
I would add to this that many mothers MUST take on the lion's share of child-rearing because in many cases (not all! don't get all defensive now, guys!) if she doesn't do it, it doesn't get done.

This is a big problem, and it's a social problem that needs to be addressed and fixed.

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It is. And I think it’s a very significant roadblock to true gender equality.

We just lost another woman manager at our company. She and her husband are both professionals yet it was she who decided (?) to stay at home full time. Why don’t the men do that??? I think it’s a huge ego thing for men. I hear it all the time from professional women friends of mine who have relatively high salaries that men they date are “intimidated” by a woman making more money than them!!! It’s as though (the vast majority of) men do not want to relinquish the power that earning money confers on them. They can always walk away from a relationship and still have their earning power, whereas if they were to stay home, they would not.

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Originally posted by Michelle:
It's because women do two thirds of the unpaid work at home.

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Originally posted by Steppenwolf Allende:
Not exactly, Ms. Dworkin II.

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Originally posted by Sven:
At least two-thirds!! I know countless guys who do next to nothing at home...and I mean that literally.

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Well, I was talking statistically. Included in that statistic are the good guys who do more than their share too, right?

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...that capitalist economics (which you are so blindly obedient to) overall are the problem, not necessarily individual employers, although these often do play a role.

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Yes, I agree. Unfortunately, the socialist revolution seems like it's probably a little ways away, so in the meantime, we women are going to have to figure out how to work with the system we've got. We can't wait for utopia to try to even things out.

[ 05 June 2007: Message edited by: Michelle ]

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Originally posted by Michelle:
Well, I was talking statistically. Included in that statistic are the good guys who do more than their share too, right?

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First of all, your anti-feminist insult is obnoxious. If you want to discuss this with me, then don't pull shit like that on me.

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Well, I wasn't trying to be anti-feminist. That didn't even cross my mind. I know many feminists via the labour and co-op movements and the NDP, and they are good people who do good work, and I generally agree with them on many things.

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Secondly, men DO benefit from it career-wise when their wives put their careers on the back-burner in order to do more at home. I'm not talking about women giving up their jobs entirely, I'm talking about women who put themselves on the "mommy track" so they can do all the work at home that hubby seems not to notice needs doing, or is far too busy with his career to notice. Or who relocates multiple times to follow her husband's career while taking lower-paying jobs along the way.

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I agree in part with this, in that there is way too much "work-shirk" out there mostly on the part of the guys not living up to their end of sharing in the domestic duties.

While I have always tried to do my part, I'm not exactly a saint on that front either--sometimes letting schedule clashes, stress, pursuing the extra day of work/overtime/another contract job, etc. get in the way of my home commitments—something my wife loves to remind me about (then again, so has my wife—it’s because we desperately needed the bucks to pay the bills, that often some of the home stuff got left behind).

And it’s true that in most often, women who put their careers on hold to raise a family, end up taking lousy-paying part-time jobs (often not related to their trade), depending on the guys to move ahead hopefully making the bucks to carry the financial side of things.

That’s why I think it might be a good idea to investigate the “wages for housework” idea. Some folks can call me a chauvinist for thinking that after all is considered women may be just naturally better at raising kids more directly than men (most ancient societies seemed to feel that way, even the cooperative communal ones, since that’s how they usually divided their labour). But I also really think that, regardless of which chooses to stay home, people should be compensated for doing this—not just with cash, but public services, learning opportunities, workforce re-entry programs (better than the grossly inadequate ones we have today).

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Unfortunately, the socialist revolution seems like it's probably a little ways away, so in the meantime, we women are going to have to figure out how to work with the system we've got. We can't wait for utopia to try to even things out.

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I agree--and I don't think we men, like you women, can wait either. We need to make it happen, just like we've had to make everything else happen in history.

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Originally posted by Steppenwolf Allende:
That's why it might be time to look at being paid for our domestic and family-raising duties by the economy in some way. Why can't we pay ourselves for doing what most people agree is the most important job of all?

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We should “pay ourselves”? How would that help eliminate gender pay inequity?

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Originally posted by Steppenwolf Allende:
Second, if someone takes that much time off to raise a family and then goes back into the same trade, it would be likely that, regardless of what pay scale they would agree to, that they would have to return to school for upgrading that the person who stayed in the workforce would likely get while working.

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As Sven has already pointed out, in "trades" like law, accounting, etc. simply taking some upgrade courses doesn't do it. It's the actual practice of the profession that really counts (the Continuing Professional Development requirements are generally those of the governing professional body and, if someone hasn't kept up, they may well already have lost their qualification - even if they've been able to take advantage of some waiver policy the relevant professional body has introduced, they still have to meet the formal requirements in order to be allowed to "practice" whatever that may mean to their profession).

However, more to the point, consultants in general (and that includes lawyers, accountants, and a lot of other people) are normally compensated by means of a combination of salary and bonus - that bonus can be a very significant percentage of salary - for a senior partner in a law firm it may well be a multiple of his basic income. To be strictly accurate, in many consulting firms the partners actually receive no salary, just a share in the overall profits.

And the determining factor in what your bonus should be is typically a combination of your "billings" (i.e., how much you bill clients for your services) and how much new business you generate. In order to generate high billings you have to work long hard hours - in my consulting days sixty hour weeks were the easy ones. And in order to develop new business you have to work at it. The easy part of that is attending conferences, meeting people, and handing out your business cards to all and sundry. The hard part is developing a reputation so that clients come looking for you. The easy part of that is delivering work on time, personal commitments be damned, and being well known in your field. If you take any time off you are out of the loop and your contacts will become stale dated very quickly. After a few years those contacts become social as in "Oh yeah, nice person but ..."

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also posted by Steppenwolfe:
First, it would depend on what, if anything, has been agreed to between the lawyers and the boss. That's yet another reason why unionizing and collective bargaining are so useful.

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I doubt that anything can be agreed regarding a return to work many years later, but as noted, law firms are partnerships (I'm not aware of a single major firm that isn't - if so, I'd love to hear about it) and the real compensation to senior people comes in the form of bonuses. At the extreme, it's eat what you kill - no business, no compensation, lots of business, lots of compensation. If you can't generate income, either by billing or business development, you won't get much of a bonus and will be asked to leave, sooner rather than later.

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Argggghh. Sometimes I think corporate Alberta is still slogging through the 1950's.

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The 1950s?! You mean it's actually evolved since I worked there?!

Sounds, once again, like it might be time to quietly start talking the taboo "U" word with some of your colleagues.

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We should “pay ourselves”? How would that help eliminate gender pay inequity?

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It's already been established by scores of economic reports throughout history that raising the income floor, via minimum wages, welfare, minimum income guarantees, etc., reduces the degree of desperation in terms of finding paid work and therefore causes an overall increase in wages generally.

Offering a social compensation payment of some sort to parents who stay home to raise kids (and perform the related domestic duties) put them in a far more beneficial and secure position than today, where they are totally cut off from any income at all. Obviously, many would likely still work part-time, but they would be in a better position to ask to higher pay rates than now.

As to gender inequity, that would at least help alleviate it since most stay-at-home parents are women.

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I think that all would agree that we do not want to relegate women to low-paying jobs. We want women to have equal representation in higher-paying jobs and the professions (professors, engineers, accountants, doctors, lawyers, business managers, and other professionals)—the lack of representation in those professions is at the heart of pay inequity.

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You don't need to convince me of the need to address pay equity issues and helping women get out of what many in the labour movement call the "pink collar ghetto"--generally low-paying insecure jobs which are usually filled by women. I'm a total supporter of efforts to address these.

No doubt it does improve the lot of people employed in those jobs but at some point you come up against a simple fact. When the cost of hiring someone into those pink collar jobs increases beyond some point they disappear. A lot of them went the way of the dinosaur when word processors were introduced. Now I do my own typing - before there was a typing pool and senior people would have their own secretary. With the advent of PC's typing pools are pretty much gone and even very senior people do much of their own typing.

At the risk of digressing,this reminds me of a friend whose firm tranferred him to India. When he got there he asked for a PC. They gave him a secretary because it was cheaper to have her type his memos etc. than it was to buy a computer. When he returned to North America they handed him a PC because it was cheaper than giving him a secretary.

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No doubt it does improve the lot of people employed in those jobs but at some point you come up against a simple fact. When the cost of hiring someone into those pink collar jobs increases beyond some point they disappear. A lot of them went the way of the dinosaur when word processors were introduced.

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What you are pointing out is the sad reality of an aspect the coercive economics of the capitalist system--in how technological change is used against people. That’s why when I wrote about improving pay and benefits, advancement opportunities, I should have included dealing with tech change, including job guarantees, training for new positions, etc.

I think, though, this needs also to be dealt with on a macro-economic scale as well. Fundamentally (and here comes the commie socialistic stuff now), we need to start looking more seriously at economic and workplace democratization measures, as in giving workers more control over their workplaces and businesses, as well as over capital and investment decisions, along with the training needed to do this. That usually goes a long way in changing that coercive dichotomy, as well as gaining efficiencies by returning profits and dividends directly back to workers, etc.

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Originally posted by Steppenwolf Allende:
Offering a social compensation payment of some sort to parents who stay home to raise kids (and perform the related domestic duties) put them in a far more beneficial and secure position than today, where they are totally cut off from any income at all. Obviously, many would likely still work part-time, but they would be in a better position to ask to higher pay rates than now.

As to gender inequity, that would at least help alleviate it since most stay-at-home parents are women.

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Originally posted by Free_Radical:
Sounds a lot like the So-Cons and their push for income splitting and other economic "incentives" to keep women "where they belong" - in the home and not in the workplace.

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I agree.

Let’s say a professional woman elects to stay at home for 10+ years and during that time gets some payment from the government to raise children (Steppenwolf Allende didn’t specify how much she would receive for her efforts). Then, after spending those several years of raising children, she then moves back to practice her profession. How, exactly, is she going to be on par with her colleagues (typically male) who stayed working in the profession for the prior 10+ years?

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Originally posted by 500_Apples:
Sven, her income in those ten years matters.

Salary isn't everything. Accumulated wealth, experiences and assets count.

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Originally posted by Sven:

So, what do you propose paying a professional to "keep her in the home"?

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Originally posted by 500_Apples:
I'm not sure about what the right fertility policy would be.

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Originally posted by Sven:

Are we talking about "fertility policy" or gender pay equity?

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