Gender pay gap

no. I don’t agree with you. Your post was basically saying that manly man work was more important and skilled because it’s roughty toughty and manly such danger! A premium must be paid! It gets cold out ya know!

Women tend to get paid less. Work that’s seen as female tends to get paid less. In countries where nursery level work is more gender equal (for example Sweden, a place I know a fair amount about) there are plenty of men in nursery work. And the wages are higher. And the status of the job is higher.

If more men went into caring (and we do need more men in caring to preserve the dignity of the elderly) and nursery work, and dinnerladying, the wages would rise.

Nothing about childcare being easy, just about construction/building site work being far more physically active and dangerous, and done in all weather conditions

Employers don’t care. They don’t care if it’s dirty work, hard work, dangerous work, or if it’s outside in heat or cold. If they can get someone low skilled in to do it they will. So it’s a low status job. There are a hundred hard working poles and Eastern Europeans willing to do it for less money, just like factory work, crop picking etc.

If you do something miles easier physically, but higher skilled, like a SAS in biological software/trial database construction, or fiddling with magnets on the large hadron collider, you get paid more. Because it’s skilled work.

The danger level of a job has very little to do with status or pay. It’s supply and demand.

If we are going to be blunt about it, low skilled, strength based jobs that men are more likely to do generally are lower skilled and lower paid because machines. The future is skilled brain work - not grunt work. And women do the brain stuff just fine.

" Do you think employers give a fuck? If they did then carers, brickies and warehouse workers would be earning better money. Are they? No they aren’t. Because they’re low skilled jobs and society doesn’t pay you on how hard you work. "

So you agree with me then @Bowlofbabelfish ? Because that sounds a lot like what I said earlier

"The reality is that if companies could hire construction workers for less then they would. Whatever the going rate for construction workers is what is necessary to hire enough of them, same for nursery workers"

If construction sites pay £10 an hour then that's the necessary going rate to get enough people to out of bed in the morning and carry bricks up and down ladders.

If nurseries pay their staff £8 an hour then that's the necessary going rate to get enough people out of bed and change nappies, etc

Regardless the point stands - it's nonsense to suggest that working in a nursery is comparable to working on a building site or in construction, and that the wages should be the same.

Eh? It’s low skilled work either way, unless you’re doing something like industrial electronics, or speech therapy. How knackering it is? Do you think employers give a fuck? If they did then carers, brickies and warehouse workers would be earning better money. Are they? No they aren’t. Because they’re low skilled jobs and society doesn’t pay you on how hard you work.

Which one is supposed to be worse by the way? I’m guessing the one the women do right?

Manly man comes home from a site and has to put his feet up, because the poor poppet is tired? Can’t possibly make tea, so Linda the wife does effectively a second job sorting dinner and child wrangling even though she’s been running round after twenty two year olds all day? That’s why divorces happen, because ten, twenty years of that shit kills any respect for a man stone dead.

@BlueBug45 "the main point you seem to be making is that you view child care, particularly of other people's children, as easy when working at a nursery (or even being a child minder) isn't simply childcare any more."

Actually my main point was posted earlier:

"Can you honestly not see why a job that has to be done outside in all/most weather conditions, involves heavy physical activity, heights and is fairly dangerous by comparison to other jobs, might be paid more than a job that is mostly done inside, doesn’t require heavy physical activity (but of course is not stuck at a desk) and is not physically dangerous at all?"

Nothing about childcare being easy, just about construction/building site work being far more physically active and dangerous, and done in all weather conditions

appeal to authority:
It's important to note that this fallacy should not be used to dismiss the claims of experts, or scientific consensus. Appeals to authority are not valid arguments, but nor is it reasonable to disregard the claims of experts who have a demonstrated depth of knowledge unless one has a similar level of understanding and/or access to empirical evidence.

fms, I is obvious that you don't understand what you are accusing people of. This is plain sillyness now.

@fmsfms the main point you seem to be making is that you view child care, particularly of other people's children, as easy when working at a nursery (or even being a child minder) isn't simply childcare any more.

"I’m not sure of the exact qualifications needed to work in a nursery, obviously there’s background checks etc."

This quote surely answers your question @BlueBug45

Regardless the point stands - it's nonsense to suggest that working in a nursery is comparable to working on a building site or in construction, and that the wages should be the same.

@fmsfms You are aware there is a big difference between babysitting and working at a nursery or being a child minder right?

As a babysitter, or even a child's relative who looks after them in their own home, you aren't going to be inspected by Ofsted to check that you are helping the child develop correctly at specific age related milestones. You are also not going to have the local council's environmental health on you about the state of your premises.

"This is what I do for a living"

Appeal to authority fallacy to go with your previous ad hominems

“I am guessing it is because of the way you disregard what a person said, training vs no training, and address a different aspect, physical effort. It is on the list of logical fallacies too.”

oh really, which fallacy is that then? And I never ignored it, I actually pointed out that there a lot more differences between the two jobs: indoors, danger, physical exertion etc. The notion that there’s no training for construction jobs is also false, it’s not an unskilled trade by any stretch of the imagination

Nobody ever asked me for training when I did babysitting as a teenager. I’m not sure of the exact qualifications needed to work in a nursery, obviously there’s background checks etc.

The reality is that if companies could hire construction workers for less then they would. Whatever the going rate for construction workers is what is necessary to hire enough of them, same for nursery workers

fmsfms is talking out of his manly crack.

The UK government analysis recently published shows even after childbearing the biggest percentage is "unexplained".

Really what is comes down to is we have been able to get away with it for decades. We are at a bit of a tipping point where firms are just giving up trying to blag their way out of it and act on it instead, although it's not an instant fix.

I was at a conference on this last week and the number of major names there was huge.

This is what I do for a living so if fffffsss comes back waving his willy around mansplaining again, he is getting a biscuit.

An ex colleague sent me a screenshot of their ‘look at our pay gap’ email from their company. The line ‘this is not an excercise to look at a comparison of men and women doing the same job as this is not relevant’ was actually included in it.

I mean if you’re actually denying that you pay women and men in the same role then you’re not on a good footing...

It’s also not as simple as saying women don’t do comparable jobs. You have to ask WHY they don’t.

And a lot of the reason is society’s expectations of how women and men are facilitated in the workplace. This is an absolutely brilliant thread that explores these issues.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3082251-Men-whose-lives-are-facilitated-by-women-how-did-this-happen

It debunks the idea that women don’t want to, or aren’t suited. It’s basically that the structural discrimination results in lower numbers of women progressing through to higher levels.

Yes there is a gender pay gap. I’ve seen it first hand. And I’ve successfully had my salary increased when I’ve challenged it too. Men doing the same job, with lower qualifications, less experience and lower appraisal ratings and lower ‘skill’ sets were paid more. Badicallybdoing the same job, but not as well as me and one other woman. We both got a raise, but only after we fought for it.

(The number of hours worked, industry, occupation, promotion to manager, and other factors are included in the analysis.)

How odd to argue that physically taxing jobs are worth more after all these years of justifying low pay for "unskilled" physical jobs because they do not require the educational levels of higher paid positions.

Too bad they do not pay based on the value to society. Then the rubbish collectors would be paid well and the CEOs very little.

Why is it so hard for you to understand/interpret my posts correctly?
I am guessing it is because of the way you disregard what a person said, training vs no training, and address a different aspect, physical effort. It is on the list of logical fallacies too.

Let's just agree to disagree, fms.

This article by Kleven et al. (2018) confirms that while the pay gap has decreased over the years, having a child has a much more negative effect on the earnings of mothers vs. fathers -- accounting for around 20% of the gap, for a number of reasons (with PDF link at the top of page):

scholar.google.co.uk/citations?user=llNgiToAAAAJ&hl=en#d=gs_md_cita-d&p=&u=%2Fcitations%3Fview_op%3Dview_citation%26hl%3Den%26user%3DllNgiToAAAAJ%26citation_for_view%3DllNgiToAAAAJ%3AP5F9QuxV20EC%26tzom%3D-60

The thing we like about JP is his refusal to use pronouns and telling young men to get their arse into gear.

Who can be bothered. This is a feminist board not a mansplaining board.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3250762-Jordan-Peters?msgid=77908991#77908991

@Picassospaintbrush

You might want to stay away from that thread, Jordan Peterson is turning the women there onto the same arguments I made in this thread (he is where I got all my studies and links)

Withering and dying indeed

@moimichme "but you need a lot of energy in both"

There is zero way that nursery work requires is anywhere near as physically taxing as working on a building site for 8 hours a day, jesus

@Picassospaintbrush "The stuff spouted by fmsfms is just going to wither on the vine as it looks rank."

Unfortunately for you, science and scientific studies are not going away any time soon.

Don't you think if all those studies I posted were mumbo-jumbo then at least one of you would have been able to post a study discrediting them?

All you've done is attack me personally, which shows that you can't win by attacking my arguments.

Job done.

You are compeltey right moimichme.

The gender pay gap stuff is brand new this year for a lot of organisations and it's causing a flip in attitudes.

The stuff spouted by fmsfms is just going to wither on the vine as it looks rank.

@Picassospaintbrush I hope you're right -- I know a final decision hasn't been made for ASDA and the other cases, but the workers have passed several legal hurdles already. Fingers crossed it'll succeed.

Sorry if I'm derailing, but personally, I don't agree that a nursery worker's job is inherently far easier than working in construction. They're different jobs, and working with children is less physically dangerous, yes, but you need a lot of energy in both, and it seems unfair that nursery workers are paid much the same, with so much more education, training and knowledge required. Plus, as you work up the career ladder, the earnings potential for working in nurseries hardly budges, even with far more responsibility (unless you take time out to get a degree and switch to secondary teaching, where more men work). Almost like it's not really seen as work, because we all know it's so easy for women to look after a room full of very young children and help them develop their potential...

moimichme

I think much of this is going to break down over the next few years as companies realise that expensive court action isn't getting them the wins, and the defenses they are relying on aren't working.