Gender pay gap

As I’ve said elsewhere on MN (at the risk of boring everyone!), the problem is not that childcare is too expensive.
The real problem is that childcare is chronically undersubsidised and UK wages are too low.

Quality childcare costs money. The first thing the Coalition government did was to implement Austerity measures that saw grants and funding in the Early Years drastically cut. Successive governments have continued to cut budgets since. Costs have risen, and childcarers have had no choice but to pass the shortfall on to parents - parents who have seen wages stagnate over the years.

The so-called free 30 hours was the last straw for many and they went out of business.

People complain that the Labour government “spent all the money”: well, childcare and Early Years was one of the things they spent it on. That’s not what voters wanted, hence the high childcare costs.

That's a bit depressing about your husband getting practically 'rewarded' for being a parent vs. the response to you, but sadly I guess it's a typical reaction.

I work in STEM. I'd say it's pretty typical.

Fms, are you actually here to discuss? Because honestly, you're acting like you've just come up with a great argument as to why feminists are wrong, in a "Boom! Gotcha" way, without considering that maybe we've thought about and discussed these issues before, long before you came along to impart your wisdom, and we're already quite a number of steps ahead of you.

Do you want to know about feminism, or not? If not, why exactly are you here?

@fmsfms are you at all interested in feminism?

If you are, here is the WEP position on childcare.

The cost of childcare can be punishing. An average part time nursery place now costs more than £6,000 a year. It’s hard enough to find the money if you’re working – but impossibly expensive if you need help with childcare while studying or training. If you’re on low wages, you can find that after nursery and travel costs it’s barely worth working.

Why are we left waiting until our children are 3 for a free nursery place? Childcare help should start as soon as paid parental leave is over.

Of course lots of mothers and fathers want to spend time at home with their young families. But at least 600,000 stay-at-home parents would prefer to work if they could afford to do so. WE believe it’s right to fund a big expansion of childcare so that all who want to work can afford to.

WE want all families to have a free part time nursery place from when their child reaches 9 months. And extra hours should be affordable, too, with costs capped at £1 an hour.

WE have a costed plan to pay for extra childcare by changing pension tax rules – helping women and low earners save more for retirement, too. Click here to find out more.
www.womensequality.org.uk/childcare
SIGNUP to back our campaign for more childcare help.

In fact Sophie Walker on the Wright Stuff (the one with JBP) has just said the high cost of childcare is forcing women into part time work - do we really want it to go higher?

If we think nursery workers should get paid more, then the logical assumption is that the money for this pay increase will come from their customers. Whether that's individual childminders charging more for their services, or nursery owners increasing their fees to afford these increases.

Isn't one of the complaints in this Country that childcare is already very very expensive?

Nursery managers link (oops!):

nationalcareersservice.direct.gov.uk/job-profiles/nursery-manager

@Ratrolypoly I suspect you're right. But anyway I wasn't saying no skill is involved in construction work, just that the minimum education and training required beforehand is much higher for the 'women's' job, for similar wages. And it also looks like more highly skilled and qualified construction manager work will usually have higher pay than the top bands for highly skilled and qualified nursery managers:

nationalcareersservice.direct.gov.uk/job-profiles/construction-manager

@ratrolypoly "I think they're using "skilled" as a comparator aren't they? So they're looking at the skilled trades in construction as opposed to the unskilled ones, not telling us that all construction jobs are skilled."

That's not my interpretation of the relevant sections. They were looking at what causes the pay gap:

"Finally, we find occupational segregation to account for 19% of the drivers of the GPG......We find higher percentages of men
in skilled construction and building trades and a
higher concentration of women – involving small percentages of male co-workers –in secretarial and caring occupations" p23

They repeatedly refer to "skilled construction and building", so as I said earlier, the official government GPG report doesn't see construction as an unskilled job (which it clearly isn't)

Therefore the description yesterday of unskilled construction being paid more than nursery workers was inaccurate.

So the UK Pay Gap Report published today refers to construction as "Skilled construction and building trades"...

So all the talk yesterday of construction being an unskilled trade was clearly inaccurate.

I think they're using "skilled" as a comparator aren't they? So they're looking at the skilled trades in construction as opposed to the unskilled ones, not telling us that all construction jobs are skilled.

@Picassospaintbrush

@Bowlofbabelfish That's a bit depressing about your husband getting practically 'rewarded' for being a parent vs. the response to you, but sadly I guess it's a typical reaction. So far, because I have more work flexibility (and also breastfeeding), I've done every baby-sick-day since DH went back to work full-time, despite having a heavier, also full-time, workload that doesn't disappear just because I'm not in the office (academia but not STEM)...

Of course it is, because women and children never leave the house unless its 19 degrees outside.

Forgot to post the link assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/706030/Gender_pay_gap_in_the_UK_evidence_from_the_UKHLS.pdf

So the UK Pay Gap Report published today refers to construction as "Skilled construction and building trades" and it is 98.9% male.

So all the talk yesterday of construction being an unskilled trade was clearly inaccurate.

It is correct to say that construction does not require formal qualifications or education, so there are less barriers to entry than other jobs. But this does not mean it is unskilled - clearly there is a trade and techniques that have to be learnt.

Why is construction 98.9% male? That's not all due to the social stigma of it being a mans job surely?

Could it have anything to do with the fact that construction is outside work, in all weather conditions, physically demanding and more dangerous than other jobs (which I got pilloried for trying to explain!)

moim it’s honestly one of the best threads I’ve seen on here in a long time.

I do work in STEM (and I’m on that thread under a previous name) and I agree totally. The presence of women in academic and lab roles drops sharply when they have children. It’s the demands of wifework plus a system that isn’t flexible enough.
DH and I both work in STEM fields. We are equal in the home but we’ve faced a lot of outside pressure that has needed us to press back against it. The assumption is he has a wife at home and thus is free to drop everything and work anywhere at will. He also gets adoration and mancookies for doingvthevstuff women just do - taking a sick day when the toddler is ill for example. When he does it, he’s an amazing hands on dad. When I do it, I’m shirking and should get a nanny. Depressing stuff.

Thanks a lot for that facilitated man link @Bowlofbabelfish -- very interesting and hits quite close to home for me. I earn more than DH and we shared parental leave 50/50 (me first, then him for 6 months) but since we're now both back at work full-time and DH has a longer commute, so much of the 'wifework' that we previously shared mostly equally has fallen on my shoulders. We had agreed that he would switch to part-time soon (so I guess I would be a facilitated woman), but he's a bit reluctant to do so. Meanwhile we're both exhausted, and I'm not always able to focus as I should on my work when I'm there.

This is an article I came across about women leaving STEM and with the extra hours involved in wifework in the background, it makes more sense:
www.timeshighereducation.com/news/women-stem-more-likely-burn-out

After all, talking about women preferring people and men preferring things when they're in their teens (or older) can hardly be taken as evidence of a purely biological explanation no matter how large or representative your sample size when socialisation clearly starts way before that.

Very interesting!

@bluebug45

Why don't you scroll back up and see which poster had their posts removed? hint, it wasn't me

@Picassospaintbrush fmsfms is clearly trolling.

@kokeshi123 - the poster is a troll.

The poster:

• posts the same links in every thread they post in, - makes opinions and expects others to argue them,
• states that others opinions are not facts so they won't engage,
• doesn't bother reading other people's posts even if parts back up their own opinion, and,
• claims their opinions are backed up by "scientific studies" not understanding how such data is frequently collected.

Incidentally I've not reported their posts to anyone.

@Tanith, that's an interesting observation.

But not surprising. I've watched the same thing happen in elderly care with the privatisation of it, money moves in, corporate job structures get built on top, income streams leveraged with debt piles and the result, a largely financially trashed sector, with women still paid minimum wage and lots of money sucked out by private equity.

@BlueBug45 Anecdotes really help me in pay analysis, the numbers can tell you so much but its the stories that make the most sense of the unexplained percentages. And company/organisation boards need stories to make decisions on, data has to have anecdotal narrative or its not real enough to them.

@bluebug45 "You clearly post opinions and argue about them like they are facts. There as I'm happy to state mine are opinions but you attack me for having them.”

You’re just making stuff up now. I have posted multiple links to scientific studies and supporting articles. I have tried to explain to you (again with supporting links) that anecdotal experiences are not compelling evidence.

You have also pointed out that social science studies use “small sample sizes” (your own words), and some of the studies I posted yesterday used “1.5m 15 year olds” www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160289614001688 and “The researchers used data on 475,000 teenagers across 67 countries or regions for the study” www.thejournal.ie/gender-equality-countries-stem-girls-3848156-Feb2018/

So by all means please explain to me why studies using almost 2m people should be ignored?

Why is a poster being reported to Mumsnet for a different opinion?

Isn't one of the lessons of the trans debacle that free speech shouldn't be squashed?

If you don't agree with the poster, just argue right back.

You have not bothered to address my arguments, instead you resorted to attacking me directly (ad hominem fallacy), now you're reporting my posts to MNHQ.

Hilarious

@fmsfms I don't have difficulty in grasping anything.

I find your limited comprehension skills amusing - you are either stupid or trolling - which explains why other posters refuse to engage with you.

You clearly post opinions and argue about them like they are facts. There as I'm happy to state mine are opinions but you attack me for having them.

You are blind to the fact that there is information in others' posts that could support your own arguments.

Oh and when someone claims that "scientific studies" support their ideas it clearly shows they have no idea how such "scientific studies" are done regardless of the area.