Gender pay gap

[FlyTipper]

The world divides into two: those who believe a gender pay gap exists, and those who don't.

Those who don't say women are doing different jobs. They are working part-time, prioritising home/family, do not want the high level responsibility and work load associated with high profile jobs. Thus women choose lower paid jobs because they prefer the conditions.

Those who believe it exists say two people presenting the same show or headlining the same film should be paid the same but clearly are not.

My position: women do different work and this largely explains the observed pay gap. But where the world is set up for men to succeed, women have to pick up the 'crumbs' they can. SO the pay gap doesn't truly exist, but that isn't because of women's choice.

As befits my character, I like to have my views tested. DO you agree?

"This is what I do for a living"

Appeal to authority fallacy to go with your previous ad hominems

@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.

"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 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.

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.

@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

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.

" 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

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.

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.

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

So we agree then, it's supply and demand - which means the market sets the rates. If there's not enough supply of workers then they need to increase demand, which they do by paying more. If supply gets too high then they obviously can get away with reducing wages.

Which is how we arrived at the current market rates of nursery and construction workers.

And of course danger level, environment and working conditions have plenty to do with pay –

If you’re a cleaner and the company you work for has contracts with a mens prison and a school, then clearly most people are going to prefer to work in the school. Thus the company might have to offer a prison uplift to get people to do the same job in a less hospitable environment.

Same for people working nights – they get paid more than people doing the same job during the day.

What if your employer asks you to go Saudi Arabia to live on a compound?

What if you do 6 weeks on 6 weeks off on an oil rig?

So we agree then

No I don’t think we do. Does mansplaining on a professional level pay more or less than dive bombing for chips? The seagulls in Aberdeen are particularly persistent I find. They just keep on going

@fmsfms not all construction jobs are low paid and as physically demanding as working in a nursery.

I can specifically think of two such roles where I know men and women that do both. The men actually have children and find looking after their children much harder than doing their paid work.

Also you seem unaware that there is lots of illegal off the books manual work in construction, as well as plenty of self-employment. This is paid lower than the minimum wage.

Nurseries can't get away with it due to being more tightly regulated.

So stating that nursery workers are paid less than construction workers because it's a less physically dangerous and physically active job isn't true as. companies pay as little as they can get away with.

"I can specifically think of two such roles where I know men and women that do both. The men actually have children and find looking after their children much harder than doing their paid work."

Anecdotal

"Also you seem unaware that there is lots of illegal off the books manual work in construction, as well as plenty of self-employment. This is paid lower than the minimum wage."

I wasn't the one that brought up construction pay vs nursery pay.

What @Bowlofbabelfish said about Sweden - very interesting!

fms, if you were to bother clicking the two links in my first post, you'd see what training and qualifications are required for each job and perhaps better understand what I was trying to say. If you wanted to.

Has he gone? Honestly I don't really get what he thinks he is doing, he just ruins the conversation.

That's rich considering all you've done is attack me and assume my gender

Why haven't you taken me up on my £100 offer to quote me saying "there is no pay gap" yet

Probably because I never said that

@Picassospaintbrush Probably posting at work.

@fmsfms you were the one arguing the point that construction work is paid more because it involves working out doors in dangerous environments and more physically strenuous compared to nursery work.

I was making the point that is not necessarily true as it depends on the actual role whether it is more strenuous or not plus how regulated the industry is on what the company can get away with paying. Others have made the point that skilled qualified jobs tend to be paid higher but those where women dominate a particularly industrial sector are paid less than those where men dominate.

In regards to people like project managers, quantity surveyors and structural engineers - who work in the construction industry - finding looking after children harder than their paid job it is their opinion based on their experience. I'm female and work in a male dominated role, and in my opinion based on my experience I find my paid work much easier than looking after a group of children.

fmsfms
We have no idea what your gender identity is. What we see is your behavior.

Damn, started reading the thread, thought "this is really interesting, I hope one of the JP Bots doesn't arrive and take over the whole thread with his nonsense", read a few more posts, and then... Yep.

Waddabore.

@bluebug45

"I was making the point that is not necessarily true as it depends on the actual role"

I wasn't the one that brought up construction paying more than nursery work, but yes I did speculate why that might be the case

If you're saying that it isn't always true that construction pays more than that disproves the original poster to bring up this comparison

@SonicVersusGynaephobia

Congrats on making it to the list of people that can't debate my points or the multiple studies I've posted, and can only resort to ad hominem attacks