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?

@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)...

@Picassospaintbrush

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.

@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.

@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

Nursery managers link (oops!):

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

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?

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?

@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.

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?

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.

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.

The wage gap and wage discrimination are different things. Wage discrimination is one contributing cause of the wage gap.

The wage gap isnt something you can believe in or not believe in, like an afterlife, its a measured fact. The contributing causes are proven too. You can look up scientific studies about how when orchestras change to blind auditions the proportion of women hired increases dramatically, about how if you send out identical resumes some with a mans name and some with a womans name the mans name is rated as more competent and offered thousands more in salary, about how when women perform subjective tasks anonymously their work is rated at a higher standard than when their sex is known, and about how when women do enter previously male dominated fields those fields become less respected and pay less (recent examples include biology, psychology and anthopology which used to be seen as highly intellectual and now are seen as softer and touchy-feely, earlier examples include teaching). You could also look up studies showing that teachers believe girls to be worse at mathematics and science even when the opposite is measured and how girls tend to drop mathematics subjects early, and maybe draw a connection between the two?

Its not like "hmm, is there a wage gap? Does society unfairly discriminate against women on a massive scale due to their sex? Does that have a negative impact on society as a whole?" We already know the answer to all 3 is yes. The only questions left to ask are:

1. If we fixed all these causes, would there still be an innate difference in the earnings of the sexes? (Answer, maybe but thats also irrelevant and couldn't be proven until we have dealt with all the causes we can identify) and
2. If its only disadvantaging women then why ahould anyone care?

@bloodmagic

"The contributing causes are proven too"

Questionable statement. You can go deeper and ask how big a role does each cause play

"You can look up scientific studies about how when orchestras change to blind auditions the proportion of women hired increases dramatically"

Ok, but as someone that has posted multiple studies in this thread about the innate differences between men/women and suggested biological/hormonal influences - what makes these orchestra studies more credible than the easily dismissed studies I posted?

If I posted 10 studies that said carbs don't make you fat, then low carb dieters would find multiple reasons why those studies aren't valid (sample size) and then respond with 10 studies that say low carb is the best diet - there's an element of going round in circles here and ideological resistance

"You could also look up studies showing that teachers believe girls to be worse at mathematics and science even when the opposite is measured and how girls tend to drop mathematics subjects early, and maybe draw a connection between the two? "

I already posted two studies that used 2m students and demonstrated that boys and girls perform at an equal level in STEM, but girls a) do better in other subjects than they do in STEM and b) are more interested in other subjects.

If my son can hold his own in school rugby but is a better football player than he is a rugby player then it makes sense that he will be more interested in football and choose it over rugby

Here is one study into the impact of blind auditions:

gap.hks.harvard.edu/orchestrating-impartiality-impact-%E2%80%9Cblind%E2%80%9D-auditions-female-musicians

Can you say what it is about this study that you find to be not credible, and easily dismissed? Was the rise in female orchestra members actually caused by another factor, or did the rise in female orchestra members not happen? Or something else?

I don't know if you read the whole article that you linked to @fmsfms :

http://www.thejournal.ie/gender-equality-countries-stem-girls-3848156-Feb2018/

There were no definitive conclusions drawn about why girls drop out of STEM. The reason you mentioned is put forward as a "might be" the cause of drop out. And, as the article goes on to explain, this would only account for some of the STEM dropouts. A large number of girls who have the necessary ability and for whom it is their best subject drop out.

There is a disconnect here, on the one hand we want women to have all these “choices” and to have to deal with absolutely none of the negative costs of those choices. People talk as if children do not and should not cost anything. Well newsflash they do and someone has to pay for it.

Yes it might cost you more to work but it’s not your job that’s costing you money is the decision to have a child. However if you DO chose to work then that’s years put into a career that will pay dividends down the road with higher earning potential.

It’s a human right to have children, but it is not a human right to have that decision subsidised by everyone else. In addition the carbon footprint of each new human life is colossal, especially those born in the West as our consumption is magnitudes greater. Maybe not this or even the next generation but we’re going to have to have the difficult conversation around human overpopulation.

Personally I don’t think nursery workers or childminders are paid anywhere near enough considering how important early years care is for developing infants and toddlers. It’s prime developmental time for a whole host of things like development of social skills, behavioural management and emotional development. There are some good settings out there and some not so good ones, but this racec to the bottom to provide the lowest cost childcare will bite us in the ass culturally down the road.

I say this as a single stay at home dad I took the time off to provide one to one care to my dc, but I had resources accrued for this purpose, so I haven’t had to rely on the state to meet my own obligations, I had a child I just went on fewer international holidays, and lived a less extravagant lifestyle in my 20s. Yes my overall lifetime earnings will be a bit less, but I personally always wanted a child and wanted to be more involved than my own father was. He fucked off when I was little.

As to my own child I will raise them to be independent, work out what they aspire to in life and factor that into their lifestyle and career goals accordingly and not to just rely on voting on the transfer of wealth from one group to another. Resources are finite, but the human desire to consume them are potentially infinite. This attitude that we’re all entitled to everything is dangerous, as I’d we all took that view the whole system collapsed. Now I’m all for a social safety net, but there has to be limits somewhere.

@Assassinatedbeauty "Can you say what it is about this study that you find to be not credible, and easily dismissed?"

I don't recall saying anything about that study or any study in particular.

A previous poster said something to the effect of "social science studies use small sample sizes eg 12 people" and I replied something to the effect of "no wonder they have no credibility"

I pointed out how people on any side of any debate are quick to dismiss studies which oppose their perspective to illustrate how ideologically entrenched people are, this wasn't in reference to anything in particular

@Assassinatedbeauty "The reason you mentioned is put forward as a "might be" the cause of drop out. And, as the article goes on to explain, this would only account for some of the STEM dropouts. A large number of girls who have the necessary ability and for whom it is their best subject drop out."

I put forward two reasons:

a) better in other subjects
b) more interested in other subjects.

"We are inclined to choose what we are best at and also enjoy. This makes sense and matches common school advice."

"So, even though girls can match boys in terms of how well they do at science and mathematics in school, if those aren’t their best subjects and they are less interested in them, then they’re less likely to choose to study something else."

The key part here is interested - which brings us back to topics previously discussed in great detail

As revealed with the case of the proposed study into trans people who choose to detransition. The halls of academia are rife with political bias and if you were to propose a study that challenges the leftist progressive narrative they will shut your shit down.

Interestingly the IoP president was quoted in this recent BBC article as saying that:

"There is no evidence to suggest any intrinsic differences in ability or interest to explain why girls and boys choose technical subjects differently,"

Presumably they are mistaken about the intrinsic differences in interest? Perhaps because they are a physicist and not an evolutionary psychologist.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-44141840

I mentioned earlier 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.

And so we start to examine and explain the unexplained, and deal with it. I met the person in charge of doing just his for Easyjet last week, (you may remember the media circus around the pilots v cabin staff gap), among a couple of hundred other Reward professionals at a conference. As a group we work together cross sector on solutions and a great deal of knowledge sharing is going on now as boards are finally needed answers.

Let's wait for fmsfms to put me right though eh!

Are you able to say what kinds of approaches are consider across all sectors? Do you have any data on what are more successful approaches than others?

I was wondering whether business looks to the education system as part of the solution, and what initiatives could be supported by businesses there.

I don’t think men and women are different enough to explain the discrepancies. Does anyone remember a report from last year (or possibly early this year?) which outline the sense of self worth in girls relative to boys starts as young as 6? I don’t think we’re going to be making any meaningful headway until we identify why that was and how to correct it.

@Picassospaintbrush I'm also interested in any approaches you can share with us that companies are now trying to implement, as well as the education angle.