The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

What Accounts for the ‘Gender Gap’ in Pay? Statistics Prove: It’s Lazy Women

Posted on | August 30, 2011 | 16 Comments

OK, the statistics don’t actually prove the assertion in the headline — although it sure got your attention, didn’t it, ladies? — and neither do statistics “prove” the common feminist claim that discrimination explains the so-called “gender gap.” But if we examine the number of hours worked per week, two highly relevant statistics emerge:

  1. Men are more likely to hold full-time jobs — According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), about 60 million men were employed full-time in 2007, compared to about 42 million women. Men were thus 42% more likely than women to be working full-time.
  2. Men work more hours — “Full-time” is defined as working 35 hours per week or more. The BLS reports that among the 21.8 million people working more than 40 hours per week, 15.3 million are men (70%) and 6.5 million are women (30%).

So the feminist assertion that women are paid 75 cents on the dollar (or 87 cents or whatever other number is used) compared to men is an absurdity, based on invalid apples-to-oranges comparisons that don’t take account of average differences in the actual working experiences of men and women.

Kay Hymowitz explains this in an article at City Journal called, “Why the Gender Gap Won’t Go Away. Ever.” Hymowitz makes the point that many women choose what has been called “the Mommy Track” in occupational specialties, so that feminist ax-grinders who constantly grumble about the “gender gap” are, in fact, arguing against women’s own choices.

One final point: Being a mother is hard work in its own right. For several years, my wife stayed home with our six children. She would sometimes encounter people — usually other women — who, when they learned of her “just a mom” status would say, “Oh, you don’t work? That must be nice.” As if being the mother of six children wasn’t harder work than is done by most full-time employed people (including her husband).

To understand feminism as a war against stay-at-home motherhood, read Carolyn Graglia’s excellent book, Domestic Tranquility. Being “just a mom” is a choice that feminists don’t want women to have.

P.S.: When I include Amazon Associates book links at the end of an item like this, it is not merely because I get a 4% commission on sales, although I make no apologies for being a shameless capitalist blogger. But I include the links because as Ronald Reagan said, it’s not that our liberal friends are ignorant, rather that they know so many things that aren’t true. I want to provide liberals an opportunity to discover how many “facts” they have been indoctrinated to believe are actually lies, and I also want conservatives to acquaint themselves with facts and logic that debunk common liberal misconceptions.

Category: Economics, Feminism

Comments

16 Responses to “What Accounts for the ‘Gender Gap’ in Pay? Statistics Prove: It’s Lazy Women”

  1. nottd
    August 30th, 2011 @ 6:14 pm

    Actually, Reagan had that quote used against him in a debate with that rapier wit Walter Mondale.   Will Rogers is the source for the line.

  2. Chuck Coffer
    August 30th, 2011 @ 6:31 pm

    What it actually proves is that women are racists.

  3. Adjoran
    August 30th, 2011 @ 7:18 pm

    Rogers stole the line also, from homespun humorist Josh Billings.  The original version:  “Better to know maybe not so much, than to know so much that just ain’t so.”

  4. Adjoran
    August 30th, 2011 @ 7:23 pm

    The sordid truth of the matter is that if you filter out the women who leave the workforce to bear children (even if they come back later, their career track is usually gone) AND the extremely high compensation of the top executives, who are most often male, women actually earn a bit more than men with similar jobs, experience, and education.

    Also, the old feminist war cries about little girls being discriminated against hasn’t been true in some thirty years at least, and now it is little boys who are ill served by the public education system.

  5. Anonymous
    August 30th, 2011 @ 7:46 pm

    Stacy, are you trying to piss of Attila again?

  6. David Rogers
    August 30th, 2011 @ 7:50 pm

    Carolyn Graglia is a genius.  And she’s damn nice, too.  Her husband is one of the most widely-admired law professors between the Mississippi and the Rockies, and *she’s* the smart one in the family.

    And their girls are all wonderful.

    I didn’t marry my wife until after she read Carolyn’s book and expressed admiration for her work.  Women like that don’t come around twice . . .

  7. Aggie Sprite
    August 30th, 2011 @ 8:08 pm

    Let’s not forget the perks that come with being female in the workforce, like maternity leave.

    I have yet to hear a feminist answer why it is wrong to be a stay-at-home mom. Not ONE I have asked has ever offered a reason.

  8. Feminism, Take 2 (or 1,587) at Haemet
    August 30th, 2011 @ 4:21 pm

    […] Stacy McCain points out that the comparison of men’s salaries to women’s salaries needs ….  Now, as a scientist, I’m the first to say that ‘social science’ isn’t a science, because it frequently fails to engage in basic scientific requirements (like, oh, controlling for variables).  You simply cannot compare the salary of an engineer to that of someone with a degree in sociology and conclude that the sociologist is underpaid.  You cannot compare the private sector with non-profits and the public sector.  Et cetera. […]

  9. Zilla of the Resistance
    August 30th, 2011 @ 8:32 pm

    It’s been my experience when I was still in the workforce that most men did indeed work harder than most women (not ME of course). They also called in sick less and showed up on time more. Also, female bosses tend to be pretty miserable to work for compared to male bosses. Again, just my own personal experience. If the guys are getting better pay, perhaps it is because they EARNED it.

  10. Jeff S.
    August 30th, 2011 @ 9:03 pm

    Thomas Sowell also dealt with this issue in his “Economic Facts and  Fallacies”, with the same conclusion. One of his final observations was: you can compare male/female salaries only if you look at individuals who have no kids and have never married.

  11. Against Radical Egalitarianism : The Other McCain
    August 30th, 2011 @ 5:34 pm

    […] var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true,"ui_language":"en"};A friend responded to my earlier post about the so-called “gender gap” with an e-mail pointing out several other statistical problems in that feminist argument. Replying […]

  12. Anonymous
    August 30th, 2011 @ 9:37 pm

    Shhhhhhh.

    She’s supposed to think it’ s an accident.

  13. CalMark
    August 31st, 2011 @ 1:04 am

    Thanks for speaking truths which a man would be pilloried even for thinking.

    An observation:  the most aggressive “I am a woman” types complain about everything:  husbands, work,  co-workers, perceived discrimination/lack of opportunity, and most of all, CONSTANTLY–this kills me–the cost of day care, as though they were being robbed at gunpoint.  In the midst of all this enlightened feminist chatter, they sometimes get a little work done, for which they are handsomely praised and rewarded.

    On the other hand, women who do their jobs and blend into the work force without loud-mouth feminism tend to be more productive, and–unless there are raging chauvinists around (a vanishing breed)–better liked…and get trampled by feminists at every opportunity.

  14. What Accounts for the ‘Gender Gap’ in Pay? Statistics Prove: It’s Lazy Women : The Other McCain - The NeoSexist
    August 30th, 2011 @ 9:18 pm

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  15. Same Pay For Same Work…Not So Much Say Feminists « That Mr. G Guy's Blog
    August 30th, 2011 @ 9:30 pm

    […] What Accounts for the ‘Gender Gap’ in Pay? Statistics Prove: It’s Lazy Women. […]

  16. Anonymous
    August 31st, 2011 @ 7:45 am

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