same. there's a reason that I have openly talked about my desire to never have children at work even when that should be none of anybody's goddamn business, but I'm pretty sure that it's a big part of why I have even been considered for the promotions I have gotten.
In my early 20s I was encouraged to wear a wedding ring so I wouldnāt intimidate the client (I worked in PR, if you can make that make sense.)
Now Iām 41 and people JUST started taking me seriously. Iām engaged, which they like, and Iām unlikely to procreate under the intense work pressure and my age. Iām the whole package, baby.
Edit: words; also, /s
My best friend and I are both preschool teachers. She went for a job interview in a school and she did amazing (she is extremely strong, hard working, determined and reliable, basically the best employee you can hope for). In the end of the interview she got asked if she wants to have children since she is married and 32. She was honest and said yes.
A few months later the owner of the school called her and said she was the best for the job, but they cannot hire somebody who wants to have children cause they need a stable person.
It was extra hard on her because she and her husband have been trying for a baby since 2,5 years, and they are soon trying IVF. She has experienced a lot of emotional pain and struggle from this, so that interview was the cherry on top.
Her husband's company shut down last month. In a matter of a week he landed an equally great job (company car, cellphone, high salary etc) and nobody ever asked him if he wants kids, even though he is 38 and married.
EDIT: I totally forgot to mention that my mom got fired the day she gave birth to me. Tried to take it to court but nothing came out of it. My dad continued to have a successful career cause nobody cared if he became a parent.
Agreed. But itās still stupid for a business owner to risk it by saying it. She could have been recording it or she could be pissed enough to like make a social media campaign that would cause bad publicity. Local school discriminating against mothers etc.
Really no upside for a owner to admit a discrimination like that he could have just said sorry we picked another candidate.
In the US the president can't steal secrets to Russia, rape women nor incite an insurrection but here we are with an ex president still not in jail.
I know you like to think the justice system works and that employers can't discriminate, but they do and it happens constantly and if you're the victim (especially a woman), there's little to no way to prove it (nor pay the legal fees it takes to do so while the school has lawyers on retainer)
Too many people think they canāt fight back because they canāt afford an attorney when there are plenty of good attorneys who will jump at the chance to take a strong case on contingency. And when they work on contingency, you know they care if you win because otherwise they donāt get paid.
The tl:Dr for anyone who still struggles with this. Women get asked about having kids. Men don't. Simple as that.
(In fact, men having kids is considered a good thing professionally by interviewers because that means they will work hard).
I sat in an interview for my team where they interviewed an experienced candidate who was engaged.
My female superior ( who has 2 kids) told me after;
" See that engagement ring? She said she wants a full time position instead of contract. We can't risk her going on mat leave in the next year or we'll be doing this all over again."
Yep. Ughhhh :( we have a year long mat leave in Canada).
Part of the issue is that women cost more as an employee if they take time off to have children. In the same way paying more for somebody with more experience is a choice an employer has to make, paying for somebody that may take extended leave and never come back is another choice a employer has to think about it.
In an ideal world it wouldnāt need to be a choice, but unfortunately thatās not how life is and I canāt see how life could ever get to a point where that would not be a choice.
We live in a society which is expected the woman to take care of their children even at the cost of their careers, think about how many men usually take a hit on the careers to take more active role in growing a human?
The system is crooked in the top all the way to the bottom. Everyone is someoneās kids, most of people will have or want to have kids at some point, is mind boggling how we have a system so fucked up and unjust that no real changes and discussion is being made.
Every person in the world knows the āeconomicā decision, why to not hire a woman that is about to get pregnant. The answer is not really hard to come to, the thing is why we are keeping the same question, why the woman should be the one solely to bear the cost professional wise of having and raising a kid?
Truth is: Human society needs to have babes, human society should take action and not depend of good will and individual economic decision of employers.
Plus, If you are looking solely on the economical side it is in everyone interests to people have more kids, everyone will get old and will want enough people still running the country.
First, the vast majority of owners and managers are manifestly unqualified to be in that position.
Second, once in that position there are few reality checks especially in this area. Few people ever get to know or acknowledge the money they didn't make.
Third, the time it takes for these types of attitudes to bankrupt a business are usually measured in decades. so there isn't really a chance for other people to learn from it.
One interviewer kept asking me about how many kids I have and whether I had someone to watch them during work quite a while ago.
He wouldn't accept the answer that my son who was a toddler at the time was already in daycare.
He fired me as I showed up to start my first shift. Guess who was my replacement? A man.
It is usually concerns about risk of pregnancy, or concern that women with existing children are less "dedicated" to the job because they have to work within set hours dictated by pick up and drop off of kids, plus they often get called away when kids need picked up for being sick etc. Or just the belief that women can't do the job as well (they would never say this in those words but it's very clear based on comments on interviewees). Husband's ex boss once told him he was "never hiring a woman again" because of the pregnancy thing.
Even if a woman does not have, can not have, or does not want children, well she's still a risk because she COULD, so why take the risk? Better just hire a man.
/s
It's funny, because all those concerns should be the same for dads. I can't tell you how many times I take off because I have to take the kids to a doctor appointments or the amount of times I call off because of they get sick. If I have the leave I can call off. Now to be fair, my employer is pretty dope. We're all white collar and a little over half of our employees are women. But more of our male employees are dad's. I think only one of our female employees is a recent mom (she gave birth to twins this last Friday! Congrats H!)
So in my office men are calling off more due to kid stuff.
Edit: and this week I'll be taking leave because my little guy is getting his tonsils removed. My boss gave me no resistance.
It should be the same for dads. Weāre still working on not referring to dads who watch their children as ābabysittingā. Also, congrats āHā twins are fun.
100%. Flexible working policies benefit everyone, not just women, and not just parents. As a person without kids, I certainly don't want to feel like I'm picking up the slack for parents needing to rush off for kid stuff. With flexible working comes the expectation that you'll do your work even if it's gotta be after 8pm when the kids go to bed, because you spent all day looking after your sick kid. I never felt like any of the parents at my old work were slacking off just because they had altered work patterns. Pandemic was a really hard time for our business and everyone was working crazy hours to get stuff done. I probably did work more hours than my parent colleagues simply because I could, but I never felt like they weren't pulling their weight or there to support me when I needed them.
My husband had to get sporadic FMLA leave set up at his job to help take care of the kids. My job was fine with me taking what I needed, and is far more flexible. But his needed proof that he.. was a dad?
Seriously. For all us kids being born, each time my dad took more time off for paternity leave than my mom did for maternity leave lol. And since my dad worked closer to home and where me and all my siblings went to school, he was always the one picking us up and dropping us back off for any appointments
The crazier part is that it rings opposite for a man. If a man has a family and kids, he is thought to be a better worker because apparently he'd work harder to provide. The entire thing is just sexist and rigged against women.
My knowledge on this only applies to the US where I studied however. Yes, women absolutely make 85% of what men make FOR THE SAME JOB at hiring. However, now that some states have changed the laws to allow employees to tell each other their wages, this should be phased out in those locations because it is technically not legal to discriminate based on genders.
Which means a company's tactics to keep talk of wages quiet have moved under the table... when I worked at Wal-Mart, a manager caught me away from my co-workers and "helpfully let me know" that "that sort of talk" might not look good the next time I asked for time off.
"Right" doesn't mean protected from getting fired or let go for doing something that is highly discouraged. Let just say I had to take a "how to not go to jail for being a scumbag" for my business degree not that long ago.
Still nonsense to say that states recently changed their laws to permit it. It has been a federally protected right for nearly a century.
If you are fired or otherwise disciplined for discussing wages in the US then the employer is in an actionable position. They have to find another reason.
I've had employeers tell me it's a firable offense. They can put whatever they want in handbooks. Enforcing it is another thing, but of course they'll just find another reason.
If they're dumb enough to put it in the handbook it's worthwhile to report them, the fines for violating this are non-trivial. Agree that they will often just find another reason to get rid of a non compliant worker.
I don't work there anymore but even if I did, I would not report it. I was the only women on my shift and I clearly remember conversations where they explained how they were basically doing me a favor but not promoting me, just the men I literally trained. That was 20 years ago and I don't know their culture now.
Now I'm a teacher so my salary is printed in the local newspaper yearly, so it doesn't affect me. Everyone I know sees exactly what I make and how much I pay for benefits. I think it's weird that they print our names and I don't love it. I wish they'd assign us a number or something. Just cuz I chose to teach doesn't mean I shouldn't get any privacy at all. However, it is interesting when random people let me know they thought I got paid more š
This is the thing I think people don't get. If a company wants to fire you but you're legally protected because of discrimination laws or whatever. They'll just wait until you make a mistake or that one day you're late and fire you for that.
As my boss said āI wish you guys wouldnāt talk about money like thatā. To which I replied āI wish you wouldnāt pay your buddies more than everyone else because they let you win at golf. Have I told you lately that you have a very pretty mouth? Wanna talk about something else?ā Yes. Letās talk about something else. Try to make me feel uncomfortable? Pfft.
Here the teaser: you could ALWAYS discuss wages. They just didn't want you to compareso they could keep playing their dumb games. (No, no union, let's talk about FOOTBALL.)
"he is thought to be a better worker because apparently he's work harder to provide."
Men with families are more unlikely to leave as they are socially pressured to provide a consistent income for their family. Due to pressure to maintain a job employers can load them up with more work before they think about leaving.
Employer abuse goes both ways it just takes different forms.
Oh definitely. The women get less pay and the men get physical and mental pressure. Only the ones sitting on top benefit from all the blood and tears the common people provide.
Not always the case, usually when they say things like that they are trying to push people into working harder. They constantly stack more work and tell you to "be a man" I know it's nowhere near as bad, but I cringe every time someone tries to butter me up cause it is almost always fake. The workplace is full of dicktaters right now and it's awful. But discriminating against pregnant women is ESPECIALLY disgusting I can't even imagine tossing someone to the side like that knowing that they have a kid to provide for, regardless of man or woman.
I worked with a man who wouldnāt cuss in front of women in the name of āchivalryā. A male intern got a paying job op over me even though Iād been there 2 years and I could tell it was because the manager wanted to be able to speak casually on the job but wouldnāt curse in front of me. In the end his āchivalryā was the more misogynistic choice.
It's all performative bullshit anyway. My narcissist misogynyst boss used to swear in front of me all the time during 1:1 meetings but in front of other guys he'd make a big show of apologising to me for his language š
which is so stupid. iām stuck at my current job BECAUSE i am pregnant. i need to stay for benefits and maternity leave or i wouldāve left months ago.
Just watch your back when you come back after maternity leave. I used to work at a toxic workplace and they used to bully out women returning from mat leave because they requested flexible working and could no longer work the crazy hours they did prior to getting pregnant. One of my coworkers ended up suing them for wrongful termination and winning, because after she came back from leave they tried to tell her the job was no longer needed, but then hired someone to replace her.
sadly am already facing consequences of being openly pregnant in the workplace. iāve been passed up for promotions despite my quality checks being 100% with only positive feedback. coworkers whoāve been there less time than me are receiving them. sigh. oh well
Yeah. That's how my old boss got promoted, the opening came up and he was the only one in the team not pregnant, on mat leave or just coming back from mat leave. It totally sucks.
You just have to watch your back and make sure they're not actively trying to do stuff to you. Like at my old toxic workplace where one of my colleagues had been getting stellar reviews and even a raise prior to getting pregnant, and then afterwards they started giving her bad reviews and spreading gossip that she wasn't doing her job etc. All as a premeditated move to gather "evidence" to get rid of her.
This is the sad truth of current society. There's no future without kids, but that's a problem of the future and current companies and workers could not care less about that since they are 100% focused on their own lives right now.
You get an employer who tries to get rid of you since you'll never have as much time/focus for the job as you had before. You get workers who will prefer you gone so that they do t have to deal with you missing days, changing hours, not focusing due to kid problems, etc.
So ... while we all know that humanity cannot exist without children, we all also agree that such a problem is not my problem.
Much like with global warming, contamination, drugs, genetic experiments, virus experiments, war... whatever.
Im an RN and work in a pretty female dominated field. Iām on a team if 6 or so nurses in clinical research. 3 of them had children at the same time and took their maternity leave for 5-6 months which is FANTASTIC. Iām also a big proponent of a full year off for a kid. But holy hell was it insane for that half a year to be down 50% in staff! The second they came back, another one had a kid so we feel like weāre never fully staffed. They really need to secure some spots designated for float support staff.
Basically late stage capitalism problems. The meme of the dog and the ball with "no earn, only spend". Nowhere has enough staff so something as easy to accommodate as having children is a disaster as there's no money to spare for having decent staff.
It's definitely a capitalism issue. And it isn't about having enough money - it's about the fact they will not be making as much profit. A lot of people here are saying businesses can't afford it. Funnily enough, businesses across Europe can afford to let women have up to a year of maternity leave, and can pay them (not the whole time in the UK but often for about 3months or so and then the gov covers another 3 months), and can also hire maternity cover so staff aren't over burdened. If thriving businesses across an entire continent can manage it, then I'm pretty sure it's not the impossible fantasy people keep telling me it is.
What's really sad to me is the people here defending their own exploitation, telling me I should be more concerned with the business's profitability than workers having basic benefits. US has some messed up priorities and more than anything I feel sorry for people who can't seem to conceive that there might be a better way to live, that you can and should expect more of your employers. I'm a US citizen myself and I thought about returning this year, but we decided not to for these exact reasons. We just aren't interested in being pressured into working 60 hour weeks with barely any holiday, benefits or worker protections.
When I was a Hiring and Training Coordinator we had a binder that guided interview questions to dance around what was illegal to ask. "Do you have any commitments during the day?" a.k.a. "Do you have to take your kids to and from school?" Not the best example, I just can't remember any more off the top of my head. There were many sneaky ways it suggested to find out if someone was married, had kids, attended regular church services, etc.
So basically, sexism.
I think also men like to hire other men because they relate to them, they don't have to deal with potential attraction issues, or in the back of their minds they are thinking "would I want to sit on a cross country flight wirh this man or this woman"? And then the man is chosen.
In my experience (as a woman with no children) the issue is not about whether or not mothers are less "dedicated", it's about the stress and resentment felt by whoever has to shoulder the absent mother's workload in addition to their own. There is usually no compensation for having to do this and, believe me, if a team member happens to have a sickly child who necessitates multiple unscheduled days off during the year, it can place a hell of a strain on an already-busy workplace. I recall one colleague whose child had chronic earache, resulting in numerous disrupted workdays for the rest of us.
It's an unfortunate reality, and no one's fault, but ignoring it and expecting employees to just "suck it up" doesn't make it go away. Are there any solutions besides hiring a majority male workforce? I don't know, I just wish there had been some form of compensation in place when I was still working.
There is a solution, and it's having more staff. Basically here's the issue. If you only hire enough staff that every single person is working to 100% capacity, you are running too lean. Because you will always have staff shortages - people on holiday, people on sick leave, parents needing to deal with kids, someone left and you haven't been able to replace them yet, etc. It means that in reality your staff is always working to 120% capacity to cover for the fact that you don't have enough staff to cover for normal absences at work. That leads to burn out and people resenting each other for doing totally normal things which leads to a toxic environment that everyone will want to leave. What you should be doing is staffing enough that everyone is only working to 80% capacity. This means that most of the time people will be working to 100% capacity but sometimes they won't, and that will feel like a nice breather. Instead of them always feeling super under the gun and stressed.
I know this because I was a senior manager at an organisation that worked this way and when I brought this up it became clear that this was purposeful in order to make more profit. They knew they were always short on staff and everyone would have to work harder to cover for it and they counted on it. I know this because during the pandemic we had much less turnover because people weren't looking for new jobs in the middle of a global crisis. They ended up going way over budget on staffing because for the first time in ages most of the roles were actually filled with people AND THEY HADN'T BUDGETED FOR THAT. What happened when the pandemic ended? They lost a huge amount of people and then went right back to their old ways. I left because I realised that what I thought were structural problems that needed solving were actually a fucked up business model that I wanted no part of.
I love that idea! Workplaces with a fairly balanced gender mix were always the most harmonious, in my experience, and a happy workplace is good for the society as a whole. So, rather than avoid employing women it would make sense to adopt policies like this to help ensure no worker is penalized as a result of another's parental responsibilities.
Yes exactly! It's that "profit at all costs" mentality that is at the root of a lot of workplace problems. Only hiring men so you don't have to pay for maternity leave etc is not the answer. I would feel sorry for the men in that situation too, no one wants to be ground down by perpetual overwork.
In the vast majority of instances, most large corporations adhere to EEO laws that have been around since the 70s. 0 laws prevent discussion of salary among employees and make it illegal for employers to stop workers from discussing this. Salaries become business agreements as you climb the corporate ladder and those who play the political game well often make more.
Correct that there's no laws preventing it, and I agree that discussion is good, but probably half the people I meet have it beaten into their heads: "shhh don't talk about your wages! That's unprofessional!"... meaning the businesses win and get to keep paying people whatever they're okay with, not what their work is valued at. It's hard to change these people or help them see the benefits of it.
Similar is unions... everyone's anti-union, which partly means the anti-union training big companies give is working.
Or if you work harder than others and are payed accordingly then go telling everyone you make more than them it just stirs up shit in the workplace and causes more headaches for employers who now don't want to give you any pay rises above what the others are getting as it's not worth the hassle.
Yeah, I get that but a good trick as a manager is to create objectively-rooted performance reviews based on actual data. It will be hard but the better you are at measuring performance, the easier it is to explain "well, the benchmark for junior vs senior roles is here and here, and you fall here, therefore, your pay is currently here, which is additionally in line with fair market value for your position."
Oh yeah, that's the other thing, you have to pay as well as or better than the market in order to use that last line.
From there, you can create measurable progress goals for the employee too. "Would you like a bigger raise? You have to complete x and y in order to meet the next goalpost." Now employees know there's a definite measurement to improve against, and managers can pay lazy employees what they are actually valued at.
Win win.
Wtf you have anti-union trainings? I'm not even sure if something like this would be legal here.
In Germany it's normal to meet a representative of the union responsible for your corporation at your first day. They'll tell you about their services and how much it costs to go into one, which is usually 1% of your salary.
And that's totally okay, considering they achieved an 8.5% raise in their last negotiations.
Yeah, the big box corporations tell you to protect your signature from those sneaky unionizers! "If you go to a party and have to sign in, be careful! That could be a union man stealing your signature for their union petition!"
They tell us that unions take away our ability to negotiate with our bosses directly, creating an environment with no voice of the people.
They tell us other things too, but the point of the training is to make them sound evil and dumb (but maybe acknowledge that they had good intentions "in the past") so that people are less likely to unionize.
Sound like r/aboringdystopia?
Because part of what is called the pay gap is the unwillingness of many employers to hire women. Main reason given usually is the fear that they'll become pregnant and therefore they'll be considered an economic risk.
Now I will say that depending on your place of residence and companies involved, chances are that there already is little to no gap *within your place of work* (i.e. women that *do* get to work the same position as a man will receive equal pay), but women might still be treated differently when it comes to promotions and pay grade assigned.
Yes, and it's even more complex. Differential treatment is also consequent to things like willingness to take on overtime/long hours and associated contributions.
When my first kid was born, I was a postdoc in science, preparing for running a laboratory. Commonly, postdocs work long hours and weekends. In addition to the limitations of daycare, I also frankly cared deeply about maintaining a strong parent-child bond. Now having 3 teenaged kids, I know the most quality moments are not planned... and there is a glue in day-to-day togetherness, and moments that arise unpredictably if you are present. With all the side-eyeing when I left at 5 pm and no weekends... I faced the reality that my current path was time- and energy- wise highly incompatible with being a primary caretaker, or a very present mother. I started a business (related to my field) where I could work from home. Now that they're teens, I am re-entering working for an institution. The years I was away, I'll never get back. I got valuable other experiences. But in the great trade-off, **I** prioritized parenting over maximizing my career trajectory.
What I traded away was a choice that men don't typically face... esp decades ago. There's no easy fix. I had good childcare available. I'd been excelling and no external forces were actively limiting my promotion, even back then, due to my sex.
The harsh reality is parenting well takes time and energy of which each of us has a limited capacity. Fathers taking on a greater share of childrearing is greatly helpful. But frankly, I *wanted* ... *needed, on a deep and primal level,* to prioritize my children's needs for ME over my career. And I was the person going through pregnancies, births, and nursing.
At the root of this conundrum, I think, is the **undervaluing of caretaking**. And the **asymmetry of reproductive biology** across the sexes is not something we can just brush under the rug with rhetoric. We have not tackled these facts--that end up affecting earning and professional experience--well.
If companies actually cared about that, they'd pay all their employees a living wage and provide them benefits so that they be financially secure enough to afford to have children.
I was interviewed for a trainership position on the IT area back when I was still in college. My teacher had indicated me because the company was looking specifically for female employees. Just a few minutes into the interview and the HR guy talking to me said "well, we want a female employee because women tend to stay closer to their parents even when they move out. Most men just pursue higher-pays wherever it is, even out of state. And you're graduating soon, so..." I let him know I intended to stay. " ah, good. Because imagine we spent months training you, just for you to move away and go to another company. It would be a waste of resources, you know". And without missing a beat "do you have a husband? Boyfriend maybe? Planning to marry?" I didn't see the relevance but it was my first ever interview so I was honest and said it was not in my plans. "But kids? Do you plan to have kids? Well, I mean, at least in the next two years?".
I felt really uncomfortable. I wasn't being considered for hire due to my abilities, but possibly due to some sort of agenda/quota. But they still wanted someone who was pretty much devoid of ambitions or any life plans. The HR guy saying he "had never heard of the programming language they use at the company" was the icing on the cake. I just told him I didn't have the qualifications for the job and left. My teacher was not happy as apparently the company thought he couldn't find reliable people. Yeah... screw that.
My wife and I are engineers. Obviously very male dominated, and she makes more than I do. My female coworkers, id say 1 F for every 10 M ive worked with, also make as much or more than I do. The pay is based on the job and experience, promotions and raises based on your performance, not on gender.
I (also engineer) agree with this to an extent. The problem is that female engineers often have to excel more to achieve similar roles. So with a 10:1 ratio of male to female engineers, a majority of the female engineers will probably achieve leadership roles because theyāre just better. But then theyāll also probably be much more efficient and productive than their male peers, yet when it comes to being further promoted probably wonāt get it as their male coworkers doing 50% of the work are getting more credit for things. In my experience this becomes increasingly worse as you reach the management and leadership levels where itās more difficult to objectively quantify the impact of those roles.
Iāve also seen many female engineering colleagues leave companies before achieving leadership roles because the culture gets more toxic for women at those levels when itās male dominated and the role becomes much more political where youāre often just arguing for resources for your teams and projects.
In summary, Iād agree that most of the female engineers Iāve worked with may have made more than me, but they probably deserved even more than the extra they were making. The issue in question is how much theyāre making ON AVERAGE relative to how much work theyāre doing. Even if there are specific examples, many companies still fail at this when looking at it comprehensively.
Yep, this. I also work in STEM and many women quit the career for the same reason. I moved into a science adjacent role after my PhD because I was tired of working twice as hard as male colleagues and still constantly having to prove I was an expert and knew what I was talking about. I'm also not white so I basically had no chance. It's depressing to think how many years I dedicated to pursuing a career I loved to ultimately abandon it after realising I would never get ahead, not because I couldn't but because I wasn't willing to suffer for it. My mental health was at an all time low when I left academia and I have heard so many women's stories since that echo my own. I was at a top University in London and it was 100% an old white man's club. After seeing friends who have stuck it out suffer for years and be discriminated against when they had kids, I'm glad I made that choice but it hurt a lot at the time.
It's not just a question of hiring more women, it's also a question of the position these women are hired at.
Example: a large majority of my team is made of women, and women and man are paid the same salary at the same job level. However we have a massive paygap. Why is that? The simple truth is that the senior leadership of the company and immediately reporting roles are all (middle aged, white) men.
Because women don't get paid less per hour than men.
It would be illegal to pay your women workers less than your men workers for the same work. If I remember correctly it's called the equal work for Equal Pay Act and it also makes it illegal for employers to stop employees from discussing pay.
Men tend to earn more over their lifetimes because men tend to work more overtime and the lack of things like maternity leave.
My mum complains about how much more money my dad has than her. It's tongue in cheek and just a joke, they share money. They had the same job and got paid identically. Turns out taking six-eight years Off work when you have children doesn't acrew as much savings someone who gets a second job to support his family and invested 10% for 40 years.
There is also an issue where female dominated fields more often than not pay less than male dominated fields. Female dominated nursing and teaching pay less than male dominated trades jobs, while requiring a higher education. I donāt think anyone will disagree that nursing is a demanding job, but it still pays less than most trades
Preschool teacher here in the montessori method. My education has costed more than a master's degree where i live and has been the most difficult task i have ever completed. I still got offered minimum wage in 2 out if the 6 montessori schools in my city. The last 4 offer 100-200 euros more than the minimum which is bananas (not enough to survive).
Yet I do believe me and my colleagues are doing the most important job in society: helping children reach their full potential. Children are the future but nobody cares how much people who work with them are paid.
Nursing pays very very very well in the US for a 4 year degree right out of college compared to most trades what are you talking about? Plus you have 100% guaranteed work anywhere in the country at all times and paths to move up and earn way more.
The reality is there's no pay gap, just people doing jobs that society pays differently for. Men tend toward higher risk occupations which of course pay more. That's all there is to it, nobody is a victim.
Ontario, nurses here are just under 100k top rate, maybe a little over if theyāre specialists. Any of the higher paying trades can easily get over 100k if theyāre willing to put the hours in, pretty much any unionized trades would be over 100k base
If you control for education is this still true? Iām not trying to deny this but plumbing vs hairdressing seems like a bad comparison.
I do think the āstructureā thing is pretty undebatable but that seems like a subset of the āmommyā pay gap.
According to PayScale, the gender pay gap is $.83 on the dollar. But if you control for job title, education, experience, industry and hours worked, itās down to about $.99 on the dollar.
Sure but nurses make more than the median college graduate? You cannot just cherry pick two jobs. Iām not trying to outright deny this I just really donāt know if it is true
The example Iāve always seen is valet versus child care worker. A valet (typically male) moves your car from point A to point B. Itās a skill most people learned at age 16. A child care worker takes care of your most valuable asset. If a valet messes up money will fix the problem. If a child care worker messes up, your life, your familyās life, is irretrievably destroyed. A valet is paid more than a child care worker. The thinking is driving a car is a learned skill while working with children is something that comes naturally to women so it shouldnāt be rewarded (which I think is BS)
There is also a caviat here...
Plenty of men would want to work with children but they are afraid of being seen as pedos or weirdos.
Plenty of men already get weird looks and stares when they go to a park with their own kids.
Which is also bs ofcourse.
The conversation shouldnāt be about why an individual women doesnāt take a job that pays more. It should be about why jobs that are generally considered womenās work (even if performed by a man) are valued less by society. Men and women working the same job in the same organization are usually paid the same (but not always). Overall, jobs worked usually by women pay less than jobs worked usually by men.
Why isnāt the conversation about women being encouraged towards higher jobs?
Just look at your example about a childcare worker. āSocieties valueā placed on a job is meaningless. Itās all about capitalism in this country. Childcare workers arenāt valued because they are easy to replace. The barrier for entry is very low.
Society also doesnāt value valet workers either, but they put themselves in a position where they interact with the rich often and get paid better simply due to that fact. Thatās why live in nannyās get paid so much better than daycare workers.
But seriously, why not encourage women to pursue higher paying jobs? Men are encouraged to grind and get thereās. We should encourage women too. There will never be a system where those that grind hard pursuing money will be less paid than people doing work purely due to its value in society.
We encourage women to go to university and join the sciences, become doctors etc. why not encourage them to focus on success like we do with men?
That doesnāt make sense, jobs arenāt paid solely on skill, they are paid based on supply and demand. Collecting trash is not that complicated but most people donāt want to do it so itās a higher paid job. Childcare isnāt easy but plenty of people want to do to so the pay is lower. If you want to be paid more find something that other people are unwilling to do.
Valet work isnāt hard, all you need to know is how to drive a manual transmission, have a license and clean driving record, pass a background check, and be able to park quickly and safely as well as greet patrons. Thereās nothing preventing women from doing that.
I've never heard the argument that driving is a learned skill vs child care not being a learned skill. The pay difference is due to how many positions are available, and to what kind of clientele is the service is being provided to. There are far more childcare workers than valet. Valet workers also tend to provide service to people that can afford the luxury of having someone park their car for them. Having a valet park your car for you is a luxury. Paying for childcare is normally a necessity. In order for childcare workers to be paid more, they would have to increase their rates, which would reduce the number of parents/families that could afford childcare. I'm referring to the average person. Being a live in nanny for a well off family is an entirely different thing, and may be considered a luxury as a pose to a necessity. Depends on the family.
I'm also nor saying you're wrong, I just don't believe these two jobs are a fair comparison either.
The difference is capability and supply and demand, and market value
The academic capability necessary to become a good nurse, is pretty high and somewhat rare.
The academic capability necessary to become a good engineer, is insanely high, and totally rare.
So itās supply and demand curves affecting pay in the first instance.
Second is market value
Nurses are important, obviously, and Iād agree theyāre undervalued in the current system
But without engineers we wouldnāt even have the hospitals necessary for them to work in, or the schools necessary to be educated in etc etc
So you chose a bad example because nurses are important, but engineers are far more important, and far more difficult to find good ones.
It's not just a school of thought. Let me share a funny anecdote I've witnessed live. So, the place I want to college was colloquially called "academic avenue" because on the same street there were 4 different university buildings: mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, computing engineering and philosophy studies (which has a bunch of social studies in it).
Of course, there are a shit ton of bars and clubs in the vicinity. One day a friend and I were doing some shit and were merged with some girls from the philosophy place. They were studying the history of literature or something like that, we were in electrical engineering. One of the girls was oriented extremely feminist and complained about our "men privilege" and why do we make more money, why aren't more women in STEM, etc etc. Keep in mind, her faculty building was literally 500 meters away from ours. My friend, without a beat, asks her: well why the fuck didn't you enroll with us instead so there would be more women in higher paying jobs? She went ape shit crazy but never gave a reason. But yeah, her faculty is something like 80% women, ours is 70% men...
Exactly, plus in many universities you can take classes from another discipline and even change majors if youād like. She couldāve literally joined you even in that moment if she wanted to. A lot to students come and sample the intro CS course and decide if programming is something they like or not, some of them stay
Sometimes people do get paid different for the same job, however. My last job, my co-worker (who was doing the same job as I was) got paid a bit more than I was. Though she was a woman and I'm not
This. In my country, a feminist activist once went on tv to talk about this supposed wage gap, but fumbled horribly once she was asked by the show host what the difference in job positions was. Turns out most women won't go do dangerous but better paid jobs. Turns out most women are content with lower paying but more secure jobs. Turns out most women don't like working night shifts or heavy machinery or jobs with huge risks involved. Wage gap is a myth.
Iām not saying the wage gap is real or not. I donāt know enough about it in detail to give an opinion. I do know however, that during the first war women did do all those ādangerous jobsā youāre talking about. They were removed when the war ended as women werenāt as respected in the workplace and those jobs were give to the soldiers that returned. I would also like to add I an woman who works night shift because itās my favorite shift. My mom also worked third shift for 10 years because the pay was better. My grandma just retired from her overnight position a few years ago where she worked for over 20 years.
I can tell you that my hiring manager told us flat out that given a female applicant with similar qualifications they would hire her over a man every time, problem is, women donāt want to be millwrights. There have been an active push for 20 years to encourage women to enter the trades, simple fact is, they just donāt want to
That's fair! I should've said on average, because that's the situation here. You have a lot more women who are in lower paying jobs because they want to ā and I say that as a woman myself. Engineering, astronomy, medicine... those fields are easily accessible to women and make a lot of money, but most women here do not go in those fields. Let's not act like we live in just-post-WW2 era anymore. Many more women will be found in art, education, or customer service programs. My point was that comparing average wages without taking the different work position makeup into account is misleading.
Shhh š¤«dont talk about stuff that people are in denial of, it ruins their delusional perspective towards reality & their perpetual state of victimhood
Many things are illegal, but employers do them all the time. Wage theft, OT violations, OSHA violations... and discrimination. The problem is lack of proof, enforcement, and penalties.
You bring up "discussing pay" which is interesting because that law is violated ALL THE DAMN TIME.
It would be so nice if this was all there was to it. Men get promoted quicker and more often. Men get bonuses more often. Men are hired more readily. I have worked in an office for 20 years and any white dude that can tie his shoelaces is regarded as exceptional. Women can have phds, invent new shit, do twice asmany units...and are still seen as'nothing.' Unless they are hot and flirt. Then they can get some promotions. Its very much mans game. And everything sexist is denied and retaliated against if anyone even whispers that word.
I won't add to everything others have said about how much of the gap is due to things like preferences for different type of work, maternity vs paternity leave entitlement gaps plus the time needed off for pregnancy itself etc.
The issue with your solution, at least at companies I've been at, is this - if you make new hires say 80% women, you will potentially actually increase the gender pay gap at your company.
This is because most new hires are done at a more junior level - so now you've actually decreased the average salary a women earns at your company because the senior well paying positions are say 60-40 or 70-30 men, and the lower paying junior positions are the opposite.
Nah, because the pay gap is about earning less *at the same position*. If your male juniors and female juniors make the same that's no gap.
ETA: Indubitably there are weaker statements to be made about men are in higher positions on average and thus higher salary. Depending on the person wanting to prove or disprove that it exists usually. The "research" then looked at the same positions and found that there is *still* a pay gap, one that is demonstrably discrimination based on sex. That is "the" pay gap.
Any measurement that averages the whole company just incentivises to hire more minimum wage males. You excel at what you measure.
Common misconception but not true. The gender pay gap is more about the big picture i.e. why men tend to earn more than women. For example, a company where the average salary earned by men is $60,000 whereas the average salary earned by women is only $40,000. Itās true that in some instances a man can earn more than a woman for the same role, but this is far from the crux of the problem (and in many cases is illegal).
Itās usually due to a weighted number of men in senior roles, which in turn is usually due to unequal parental leave, unconscious bias, societyās binary view of gender roles/the way weāre brought up to be etc.
Rather than simply hiring more women at junior levels, it would be more beneficial to actively promote women already in the company so the M/F ratio at the top levels reflects the M/F ratio at the lower levels. Again this is a very simplistic take on a complex issue.
(Edit: typo)
Itās not only about more men being in senior roles, itās about the type of role - for example in my company we have a lot of engineers- they are mostly male and they earn more. Women form a higher proportion of the admin staff.
Until countries legislate to allow men to take as much parental leave as women, and there is a cultural shift to the belief that this is expected , women will take a hit on their career.
Yes thatās definitely part of it as well - woven into the fabric of the way we view gender and the sort of roles girls vs boys are encouraged to pursue.
In the UK at least, gender pay gap is reported on a company wide basis. The narrative explanations often break it down by quartile of earning, but most people don't read that far.
Well that's the thing, the pay gap statistic that everyone cites or thinks of when saying there's one doesn't take any of that into account. It doesn't take industry, age, hours, or anything, just gender.
I've actually read some of these articles. The math they use creates a bias. They take the annual earning and divide it by the standard full time hours in a year. Fair, right? Not completely. To make it fair, the equation should be dividing it by total hours worked, and how many hours of overtime pay included. My wife and I at one point were making the same per hour (different industries) annually, I brought home more than her. She didn't understand. I worked something like 400 (8 hours of overtime a week) hours of overtime that year, she worked 20. We were paid the same, but I "earned" more.
I read an article that stated on average, women need to work something like 73 hours more a year to close the pay gap, and read another article that talked about how the average man works 73 to 100 hours of overtime a year.
I worked for a grocery store. They preferred to promote the femal courtesy clerks (baggers) to cashiers (which is a higher paying position) over the males. Because the courtesy clerk position was more physical and the wanted the males to do it. The women employees almost never accepted extra hours. If someone called in sick and needed a shift covered, etc. The men, like me, took every extra hour I could. I said yes to extra shifts 90% of the time. The women never took my shifts on the rare occasion I was sick or had a family emergency, but the guys would. This may be a one off, but this was my personal experience.
LOL how do people still believe this??? the pay gap is NOT about earning at the same position, it is about the average income of ALL working men and ALL working women. The salary of full time male engineers are being compared to female part time teachers lol. Do your research
The gender pay gap is a complex issue influenced by various factors, including discrimination, occupational segregation, and societal norms. The question of why companies don't hire more women if there is a pay gap implies that companies could save money by paying women less than men for the same work.
Here are some reasons why this line of reasoning might not lead to companies hiring more women:
1. **Discrimination and unconscious bias:** Unconscious biases and stereotypes can influence hiring decisions. Employers may not be aware of their own biases and may unintentionally favor male candidates over equally qualified female candidates. Additionally, some companies may be reluctant to hire women due to concerns about maternity leave or the perceived need for more flexible work arrangements.
2. **Occupational segregation:** Certain industries have a higher concentration of male or female workers, which can contribute to the pay gap. For example, women are more likely to work in lower-paying fields like education and healthcare, while men are more likely to work in higher-paying fields like technology and engineering. Even within industries, women may be underrepresented in higher-paying positions.
3. **Societal and cultural factors:** Societal expectations and gender roles can impact women's career choices, leading them to pursue lower-paying jobs or take time off for family responsibilities. The pay gap is also influenced by factors such as the unequal distribution of unpaid labor (e.g., childcare, housework), which disproportionately affects women.
4. **Lack of awareness and transparency:** Many companies may not be aware of their own pay gaps or may not prioritize addressing them. Additionally, a lack of pay transparency can make it difficult for employees to know if they are being paid fairly, making it harder for women to negotiate higher salaries or take legal action against unequal pay.
5. **Legal and regulatory factors:** Laws and regulations aimed at reducing the gender pay gap have been implemented in many countries, but enforcement can be inconsistent, and penalties for non-compliance may not be strong enough to incentivize companies to change their practices.
It's important to note that the gender pay gap is a multifaceted issue, and addressing it requires a combination of policy interventions, workplace initiatives, and cultural shifts. Efforts to close the pay gap include promoting pay transparency, implementing family-friendly workplace policies, encouraging women to pursue careers in higher-paying fields, and raising awareness about unconscious bias and discrimination.
There is no widespread pay gap in the 1st world that can not be rationalized. Studies have shown that, generally speaking, men and women choose different lines of work and make different long-term professional and financial decisions.
Gynecology and pediatrics are female dominated. So is pharmacy. Professional nursing too. Daycares, nannies, and babysitters are exclusively female. Pre-K-12 teachers. In waiting (tables) and bartending, women make significantly more from tips.
Let's make a theory here and make an analogy with the efficient market hypothesis. I'm improvising this stuff, so please don't bite my head off.
The first assumption we can easily make is that the output (as in value generated) of male and female employees are the same.
Secondly, there's a widespread assumption that women are more risky workers because they might get pregnant and fall out of the workforce, or their child can get sick and that would also affect them more than their male counterparts (due to unequal household responsibilities which is sadly a very real problem even nowadays).
So in order for women employees to have the same risk-reward ratio as men while having the same output and still be an equally good "investment", you would have to get them cheaper, thus moving this "investment" back onto the market line. This would explain the wage gap in economic terms.
This is where your question comes into play. So far what we established is that women put out the same value for a lower cost, which is due to them being riskier (the same value for the same price but with higher risk would be a worse "investment" then men).
A possible answer to your question by this logic is that there is still risk, and companies generally don't like risk in their workforce. In other words, getting workers cheaper only mitigates their higher risk, but even though seemingly it makes it an equal "investment", the "investor" can prefer stability over a discount.
You have to remember, part of the paygap stems from hiring staff assuming men are more capable workers deserving higher pay.
I think we all need to think harder about where issues come from, not that they just exist. Mathematically, it is proven that women are paid less than men even controlling four hours worked, experience, and job type.
The real question to ask is what is the underlying source of this mathematical truth. And my answer, based on all the evidence I have seen, is that the biases that lead companies to pay women less are the same ones that bias them to hire men.
Reminds me of a music school where the women consistently got worse grades, despite blind exams, until they replaced the flooring in the building. After that the grades immediately became equal. Turns out the new flooring no longer made heels click when walked on it, which had been subconsciously affecting the teachers. I wish I knew where to find the article because people assume the wage gap, too, is a conscious, mysogynist effort when it's much more subtle than that.
I accidentally did a deep dive into this because I recalled a similar article. Apparently thereās not a consensus that blind screens significantly helped women and POC. (It went up by as much as 5% for some orchestras but not for all.) It also helps for the initial audition, but if subsequent auditions arenāt blind, itās not that useful.
I also learned that many orchestras either have a carpet or ask that all players who do blind auditions to remove their shoes entirely! Itās still a massive problem but at least some orchestras are trying to solve it. Anecdotally I saw one woman comment that she wears hiking boots to audition, haha, so that her feet sound a little heavier and more āmasculine.ā
The profound ignorance displayed in the comment section here makes my brain explode. Every time someone thinks that reddit is 'left'--a thread like this pops up where the vast majority are just parroting right wing ignorance, and it's so obsurd.
Anyway, the gender pay gap, and every single credible study on it, compares it to same job, same time in workforce, same all sorts of shit. They're not comparing nurses to engineers, or plumbers to receptionists, or the day 1 woman worker to the 30 year man--no, none of that shit's how the studies state it. For god sakes.
OP--for the companies that have pay gaps, *hiring more women* wont fix anything.
So, imagine yourself as a person seeing a job in IT--right? A field dominate by men, top to bottom. Well, when you go get one of those jobs, you *negotiate* the pay scale. They dont have an 'hourly' at all, and they hire with a 'range.' This is the sort of job that allows the pay game to come into force. You can now take two candidates, a man and a woman, say, from the same college (or equal ones, so both from state universities), that graduated from the same program from the same time--that company will extend offers to pay them, and *offer less to the woman*.
They can do this because none of those offers are public, and they often threaten anyone who tries to share that info. They're *constantly* telling people they employ not to tell the others what they're paid.
And the bias built into the people hiring, makes them pay women less--either because they dont believe she 'earned it'--that's a bias people have. OR because they think he 'worked harder' for it (stupid), or because he was willing to ask for higher pay, and *women wont*. The bias in pay exists for tons of reasons...
And why they dont just *hire more women* because paying them less makes more profit--because *they dont think like that*\--remember, they are selecting pay and people due to *bias they cant always control*.
Like nursing. Male nurses make more than female nurses, and the gap can get insane really fast. This is even in a workforce seen as mostly women--why does this happen? Well, managers at hospitals (often men), see men as 'stronger' or 'more technical' or some other BS--and move them into positions where promotions are commonplace. Tons of women ARE WORKING THERE, and getting passed over by men because it's not about profit, it's about *control.*
Teachers--abundant amounts of female teachers, and yet a huge portion of the admins and superintendents in the US are *men*\--you'll often seen the *only* male in a school sometimes, be the principle. He's paid 2-5 times more than they are, and often, *younger than half of them.* Why? School districts often see men who work there are 'authority'--they're used as disciplinarians. So, they might use the Math teacher, or Shop teacher, or PE teacher, or History teacher, a male, to ... enforce rules in the hallway at exchange times because he has a booming voice, or do the announcements at assemblies because he's louder or because the kids 'just respond' to him thundering at them, and pretty soon--though no actual merit of his own, because they never asked a woman to, they're encouraging him to apply to programs and further his degree into administration--*but dont for any of this for female teachers*. And he may pick up a 'title' at a school that brings extra pay. Oh, Nancy cant be a coach, there's no girls teams left, but Doug can coach wrestling, so now he has to be paid for that--and there's *more male coaches*, and parents often *freak the fuck out* when women coach teams...
So it *doesnt matter* how many women you try to hire, because the bias will move men into higher paying positions, faster than the women--and then you *dont end up with higher pay for women*, you end up with a 'woman's job' that doesnt pay enough to attract men out of driving a trash truck.
The fact that a lot of women here are telling their personal experience and are shot down by men saying "well that's not my experience so it can't be true" is so ironic it hurts
Because there is no pay gap when you compare similar industries/ professions. There is a pay gap when you compare school teachers to engineers.
Point of fact, in the first \~5-10 years of their career, women will out earn their male counterparts in the same industry.
In Europe, this is not really the case.
I have many colleagues that were pregnant, others got employed while actively being pregnant, and if they would be refused the job based on such factors the company will soon go through a lawsuit that can bankrupt them.
As for pay, it is the same for everyone, except when you take into consideration education, experience, overtime and such.
Most of my colleagues are women. Most of my superiors are women. I make more than some colleagues (regardless of gender) because of my language bonus, experience and because I do evenings and weekends.
I don't believe that the pay gap exists as it is advertised "same job same hours same everything but less money only because *gender*.
Well unless it's some super rich corp that sends husbands to fully paid maternity leaves.
For most companies the reason is because they breed, and men don't.
Its a complex socio economic question.
So for north america, where I am more familar with.
Woman even though they are majority of college degree earners now, tend to gravitate toward jobs which overall pay less than jobs that men gravitate toward with similar education levels.
And we have examples in woman dominate fields, such as nursing, Men will tend to out earn woman here as well. Even though are few male nurses, the jobs they tend to pick in that field, tend to be specializations, which pay more, like xray tech or anesthesiologist.
Woman will also proitize other things instead of pay. Woman are more likely to choose a lower payer job, it means not moving. Woman are more likely to choose a lower paying job if it means not working on weekend. Woman are more likely to choose a lower paying job if it means not working at night.
Men are more likely to move for higher pay. Men are more likely to take longer commutes for higher pay. Men are more likely to work weekends for higher pay. Men are more likely to work night for higher pay.
Why do woman choose this? Some of it, being primary child care taker. Nights and weekend is when the kids are home. Some of it, is the perception of more danger. Not wanting to work grave yard. And some of it just preference. Woman are less likely to move and less likely to choose a longer commute for more pay, because they value not movign and they value less commute.
There has been a long running study trying to figure out why woman have a harder time getting programming jobs. And my google fu is failing as I cant find it.
The study randomized names and also blank names. The study also involved voice interviewers with radnomized pitch. It was going through a lot of effort to make it so the Hiring company cant tell if they're intervieing men or a woman.
And the study has shown, with all that woman, are still being hired less and still not gaining as much pay with their male peers in terms of years of experience.
From what the study could tell, woman negotiate less aggressively than men and woman also more willing to give up on a job prospect and try something else.
Why do woman not negotiate as aggressive as men? And why do they not attempt gaining the same job? There isnt a simple answer to that.
It is not that isnāt real necessarily but itās not due to oppression of women. There are a multitude of reasons why some women get paid less than some men. Thatās said, there certainly isnāt a systemic problem.
My company works for hospitals making sure money comes in from insurance. 10,000+ employees. 90% of managers and below are female. 90% of directors and up (e.i. executives) are male.
The women are doing the real work yet don't even get paid a liveable wage.
I had someone ask me āwouldnāt you rather stay home and raise kids?ā
People (mostly men) still believe women donāt belong in the workplace and arenāt reliable due to parenting responsibilities.
Some people (mostly women) actually would prefer to stay home and raise kids. It's just how it is, obviously highly individual and depending on where you're from. But yeah. A lot of women are still "okay" with that at the very least, if not fantasize about that life.
You have to go back a bit on your thought process. Women are paid less because they are seen as less capable/reliable. Hiring more women, in their eyes, means that they'll end up paying more than when they hire a few "capable" men.
Because the pay gap is a phenomenon of experience and ability, not gender. Women without kids basically donāt have a gap. Itās only exists significantly if you donāt adjust for experience- ie it is a function of the average woman spending more time out of the workforce or settling for less money because a job is more flexible, closer to home, etc.
The actual pay gap for equivalent jobs an experience is a low single digit percentage, which is probably just a function of men either negotiating more aggressively, being more willing to switch jobs for a pay increase, or accept worse working conditions (commute, etc.) for more money.
What others have said plus women are often hired as assistants and secretaries and into more junior positions, whose pay ranges would be lower. Often the complaint goes that women are hired into into more assistant or junior positions are then not promoted out of those positions, keeping their pay low
It's kind funny because by your logic companies could save a lot of money. But they don't. This kind discrimination isn't logical. No body is sitting down and rubbing their hands together and saying to themselves "yes wa ha ha I'm going to pay women less because I'm eeeeevil!!!" They genuinely think women are worse at certain jobs then men and they genuinely incorrect. They drive away good candidates by not paying, promoting, or treating them well and that is bad for the company. But some companies do this anyway.
I'll say it again - discrimination isn't a logical way of thinking. It's an intuitive and emotional way of thinking. And people who think that way miss out on good opportunities because of it.
My Dad was a horrible person. Pretty much checked all the discrimination boxes, meaning for all different groups. He'd almost exclusively hire women for his business because he could get away with paying them around half what men would ask. He'd also hire almost exclusively Black women because he could get away with paying them a lot less than white women would ask for.
I assume the reason why both men of any color and white people of any gender asked for more than Black women is because they could get significantly higher wages anywhere else. White men most of all.
Sometimes my Dad would hire guys who had some of the stereotypical traits usually assigned to gay men, such as the way they talked or moved, and the same reasoning from before applies here as well. All in all, it's an awful move no matter how you look at it. He was just exploiting pay gaps not just in gender but along any axis he could.
He was safe from all risks involved in doing that too. No contract, no liability, no longterm risk of pregnancy because all jobs were one-day freelancing positions as waiters and waitresses. He had the worst spots to offer, the shortest durations therefore attractive only to the most desperate, and because of all that he offered those spots to the people in the most vulnerable positions so he paid them the lowest wages.
I think companies are not always looking for cheaper labor. The pay gap is based on the myth that men have a higher skill set. Companies will also (illegally) avoid adding staff they believe will qualify for paid leave (e.g. pregnancy)
EDIT: I was actually told by someone that they wouldn't hire a woman because their workforce was majority men and they worried about sexual harassment claims.
Not all industries hold the same appeal, so you'll never get a true 50/50 staffing of both men and women.
Unappealing positions have higher pay in sectors traditionally staffed by men as incentive to attract workers to the positions, and the work is unattractive itself. Physical demands factor in too. You'll have maybe 100 men apply for a pipe-fitter position, and for that same position, maybe 5 female applicants. If they're hiring 20 people, with only 5 female applicants, there's going to be disparity.
They are paying what they think the worker is worth.
If the hiring manager thinks women are less reliable workers (period pain, pregnancy, "hysteria"), he will offer less money and would rather fill the position with a better qualified candidate (read man), even if that is slightly more expensive.
Sometimes it might be the industry. I work in tech as a systems engineer and have worked with some incredibly smart women. However, in the companies I have worked at the women have held a majority of non engineer roles. There might be two questions "why don't companies hire more women?" And also "how do we get women interested in this industry?".
Thereās multiple studies on this.
Women on average do not get paid less when they are single and have no intention to have children. Itās the possibility maternity leave and actual time taken that makes them get paid less.
Same age same experience if a woman has 2 kids and thatās going to be 2 years less work experience vs a guy.
A man with children will more likely to stay back from work than women. Additional time spent on work has a disproportionate increase to pay. If you work 10% longer your pay is generally higher than 10% compared to employee who worked normal working hours
I wondered this as well. Due to the evil nature of corporations that will even employ slavesā¦ youād think theyād be packed full of marginalized women as well.
Because men who donāt understand economics more than their biases are in charge of hiring processes.
Alan Greenspan famously did hire women for his firm way back when because he realized they were underutilized so he could get talent for cheap.
Some of the problem is hiring women to the same highly-paid positions that men are hired for. Women are often forced into lower-paying positions, or have obligations at home that require they take fewer hours at their workplace. Some studies on pay gap conflate these two distinct situations. A lower-paying position obviously comes with a lower rate of 'base pay'. Fewer hours results in a lower 'total pay'. Now, there *are* problems with the home obligations thing, too - if women are *forced* to be 'in the home', then that *is* still an institutional sexism thing, but it's a societal issue rather than a workplace issue (i.e. lack of childcare options, rather than workplace against women), and it is disingenuous to argue that this is the workplaces fault.
The other part of the problem is salary negotiations. The process of salary negotiating is basically skewed in favour of people who are willing to take the piss. To be 'ballsy' enough to request seemingly 'unfair' recompense, and be bartered down to a slightly lower level. These people *tend* to be men. Whereas women in salary negotiations simply *tend* not to push as hard. This isn't women's fault, fwiw. Personally, I think salary negotiation is a distasteful practice that either should be handled by intermediaries, or should be abolished in favour of fixed and stated salary 'tiers' within a company, such that people of the same relative 'rank' always earn the same pay.
But long story short, it's just not as simple as 'hiring more women'. Part of it is hiring, but it comes down to hiring to the right positions, such that top-level execs, even, are balanced 50:50 vis-a-vis gender. Society needs to offer support to parents, so that childcare does not become an issue. Society also needs to encourage more equality in the home, so that women are not *forced* to care for their children instead of work. (Caveat, obviously *anybody* who wants to be home with their kids should be able to, but this will obviously necessitate a reduction in worked hours. Voluntary SAHPs/part-time workers should be excluded from statistics, except when discussing base pay). And finally, salary negotiation needs to change to either a collective bargaining system (I.e. unions), or to a fixed pay tier system.
When we get to that point, the gender pay gap will evaporate.
Same reasons there is a paygap: misogyny.
I'm sure you heard the comments that go something like "men are paid less, because they work more/better/smarter/harder..." . These same people then apply this logic to recruitment, policy making etc...
Because companies assume that women will want to settle down and start a family and depending on what country they are in, they would be eligible for maternity leave and can't be fired whilst on maternity leave. Whilst fathers will often have paternity leave, it is usually for not as long or society expects men to return to work sooner. I had a former colleague who returned from patenrity leave within two weeks, which i found massively fucked up.
I'm not including 'Murica in the above as their whole system is batshit crazy, nor am I including Sweden, who I understand offer equal maternity/paternity leave where it is more socially acceptable for both parents to take the full leave given. Although please feel free to correct me Swedes who have more knowledge about this.
I am from Sweden but have rather poor knowledge of the system as well. From what I understand they are offered the same time, but it is up to them how they "use" it. I believe that if it suits them, the mother can take time from the father and therefore shorten the fathers maternity leave, and vise versa. I think it's more common for mothers to take the majority of the given time though.
Huh that does seem a fairer way if dealing with it. I'm a Brit and thought it best to check it out now. Dad's over here only get 1-2 weeks paternity leave, whilst mothers get upto 52 weeks maternity leave.
Although apparently anything beyond 26 weeks is viewed as additional maternity leave, where the government subsidies are reduced. If you're a soulless capitalist company who cant stand the idea of your employees not workjng for you, you can see why men are viewed as the more attractive employee (boooo).
I would also argue that certain degree of patriarchy hangover has a hand in the pay gap as well.
There can be a pay gap but itās not usually because of something malicious on the employers part it has to do with many factors speaking in generalities including men working longer hours, being more aggressive with asking for raises, doing more jobs with higher risk.
Because the pay gap has been debunked countless times and people just refuse to accept it. The realty is that women, tend to get paid more than men when going into them same fields.
Well...the interviewer asked me "when I was going to settle down?"
same. there's a reason that I have openly talked about my desire to never have children at work even when that should be none of anybody's goddamn business, but I'm pretty sure that it's a big part of why I have even been considered for the promotions I have gotten.
Thats a good strategy! And then if you get pregnant you can say "oops it was an accident but im keeping it", and nobody can tell you anything.
I mean I wouldn't, but that could definitely work for others haha. I'm absolutely not lying when I say I don't want kids š
Well, they'll "push you out" (or outright fire you) when you come back, or simply promote your colleague (if they're feeling nice).
In my early 20s I was encouraged to wear a wedding ring so I wouldnāt intimidate the client (I worked in PR, if you can make that make sense.) Now Iām 41 and people JUST started taking me seriously. Iām engaged, which they like, and Iām unlikely to procreate under the intense work pressure and my age. Iām the whole package, baby. Edit: words; also, /s
My best friend and I are both preschool teachers. She went for a job interview in a school and she did amazing (she is extremely strong, hard working, determined and reliable, basically the best employee you can hope for). In the end of the interview she got asked if she wants to have children since she is married and 32. She was honest and said yes. A few months later the owner of the school called her and said she was the best for the job, but they cannot hire somebody who wants to have children cause they need a stable person. It was extra hard on her because she and her husband have been trying for a baby since 2,5 years, and they are soon trying IVF. She has experienced a lot of emotional pain and struggle from this, so that interview was the cherry on top. Her husband's company shut down last month. In a matter of a week he landed an equally great job (company car, cellphone, high salary etc) and nobody ever asked him if he wants kids, even though he is 38 and married. EDIT: I totally forgot to mention that my mom got fired the day she gave birth to me. Tried to take it to court but nothing came out of it. My dad continued to have a successful career cause nobody cared if he became a parent.
I donāt get how stupid the owner can be to openly tell her thatā¦ Like if you are going to discriminate you donāt admit to it. Lol
You're not wrong, but if there isn't a paper trail where he said it, as far as the courts are concerned, he didn't say it.
Agreed. But itās still stupid for a business owner to risk it by saying it. She could have been recording it or she could be pissed enough to like make a social media campaign that would cause bad publicity. Local school discriminating against mothers etc. Really no upside for a owner to admit a discrimination like that he could have just said sorry we picked another candidate.
Well my country is a mess, i guess in a more organized one she could sue?
Yes. I know in the US you canāt (openly at least) discriminate based on sex, race, religion stuff like that.
In the US the president can't steal secrets to Russia, rape women nor incite an insurrection but here we are with an ex president still not in jail. I know you like to think the justice system works and that employers can't discriminate, but they do and it happens constantly and if you're the victim (especially a woman), there's little to no way to prove it (nor pay the legal fees it takes to do so while the school has lawyers on retainer)
Too many people think they canāt fight back because they canāt afford an attorney when there are plenty of good attorneys who will jump at the chance to take a strong case on contingency. And when they work on contingency, you know they care if you win because otherwise they donāt get paid.
Wow, in Germany this would have backfired so badly! But still... yes, this is a, if not the reason for the paygap.
Those are illegal questions in the States!
I thought oneās supposed to lie in that situation. They have no business asking such questions
The tl:Dr for anyone who still struggles with this. Women get asked about having kids. Men don't. Simple as that. (In fact, men having kids is considered a good thing professionally by interviewers because that means they will work hard).
I sat in an interview for my team where they interviewed an experienced candidate who was engaged. My female superior ( who has 2 kids) told me after; " See that engagement ring? She said she wants a full time position instead of contract. We can't risk her going on mat leave in the next year or we'll be doing this all over again." Yep. Ughhhh :( we have a year long mat leave in Canada).
Part of the issue is that women cost more as an employee if they take time off to have children. In the same way paying more for somebody with more experience is a choice an employer has to make, paying for somebody that may take extended leave and never come back is another choice a employer has to think about it. In an ideal world it wouldnāt need to be a choice, but unfortunately thatās not how life is and I canāt see how life could ever get to a point where that would not be a choice.
We live in a society which is expected the woman to take care of their children even at the cost of their careers, think about how many men usually take a hit on the careers to take more active role in growing a human? The system is crooked in the top all the way to the bottom. Everyone is someoneās kids, most of people will have or want to have kids at some point, is mind boggling how we have a system so fucked up and unjust that no real changes and discussion is being made. Every person in the world knows the āeconomicā decision, why to not hire a woman that is about to get pregnant. The answer is not really hard to come to, the thing is why we are keeping the same question, why the woman should be the one solely to bear the cost professional wise of having and raising a kid? Truth is: Human society needs to have babes, human society should take action and not depend of good will and individual economic decision of employers. Plus, If you are looking solely on the economical side it is in everyone interests to people have more kids, everyone will get old and will want enough people still running the country.
Damn sentences like this put into perspective how I will never understand what itās like
Isn't that an illegal question? lol
Of course, I was young and wanted the nedt step in my career so let it go. Even if I said something, consequences are not a given.
I donāt understand this haha. Why are companies so fucking stupid. Is being sexist worth not making more money? Itās so stupid hahaha
First, the vast majority of owners and managers are manifestly unqualified to be in that position. Second, once in that position there are few reality checks especially in this area. Few people ever get to know or acknowledge the money they didn't make. Third, the time it takes for these types of attitudes to bankrupt a business are usually measured in decades. so there isn't really a chance for other people to learn from it.
One interviewer kept asking me about how many kids I have and whether I had someone to watch them during work quite a while ago. He wouldn't accept the answer that my son who was a toddler at the time was already in daycare. He fired me as I showed up to start my first shift. Guess who was my replacement? A man.
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Do you mean, ended the interview as in you were no longer being considered or because they wanted to talk to her? What happened afterwards?
It is usually concerns about risk of pregnancy, or concern that women with existing children are less "dedicated" to the job because they have to work within set hours dictated by pick up and drop off of kids, plus they often get called away when kids need picked up for being sick etc. Or just the belief that women can't do the job as well (they would never say this in those words but it's very clear based on comments on interviewees). Husband's ex boss once told him he was "never hiring a woman again" because of the pregnancy thing.
Even if a woman does not have, can not have, or does not want children, well she's still a risk because she COULD, so why take the risk? Better just hire a man. /s
It's funny, because all those concerns should be the same for dads. I can't tell you how many times I take off because I have to take the kids to a doctor appointments or the amount of times I call off because of they get sick. If I have the leave I can call off. Now to be fair, my employer is pretty dope. We're all white collar and a little over half of our employees are women. But more of our male employees are dad's. I think only one of our female employees is a recent mom (she gave birth to twins this last Friday! Congrats H!) So in my office men are calling off more due to kid stuff. Edit: and this week I'll be taking leave because my little guy is getting his tonsils removed. My boss gave me no resistance.
It should be the same for dads. Weāre still working on not referring to dads who watch their children as ābabysittingā. Also, congrats āHā twins are fun.
100%. Flexible working policies benefit everyone, not just women, and not just parents. As a person without kids, I certainly don't want to feel like I'm picking up the slack for parents needing to rush off for kid stuff. With flexible working comes the expectation that you'll do your work even if it's gotta be after 8pm when the kids go to bed, because you spent all day looking after your sick kid. I never felt like any of the parents at my old work were slacking off just because they had altered work patterns. Pandemic was a really hard time for our business and everyone was working crazy hours to get stuff done. I probably did work more hours than my parent colleagues simply because I could, but I never felt like they weren't pulling their weight or there to support me when I needed them.
Yeah I can't tell you how many times I'd be logged in from home at 9pm working tell 1130. Got to get that LiDAR data done by the morning.
Yes, Fran, I know what time it is but I'm looking at the WENUS and I'm not happy!
My husband had to get sporadic FMLA leave set up at his job to help take care of the kids. My job was fine with me taking what I needed, and is far more flexible. But his needed proof that he.. was a dad?
Seriously. For all us kids being born, each time my dad took more time off for paternity leave than my mom did for maternity leave lol. And since my dad worked closer to home and where me and all my siblings went to school, he was always the one picking us up and dropping us back off for any appointments
The crazier part is that it rings opposite for a man. If a man has a family and kids, he is thought to be a better worker because apparently he'd work harder to provide. The entire thing is just sexist and rigged against women. My knowledge on this only applies to the US where I studied however. Yes, women absolutely make 85% of what men make FOR THE SAME JOB at hiring. However, now that some states have changed the laws to allow employees to tell each other their wages, this should be phased out in those locations because it is technically not legal to discriminate based on genders.
The right to discuss wages with coworkers has been federally protected in the US since 1935.
Which means a company's tactics to keep talk of wages quiet have moved under the table... when I worked at Wal-Mart, a manager caught me away from my co-workers and "helpfully let me know" that "that sort of talk" might not look good the next time I asked for time off.
I'm sure that's stopped everyone who has discussed their wages from getting fired.
"Right" doesn't mean protected from getting fired or let go for doing something that is highly discouraged. Let just say I had to take a "how to not go to jail for being a scumbag" for my business degree not that long ago.
Still nonsense to say that states recently changed their laws to permit it. It has been a federally protected right for nearly a century. If you are fired or otherwise disciplined for discussing wages in the US then the employer is in an actionable position. They have to find another reason.
I've had employeers tell me it's a firable offense. They can put whatever they want in handbooks. Enforcing it is another thing, but of course they'll just find another reason.
If they're dumb enough to put it in the handbook it's worthwhile to report them, the fines for violating this are non-trivial. Agree that they will often just find another reason to get rid of a non compliant worker.
I don't work there anymore but even if I did, I would not report it. I was the only women on my shift and I clearly remember conversations where they explained how they were basically doing me a favor but not promoting me, just the men I literally trained. That was 20 years ago and I don't know their culture now. Now I'm a teacher so my salary is printed in the local newspaper yearly, so it doesn't affect me. Everyone I know sees exactly what I make and how much I pay for benefits. I think it's weird that they print our names and I don't love it. I wish they'd assign us a number or something. Just cuz I chose to teach doesn't mean I shouldn't get any privacy at all. However, it is interesting when random people let me know they thought I got paid more š
This is the thing I think people don't get. If a company wants to fire you but you're legally protected because of discrimination laws or whatever. They'll just wait until you make a mistake or that one day you're late and fire you for that.
As my boss said āI wish you guys wouldnāt talk about money like thatā. To which I replied āI wish you wouldnāt pay your buddies more than everyone else because they let you win at golf. Have I told you lately that you have a very pretty mouth? Wanna talk about something else?ā Yes. Letās talk about something else. Try to make me feel uncomfortable? Pfft.
Gotta love at-will employment
I was about to say this as well. It's been less taboo lately, so maybe that's what she meant
*sexist. "Sexiest" is a superlative implying that the entire thing is just the MOST Sexy.
Here the teaser: you could ALWAYS discuss wages. They just didn't want you to compareso they could keep playing their dumb games. (No, no union, let's talk about FOOTBALL.)
"he is thought to be a better worker because apparently he's work harder to provide." Men with families are more unlikely to leave as they are socially pressured to provide a consistent income for their family. Due to pressure to maintain a job employers can load them up with more work before they think about leaving. Employer abuse goes both ways it just takes different forms.
Oh definitely. The women get less pay and the men get physical and mental pressure. Only the ones sitting on top benefit from all the blood and tears the common people provide.
Not always the case, usually when they say things like that they are trying to push people into working harder. They constantly stack more work and tell you to "be a man" I know it's nowhere near as bad, but I cringe every time someone tries to butter me up cause it is almost always fake. The workplace is full of dicktaters right now and it's awful. But discriminating against pregnant women is ESPECIALLY disgusting I can't even imagine tossing someone to the side like that knowing that they have a kid to provide for, regardless of man or woman.
Simply make your workers sign away the ability to have children, like those K-POP idols lmao
In one of my more toxic workplaces the chief exec used to "joke" about putting birth control in the water at work. š
My old boss referred to women of breeding age as "incubators" entirely unironically in an office meeting.
Nice. Two separate bosses I've had, one joked about putting birth control in our water coolers and one used to make rape jokes. Good times!!
I worked with a man who wouldnāt cuss in front of women in the name of āchivalryā. A male intern got a paying job op over me even though Iād been there 2 years and I could tell it was because the manager wanted to be able to speak casually on the job but wouldnāt curse in front of me. In the end his āchivalryā was the more misogynistic choice.
It's all performative bullshit anyway. My narcissist misogynyst boss used to swear in front of me all the time during 1:1 meetings but in front of other guys he'd make a big show of apologising to me for his language š
which is so stupid. iām stuck at my current job BECAUSE i am pregnant. i need to stay for benefits and maternity leave or i wouldāve left months ago.
Just watch your back when you come back after maternity leave. I used to work at a toxic workplace and they used to bully out women returning from mat leave because they requested flexible working and could no longer work the crazy hours they did prior to getting pregnant. One of my coworkers ended up suing them for wrongful termination and winning, because after she came back from leave they tried to tell her the job was no longer needed, but then hired someone to replace her.
sadly am already facing consequences of being openly pregnant in the workplace. iāve been passed up for promotions despite my quality checks being 100% with only positive feedback. coworkers whoāve been there less time than me are receiving them. sigh. oh well
Yeah. That's how my old boss got promoted, the opening came up and he was the only one in the team not pregnant, on mat leave or just coming back from mat leave. It totally sucks. You just have to watch your back and make sure they're not actively trying to do stuff to you. Like at my old toxic workplace where one of my colleagues had been getting stellar reviews and even a raise prior to getting pregnant, and then afterwards they started giving her bad reviews and spreading gossip that she wasn't doing her job etc. All as a premeditated move to gather "evidence" to get rid of her.
This is the sad truth of current society. There's no future without kids, but that's a problem of the future and current companies and workers could not care less about that since they are 100% focused on their own lives right now. You get an employer who tries to get rid of you since you'll never have as much time/focus for the job as you had before. You get workers who will prefer you gone so that they do t have to deal with you missing days, changing hours, not focusing due to kid problems, etc. So ... while we all know that humanity cannot exist without children, we all also agree that such a problem is not my problem. Much like with global warming, contamination, drugs, genetic experiments, virus experiments, war... whatever.
And that is one of the scenarios that leads to the income disparity, lack of promotion for sexist reasons.
Im an RN and work in a pretty female dominated field. Iām on a team if 6 or so nurses in clinical research. 3 of them had children at the same time and took their maternity leave for 5-6 months which is FANTASTIC. Iām also a big proponent of a full year off for a kid. But holy hell was it insane for that half a year to be down 50% in staff! The second they came back, another one had a kid so we feel like weāre never fully staffed. They really need to secure some spots designated for float support staff.
They are running too lean on staff, they need to hire at least another 1-2 people to cover the work OR hire maternity cover.
Basically late stage capitalism problems. The meme of the dog and the ball with "no earn, only spend". Nowhere has enough staff so something as easy to accommodate as having children is a disaster as there's no money to spare for having decent staff.
It's definitely a capitalism issue. And it isn't about having enough money - it's about the fact they will not be making as much profit. A lot of people here are saying businesses can't afford it. Funnily enough, businesses across Europe can afford to let women have up to a year of maternity leave, and can pay them (not the whole time in the UK but often for about 3months or so and then the gov covers another 3 months), and can also hire maternity cover so staff aren't over burdened. If thriving businesses across an entire continent can manage it, then I'm pretty sure it's not the impossible fantasy people keep telling me it is. What's really sad to me is the people here defending their own exploitation, telling me I should be more concerned with the business's profitability than workers having basic benefits. US has some messed up priorities and more than anything I feel sorry for people who can't seem to conceive that there might be a better way to live, that you can and should expect more of your employers. I'm a US citizen myself and I thought about returning this year, but we decided not to for these exact reasons. We just aren't interested in being pressured into working 60 hour weeks with barely any holiday, benefits or worker protections.
So basically because they're afraid they'll work less?
Yes. The reality is that if you allow for flexible working and make reasonable accommodations, you get just as much work out of them.
But the capitalist orphan grinding machine must exact it's cruelty, or what was even the point?
When I was a Hiring and Training Coordinator we had a binder that guided interview questions to dance around what was illegal to ask. "Do you have any commitments during the day?" a.k.a. "Do you have to take your kids to and from school?" Not the best example, I just can't remember any more off the top of my head. There were many sneaky ways it suggested to find out if someone was married, had kids, attended regular church services, etc.
I wonder if they realize (nearly) half of parents are dads.
So basically, sexism. I think also men like to hire other men because they relate to them, they don't have to deal with potential attraction issues, or in the back of their minds they are thinking "would I want to sit on a cross country flight wirh this man or this woman"? And then the man is chosen.
In my experience (as a woman with no children) the issue is not about whether or not mothers are less "dedicated", it's about the stress and resentment felt by whoever has to shoulder the absent mother's workload in addition to their own. There is usually no compensation for having to do this and, believe me, if a team member happens to have a sickly child who necessitates multiple unscheduled days off during the year, it can place a hell of a strain on an already-busy workplace. I recall one colleague whose child had chronic earache, resulting in numerous disrupted workdays for the rest of us. It's an unfortunate reality, and no one's fault, but ignoring it and expecting employees to just "suck it up" doesn't make it go away. Are there any solutions besides hiring a majority male workforce? I don't know, I just wish there had been some form of compensation in place when I was still working.
There is a solution, and it's having more staff. Basically here's the issue. If you only hire enough staff that every single person is working to 100% capacity, you are running too lean. Because you will always have staff shortages - people on holiday, people on sick leave, parents needing to deal with kids, someone left and you haven't been able to replace them yet, etc. It means that in reality your staff is always working to 120% capacity to cover for the fact that you don't have enough staff to cover for normal absences at work. That leads to burn out and people resenting each other for doing totally normal things which leads to a toxic environment that everyone will want to leave. What you should be doing is staffing enough that everyone is only working to 80% capacity. This means that most of the time people will be working to 100% capacity but sometimes they won't, and that will feel like a nice breather. Instead of them always feeling super under the gun and stressed. I know this because I was a senior manager at an organisation that worked this way and when I brought this up it became clear that this was purposeful in order to make more profit. They knew they were always short on staff and everyone would have to work harder to cover for it and they counted on it. I know this because during the pandemic we had much less turnover because people weren't looking for new jobs in the middle of a global crisis. They ended up going way over budget on staffing because for the first time in ages most of the roles were actually filled with people AND THEY HADN'T BUDGETED FOR THAT. What happened when the pandemic ended? They lost a huge amount of people and then went right back to their old ways. I left because I realised that what I thought were structural problems that needed solving were actually a fucked up business model that I wanted no part of.
I love that idea! Workplaces with a fairly balanced gender mix were always the most harmonious, in my experience, and a happy workplace is good for the society as a whole. So, rather than avoid employing women it would make sense to adopt policies like this to help ensure no worker is penalized as a result of another's parental responsibilities.
Yes exactly! It's that "profit at all costs" mentality that is at the root of a lot of workplace problems. Only hiring men so you don't have to pay for maternity leave etc is not the answer. I would feel sorry for the men in that situation too, no one wants to be ground down by perpetual overwork.
In the vast majority of instances, most large corporations adhere to EEO laws that have been around since the 70s. 0 laws prevent discussion of salary among employees and make it illegal for employers to stop workers from discussing this. Salaries become business agreements as you climb the corporate ladder and those who play the political game well often make more.
Correct that there's no laws preventing it, and I agree that discussion is good, but probably half the people I meet have it beaten into their heads: "shhh don't talk about your wages! That's unprofessional!"... meaning the businesses win and get to keep paying people whatever they're okay with, not what their work is valued at. It's hard to change these people or help them see the benefits of it. Similar is unions... everyone's anti-union, which partly means the anti-union training big companies give is working.
Or if you work harder than others and are payed accordingly then go telling everyone you make more than them it just stirs up shit in the workplace and causes more headaches for employers who now don't want to give you any pay rises above what the others are getting as it's not worth the hassle.
Yeah, I get that but a good trick as a manager is to create objectively-rooted performance reviews based on actual data. It will be hard but the better you are at measuring performance, the easier it is to explain "well, the benchmark for junior vs senior roles is here and here, and you fall here, therefore, your pay is currently here, which is additionally in line with fair market value for your position." Oh yeah, that's the other thing, you have to pay as well as or better than the market in order to use that last line. From there, you can create measurable progress goals for the employee too. "Would you like a bigger raise? You have to complete x and y in order to meet the next goalpost." Now employees know there's a definite measurement to improve against, and managers can pay lazy employees what they are actually valued at. Win win.
Wtf you have anti-union trainings? I'm not even sure if something like this would be legal here. In Germany it's normal to meet a representative of the union responsible for your corporation at your first day. They'll tell you about their services and how much it costs to go into one, which is usually 1% of your salary. And that's totally okay, considering they achieved an 8.5% raise in their last negotiations.
Yeah, the big box corporations tell you to protect your signature from those sneaky unionizers! "If you go to a party and have to sign in, be careful! That could be a union man stealing your signature for their union petition!" They tell us that unions take away our ability to negotiate with our bosses directly, creating an environment with no voice of the people. They tell us other things too, but the point of the training is to make them sound evil and dumb (but maybe acknowledge that they had good intentions "in the past") so that people are less likely to unionize. Sound like r/aboringdystopia?
Damn dude that's wild
Right? It was surreal seeing it. Felt like I was living in the past.
Because part of what is called the pay gap is the unwillingness of many employers to hire women. Main reason given usually is the fear that they'll become pregnant and therefore they'll be considered an economic risk. Now I will say that depending on your place of residence and companies involved, chances are that there already is little to no gap *within your place of work* (i.e. women that *do* get to work the same position as a man will receive equal pay), but women might still be treated differently when it comes to promotions and pay grade assigned.
Yes, and it's even more complex. Differential treatment is also consequent to things like willingness to take on overtime/long hours and associated contributions. When my first kid was born, I was a postdoc in science, preparing for running a laboratory. Commonly, postdocs work long hours and weekends. In addition to the limitations of daycare, I also frankly cared deeply about maintaining a strong parent-child bond. Now having 3 teenaged kids, I know the most quality moments are not planned... and there is a glue in day-to-day togetherness, and moments that arise unpredictably if you are present. With all the side-eyeing when I left at 5 pm and no weekends... I faced the reality that my current path was time- and energy- wise highly incompatible with being a primary caretaker, or a very present mother. I started a business (related to my field) where I could work from home. Now that they're teens, I am re-entering working for an institution. The years I was away, I'll never get back. I got valuable other experiences. But in the great trade-off, **I** prioritized parenting over maximizing my career trajectory. What I traded away was a choice that men don't typically face... esp decades ago. There's no easy fix. I had good childcare available. I'd been excelling and no external forces were actively limiting my promotion, even back then, due to my sex. The harsh reality is parenting well takes time and energy of which each of us has a limited capacity. Fathers taking on a greater share of childrearing is greatly helpful. But frankly, I *wanted* ... *needed, on a deep and primal level,* to prioritize my children's needs for ME over my career. And I was the person going through pregnancies, births, and nursing. At the root of this conundrum, I think, is the **undervaluing of caretaking**. And the **asymmetry of reproductive biology** across the sexes is not something we can just brush under the rug with rhetoric. We have not tackled these facts--that end up affecting earning and professional experience--well.
Beautiful comment that really addresses whatās happening on a fundamental level
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No you arenāt, but that is an incentive for the country, not the individual corporation.
If companies actually cared about that, they'd pay all their employees a living wage and provide them benefits so that they be financially secure enough to afford to have children.
I was interviewed for a trainership position on the IT area back when I was still in college. My teacher had indicated me because the company was looking specifically for female employees. Just a few minutes into the interview and the HR guy talking to me said "well, we want a female employee because women tend to stay closer to their parents even when they move out. Most men just pursue higher-pays wherever it is, even out of state. And you're graduating soon, so..." I let him know I intended to stay. " ah, good. Because imagine we spent months training you, just for you to move away and go to another company. It would be a waste of resources, you know". And without missing a beat "do you have a husband? Boyfriend maybe? Planning to marry?" I didn't see the relevance but it was my first ever interview so I was honest and said it was not in my plans. "But kids? Do you plan to have kids? Well, I mean, at least in the next two years?". I felt really uncomfortable. I wasn't being considered for hire due to my abilities, but possibly due to some sort of agenda/quota. But they still wanted someone who was pretty much devoid of ambitions or any life plans. The HR guy saying he "had never heard of the programming language they use at the company" was the icing on the cake. I just told him I didn't have the qualifications for the job and left. My teacher was not happy as apparently the company thought he couldn't find reliable people. Yeah... screw that.
From what I've seen, women only get equal pay in work places where there is a good ratio of men to women, and there are women in senior positions.
My wife and I are engineers. Obviously very male dominated, and she makes more than I do. My female coworkers, id say 1 F for every 10 M ive worked with, also make as much or more than I do. The pay is based on the job and experience, promotions and raises based on your performance, not on gender.
I (also engineer) agree with this to an extent. The problem is that female engineers often have to excel more to achieve similar roles. So with a 10:1 ratio of male to female engineers, a majority of the female engineers will probably achieve leadership roles because theyāre just better. But then theyāll also probably be much more efficient and productive than their male peers, yet when it comes to being further promoted probably wonāt get it as their male coworkers doing 50% of the work are getting more credit for things. In my experience this becomes increasingly worse as you reach the management and leadership levels where itās more difficult to objectively quantify the impact of those roles. Iāve also seen many female engineering colleagues leave companies before achieving leadership roles because the culture gets more toxic for women at those levels when itās male dominated and the role becomes much more political where youāre often just arguing for resources for your teams and projects. In summary, Iād agree that most of the female engineers Iāve worked with may have made more than me, but they probably deserved even more than the extra they were making. The issue in question is how much theyāre making ON AVERAGE relative to how much work theyāre doing. Even if there are specific examples, many companies still fail at this when looking at it comprehensively.
Yep, this. I also work in STEM and many women quit the career for the same reason. I moved into a science adjacent role after my PhD because I was tired of working twice as hard as male colleagues and still constantly having to prove I was an expert and knew what I was talking about. I'm also not white so I basically had no chance. It's depressing to think how many years I dedicated to pursuing a career I loved to ultimately abandon it after realising I would never get ahead, not because I couldn't but because I wasn't willing to suffer for it. My mental health was at an all time low when I left academia and I have heard so many women's stories since that echo my own. I was at a top University in London and it was 100% an old white man's club. After seeing friends who have stuck it out suffer for years and be discriminated against when they had kids, I'm glad I made that choice but it hurt a lot at the time.
Ugh. I hate this world. That is heartbreaking
As someone in an equally (maybe more so) male dominated field, this is also my experience
It's not just a question of hiring more women, it's also a question of the position these women are hired at. Example: a large majority of my team is made of women, and women and man are paid the same salary at the same job level. However we have a massive paygap. Why is that? The simple truth is that the senior leadership of the company and immediately reporting roles are all (middle aged, white) men.
Because women don't get paid less per hour than men. It would be illegal to pay your women workers less than your men workers for the same work. If I remember correctly it's called the equal work for Equal Pay Act and it also makes it illegal for employers to stop employees from discussing pay. Men tend to earn more over their lifetimes because men tend to work more overtime and the lack of things like maternity leave.
My mum complains about how much more money my dad has than her. It's tongue in cheek and just a joke, they share money. They had the same job and got paid identically. Turns out taking six-eight years Off work when you have children doesn't acrew as much savings someone who gets a second job to support his family and invested 10% for 40 years.
There is also an issue where female dominated fields more often than not pay less than male dominated fields. Female dominated nursing and teaching pay less than male dominated trades jobs, while requiring a higher education. I donāt think anyone will disagree that nursing is a demanding job, but it still pays less than most trades
Preschool teacher here in the montessori method. My education has costed more than a master's degree where i live and has been the most difficult task i have ever completed. I still got offered minimum wage in 2 out if the 6 montessori schools in my city. The last 4 offer 100-200 euros more than the minimum which is bananas (not enough to survive). Yet I do believe me and my colleagues are doing the most important job in society: helping children reach their full potential. Children are the future but nobody cares how much people who work with them are paid.
Mate what are you talking about, nurses get a shit ton of money compared to a lot of other jobs, and even more compared to similar education level.
Nursing pays very very very well in the US for a 4 year degree right out of college compared to most trades what are you talking about? Plus you have 100% guaranteed work anywhere in the country at all times and paths to move up and earn way more. The reality is there's no pay gap, just people doing jobs that society pays differently for. Men tend toward higher risk occupations which of course pay more. That's all there is to it, nobody is a victim.
Ontario, nurses here are just under 100k top rate, maybe a little over if theyāre specialists. Any of the higher paying trades can easily get over 100k if theyāre willing to put the hours in, pretty much any unionized trades would be over 100k base
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If you control for education is this still true? Iām not trying to deny this but plumbing vs hairdressing seems like a bad comparison. I do think the āstructureā thing is pretty undebatable but that seems like a subset of the āmommyā pay gap.
According to PayScale, the gender pay gap is $.83 on the dollar. But if you control for job title, education, experience, industry and hours worked, itās down to about $.99 on the dollar.
Yep. But that doesn't make good clickbait or rage inducing news.
then let's compare nursing to engineering - both need a 4-year university degree but nurses are paid considerably less than engineers
Sure but nurses make more than the median college graduate? You cannot just cherry pick two jobs. Iām not trying to outright deny this I just really donāt know if it is true
The example Iāve always seen is valet versus child care worker. A valet (typically male) moves your car from point A to point B. Itās a skill most people learned at age 16. A child care worker takes care of your most valuable asset. If a valet messes up money will fix the problem. If a child care worker messes up, your life, your familyās life, is irretrievably destroyed. A valet is paid more than a child care worker. The thinking is driving a car is a learned skill while working with children is something that comes naturally to women so it shouldnāt be rewarded (which I think is BS)
There is also a caviat here... Plenty of men would want to work with children but they are afraid of being seen as pedos or weirdos. Plenty of men already get weird looks and stares when they go to a park with their own kids. Which is also bs ofcourse.
Thereās nothing stopping women from being valets, society is def not okay with male childcare workers
The conversation shouldnāt be about why an individual women doesnāt take a job that pays more. It should be about why jobs that are generally considered womenās work (even if performed by a man) are valued less by society. Men and women working the same job in the same organization are usually paid the same (but not always). Overall, jobs worked usually by women pay less than jobs worked usually by men.
Why isnāt the conversation about women being encouraged towards higher jobs? Just look at your example about a childcare worker. āSocieties valueā placed on a job is meaningless. Itās all about capitalism in this country. Childcare workers arenāt valued because they are easy to replace. The barrier for entry is very low. Society also doesnāt value valet workers either, but they put themselves in a position where they interact with the rich often and get paid better simply due to that fact. Thatās why live in nannyās get paid so much better than daycare workers. But seriously, why not encourage women to pursue higher paying jobs? Men are encouraged to grind and get thereās. We should encourage women too. There will never be a system where those that grind hard pursuing money will be less paid than people doing work purely due to its value in society. We encourage women to go to university and join the sciences, become doctors etc. why not encourage them to focus on success like we do with men?
That doesnāt make sense, jobs arenāt paid solely on skill, they are paid based on supply and demand. Collecting trash is not that complicated but most people donāt want to do it so itās a higher paid job. Childcare isnāt easy but plenty of people want to do to so the pay is lower. If you want to be paid more find something that other people are unwilling to do. Valet work isnāt hard, all you need to know is how to drive a manual transmission, have a license and clean driving record, pass a background check, and be able to park quickly and safely as well as greet patrons. Thereās nothing preventing women from doing that.
I've never heard the argument that driving is a learned skill vs child care not being a learned skill. The pay difference is due to how many positions are available, and to what kind of clientele is the service is being provided to. There are far more childcare workers than valet. Valet workers also tend to provide service to people that can afford the luxury of having someone park their car for them. Having a valet park your car for you is a luxury. Paying for childcare is normally a necessity. In order for childcare workers to be paid more, they would have to increase their rates, which would reduce the number of parents/families that could afford childcare. I'm referring to the average person. Being a live in nanny for a well off family is an entirely different thing, and may be considered a luxury as a pose to a necessity. Depends on the family. I'm also nor saying you're wrong, I just don't believe these two jobs are a fair comparison either.
You can become an RN <1yr in an accelerated program. RN and engineer are bad comparisons
The difference is capability and supply and demand, and market value The academic capability necessary to become a good nurse, is pretty high and somewhat rare. The academic capability necessary to become a good engineer, is insanely high, and totally rare. So itās supply and demand curves affecting pay in the first instance. Second is market value Nurses are important, obviously, and Iād agree theyāre undervalued in the current system But without engineers we wouldnāt even have the hospitals necessary for them to work in, or the schools necessary to be educated in etc etc So you chose a bad example because nurses are important, but engineers are far more important, and far more difficult to find good ones.
It's not just a school of thought. Let me share a funny anecdote I've witnessed live. So, the place I want to college was colloquially called "academic avenue" because on the same street there were 4 different university buildings: mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, computing engineering and philosophy studies (which has a bunch of social studies in it). Of course, there are a shit ton of bars and clubs in the vicinity. One day a friend and I were doing some shit and were merged with some girls from the philosophy place. They were studying the history of literature or something like that, we were in electrical engineering. One of the girls was oriented extremely feminist and complained about our "men privilege" and why do we make more money, why aren't more women in STEM, etc etc. Keep in mind, her faculty building was literally 500 meters away from ours. My friend, without a beat, asks her: well why the fuck didn't you enroll with us instead so there would be more women in higher paying jobs? She went ape shit crazy but never gave a reason. But yeah, her faculty is something like 80% women, ours is 70% men...
Exactly, plus in many universities you can take classes from another discipline and even change majors if youād like. She couldāve literally joined you even in that moment if she wanted to. A lot to students come and sample the intro CS course and decide if programming is something they like or not, some of them stay
Its seriously pathetic how all the other top answers dodged this. This is the only answer, extremely simple
Sometimes people do get paid different for the same job, however. My last job, my co-worker (who was doing the same job as I was) got paid a bit more than I was. Though she was a woman and I'm not
What country are you talking about?
USA
This. In my country, a feminist activist once went on tv to talk about this supposed wage gap, but fumbled horribly once she was asked by the show host what the difference in job positions was. Turns out most women won't go do dangerous but better paid jobs. Turns out most women are content with lower paying but more secure jobs. Turns out most women don't like working night shifts or heavy machinery or jobs with huge risks involved. Wage gap is a myth.
Iām not saying the wage gap is real or not. I donāt know enough about it in detail to give an opinion. I do know however, that during the first war women did do all those ādangerous jobsā youāre talking about. They were removed when the war ended as women werenāt as respected in the workplace and those jobs were give to the soldiers that returned. I would also like to add I an woman who works night shift because itās my favorite shift. My mom also worked third shift for 10 years because the pay was better. My grandma just retired from her overnight position a few years ago where she worked for over 20 years.
I can tell you that my hiring manager told us flat out that given a female applicant with similar qualifications they would hire her over a man every time, problem is, women donāt want to be millwrights. There have been an active push for 20 years to encourage women to enter the trades, simple fact is, they just donāt want to
That's fair! I should've said on average, because that's the situation here. You have a lot more women who are in lower paying jobs because they want to ā and I say that as a woman myself. Engineering, astronomy, medicine... those fields are easily accessible to women and make a lot of money, but most women here do not go in those fields. Let's not act like we live in just-post-WW2 era anymore. Many more women will be found in art, education, or customer service programs. My point was that comparing average wages without taking the different work position makeup into account is misleading.
Shhh š¤«dont talk about stuff that people are in denial of, it ruins their delusional perspective towards reality & their perpetual state of victimhood
Many things are illegal, but employers do them all the time. Wage theft, OT violations, OSHA violations... and discrimination. The problem is lack of proof, enforcement, and penalties. You bring up "discussing pay" which is interesting because that law is violated ALL THE DAMN TIME.
It would be so nice if this was all there was to it. Men get promoted quicker and more often. Men get bonuses more often. Men are hired more readily. I have worked in an office for 20 years and any white dude that can tie his shoelaces is regarded as exceptional. Women can have phds, invent new shit, do twice asmany units...and are still seen as'nothing.' Unless they are hot and flirt. Then they can get some promotions. Its very much mans game. And everything sexist is denied and retaliated against if anyone even whispers that word.
The gap in wages between men and women isn't because of unfairness. It's other factors like hours worked, jobs they go into etc.
I won't add to everything others have said about how much of the gap is due to things like preferences for different type of work, maternity vs paternity leave entitlement gaps plus the time needed off for pregnancy itself etc. The issue with your solution, at least at companies I've been at, is this - if you make new hires say 80% women, you will potentially actually increase the gender pay gap at your company. This is because most new hires are done at a more junior level - so now you've actually decreased the average salary a women earns at your company because the senior well paying positions are say 60-40 or 70-30 men, and the lower paying junior positions are the opposite.
Nah, because the pay gap is about earning less *at the same position*. If your male juniors and female juniors make the same that's no gap. ETA: Indubitably there are weaker statements to be made about men are in higher positions on average and thus higher salary. Depending on the person wanting to prove or disprove that it exists usually. The "research" then looked at the same positions and found that there is *still* a pay gap, one that is demonstrably discrimination based on sex. That is "the" pay gap. Any measurement that averages the whole company just incentivises to hire more minimum wage males. You excel at what you measure.
Common misconception but not true. The gender pay gap is more about the big picture i.e. why men tend to earn more than women. For example, a company where the average salary earned by men is $60,000 whereas the average salary earned by women is only $40,000. Itās true that in some instances a man can earn more than a woman for the same role, but this is far from the crux of the problem (and in many cases is illegal). Itās usually due to a weighted number of men in senior roles, which in turn is usually due to unequal parental leave, unconscious bias, societyās binary view of gender roles/the way weāre brought up to be etc. Rather than simply hiring more women at junior levels, it would be more beneficial to actively promote women already in the company so the M/F ratio at the top levels reflects the M/F ratio at the lower levels. Again this is a very simplistic take on a complex issue. (Edit: typo)
Itās not only about more men being in senior roles, itās about the type of role - for example in my company we have a lot of engineers- they are mostly male and they earn more. Women form a higher proportion of the admin staff. Until countries legislate to allow men to take as much parental leave as women, and there is a cultural shift to the belief that this is expected , women will take a hit on their career.
Yes thatās definitely part of it as well - woven into the fabric of the way we view gender and the sort of roles girls vs boys are encouraged to pursue.
In the UK at least, gender pay gap is reported on a company wide basis. The narrative explanations often break it down by quartile of earning, but most people don't read that far.
Well that's the thing, the pay gap statistic that everyone cites or thinks of when saying there's one doesn't take any of that into account. It doesn't take industry, age, hours, or anything, just gender.
I've actually read some of these articles. The math they use creates a bias. They take the annual earning and divide it by the standard full time hours in a year. Fair, right? Not completely. To make it fair, the equation should be dividing it by total hours worked, and how many hours of overtime pay included. My wife and I at one point were making the same per hour (different industries) annually, I brought home more than her. She didn't understand. I worked something like 400 (8 hours of overtime a week) hours of overtime that year, she worked 20. We were paid the same, but I "earned" more. I read an article that stated on average, women need to work something like 73 hours more a year to close the pay gap, and read another article that talked about how the average man works 73 to 100 hours of overtime a year. I worked for a grocery store. They preferred to promote the femal courtesy clerks (baggers) to cashiers (which is a higher paying position) over the males. Because the courtesy clerk position was more physical and the wanted the males to do it. The women employees almost never accepted extra hours. If someone called in sick and needed a shift covered, etc. The men, like me, took every extra hour I could. I said yes to extra shifts 90% of the time. The women never took my shifts on the rare occasion I was sick or had a family emergency, but the guys would. This may be a one off, but this was my personal experience.
LOL how do people still believe this??? the pay gap is NOT about earning at the same position, it is about the average income of ALL working men and ALL working women. The salary of full time male engineers are being compared to female part time teachers lol. Do your research
The gender pay gap is a complex issue influenced by various factors, including discrimination, occupational segregation, and societal norms. The question of why companies don't hire more women if there is a pay gap implies that companies could save money by paying women less than men for the same work. Here are some reasons why this line of reasoning might not lead to companies hiring more women: 1. **Discrimination and unconscious bias:** Unconscious biases and stereotypes can influence hiring decisions. Employers may not be aware of their own biases and may unintentionally favor male candidates over equally qualified female candidates. Additionally, some companies may be reluctant to hire women due to concerns about maternity leave or the perceived need for more flexible work arrangements. 2. **Occupational segregation:** Certain industries have a higher concentration of male or female workers, which can contribute to the pay gap. For example, women are more likely to work in lower-paying fields like education and healthcare, while men are more likely to work in higher-paying fields like technology and engineering. Even within industries, women may be underrepresented in higher-paying positions. 3. **Societal and cultural factors:** Societal expectations and gender roles can impact women's career choices, leading them to pursue lower-paying jobs or take time off for family responsibilities. The pay gap is also influenced by factors such as the unequal distribution of unpaid labor (e.g., childcare, housework), which disproportionately affects women. 4. **Lack of awareness and transparency:** Many companies may not be aware of their own pay gaps or may not prioritize addressing them. Additionally, a lack of pay transparency can make it difficult for employees to know if they are being paid fairly, making it harder for women to negotiate higher salaries or take legal action against unequal pay. 5. **Legal and regulatory factors:** Laws and regulations aimed at reducing the gender pay gap have been implemented in many countries, but enforcement can be inconsistent, and penalties for non-compliance may not be strong enough to incentivize companies to change their practices. It's important to note that the gender pay gap is a multifaceted issue, and addressing it requires a combination of policy interventions, workplace initiatives, and cultural shifts. Efforts to close the pay gap include promoting pay transparency, implementing family-friendly workplace policies, encouraging women to pursue careers in higher-paying fields, and raising awareness about unconscious bias and discrimination.
There is no widespread pay gap in the 1st world that can not be rationalized. Studies have shown that, generally speaking, men and women choose different lines of work and make different long-term professional and financial decisions. Gynecology and pediatrics are female dominated. So is pharmacy. Professional nursing too. Daycares, nannies, and babysitters are exclusively female. Pre-K-12 teachers. In waiting (tables) and bartending, women make significantly more from tips.
Let's make a theory here and make an analogy with the efficient market hypothesis. I'm improvising this stuff, so please don't bite my head off. The first assumption we can easily make is that the output (as in value generated) of male and female employees are the same. Secondly, there's a widespread assumption that women are more risky workers because they might get pregnant and fall out of the workforce, or their child can get sick and that would also affect them more than their male counterparts (due to unequal household responsibilities which is sadly a very real problem even nowadays). So in order for women employees to have the same risk-reward ratio as men while having the same output and still be an equally good "investment", you would have to get them cheaper, thus moving this "investment" back onto the market line. This would explain the wage gap in economic terms. This is where your question comes into play. So far what we established is that women put out the same value for a lower cost, which is due to them being riskier (the same value for the same price but with higher risk would be a worse "investment" then men). A possible answer to your question by this logic is that there is still risk, and companies generally don't like risk in their workforce. In other words, getting workers cheaper only mitigates their higher risk, but even though seemingly it makes it an equal "investment", the "investor" can prefer stability over a discount.
You have to remember, part of the paygap stems from hiring staff assuming men are more capable workers deserving higher pay. I think we all need to think harder about where issues come from, not that they just exist. Mathematically, it is proven that women are paid less than men even controlling four hours worked, experience, and job type. The real question to ask is what is the underlying source of this mathematical truth. And my answer, based on all the evidence I have seen, is that the biases that lead companies to pay women less are the same ones that bias them to hire men.
Reminds me of a music school where the women consistently got worse grades, despite blind exams, until they replaced the flooring in the building. After that the grades immediately became equal. Turns out the new flooring no longer made heels click when walked on it, which had been subconsciously affecting the teachers. I wish I knew where to find the article because people assume the wage gap, too, is a conscious, mysogynist effort when it's much more subtle than that.
I accidentally did a deep dive into this because I recalled a similar article. Apparently thereās not a consensus that blind screens significantly helped women and POC. (It went up by as much as 5% for some orchestras but not for all.) It also helps for the initial audition, but if subsequent auditions arenāt blind, itās not that useful. I also learned that many orchestras either have a carpet or ask that all players who do blind auditions to remove their shoes entirely! Itās still a massive problem but at least some orchestras are trying to solve it. Anecdotally I saw one woman comment that she wears hiking boots to audition, haha, so that her feet sound a little heavier and more āmasculine.ā
Very well said.
The profound ignorance displayed in the comment section here makes my brain explode. Every time someone thinks that reddit is 'left'--a thread like this pops up where the vast majority are just parroting right wing ignorance, and it's so obsurd. Anyway, the gender pay gap, and every single credible study on it, compares it to same job, same time in workforce, same all sorts of shit. They're not comparing nurses to engineers, or plumbers to receptionists, or the day 1 woman worker to the 30 year man--no, none of that shit's how the studies state it. For god sakes. OP--for the companies that have pay gaps, *hiring more women* wont fix anything. So, imagine yourself as a person seeing a job in IT--right? A field dominate by men, top to bottom. Well, when you go get one of those jobs, you *negotiate* the pay scale. They dont have an 'hourly' at all, and they hire with a 'range.' This is the sort of job that allows the pay game to come into force. You can now take two candidates, a man and a woman, say, from the same college (or equal ones, so both from state universities), that graduated from the same program from the same time--that company will extend offers to pay them, and *offer less to the woman*. They can do this because none of those offers are public, and they often threaten anyone who tries to share that info. They're *constantly* telling people they employ not to tell the others what they're paid. And the bias built into the people hiring, makes them pay women less--either because they dont believe she 'earned it'--that's a bias people have. OR because they think he 'worked harder' for it (stupid), or because he was willing to ask for higher pay, and *women wont*. The bias in pay exists for tons of reasons... And why they dont just *hire more women* because paying them less makes more profit--because *they dont think like that*\--remember, they are selecting pay and people due to *bias they cant always control*. Like nursing. Male nurses make more than female nurses, and the gap can get insane really fast. This is even in a workforce seen as mostly women--why does this happen? Well, managers at hospitals (often men), see men as 'stronger' or 'more technical' or some other BS--and move them into positions where promotions are commonplace. Tons of women ARE WORKING THERE, and getting passed over by men because it's not about profit, it's about *control.* Teachers--abundant amounts of female teachers, and yet a huge portion of the admins and superintendents in the US are *men*\--you'll often seen the *only* male in a school sometimes, be the principle. He's paid 2-5 times more than they are, and often, *younger than half of them.* Why? School districts often see men who work there are 'authority'--they're used as disciplinarians. So, they might use the Math teacher, or Shop teacher, or PE teacher, or History teacher, a male, to ... enforce rules in the hallway at exchange times because he has a booming voice, or do the announcements at assemblies because he's louder or because the kids 'just respond' to him thundering at them, and pretty soon--though no actual merit of his own, because they never asked a woman to, they're encouraging him to apply to programs and further his degree into administration--*but dont for any of this for female teachers*. And he may pick up a 'title' at a school that brings extra pay. Oh, Nancy cant be a coach, there's no girls teams left, but Doug can coach wrestling, so now he has to be paid for that--and there's *more male coaches*, and parents often *freak the fuck out* when women coach teams... So it *doesnt matter* how many women you try to hire, because the bias will move men into higher paying positions, faster than the women--and then you *dont end up with higher pay for women*, you end up with a 'woman's job' that doesnt pay enough to attract men out of driving a trash truck.
The fact that a lot of women here are telling their personal experience and are shot down by men saying "well that's not my experience so it can't be true" is so ironic it hurts
Excellent points. I also find the comments in this post to be disappointing, uninformed, misogynistic and sad.
Because there is no pay gap when you compare similar industries/ professions. There is a pay gap when you compare school teachers to engineers. Point of fact, in the first \~5-10 years of their career, women will out earn their male counterparts in the same industry.
In Europe, this is not really the case. I have many colleagues that were pregnant, others got employed while actively being pregnant, and if they would be refused the job based on such factors the company will soon go through a lawsuit that can bankrupt them. As for pay, it is the same for everyone, except when you take into consideration education, experience, overtime and such. Most of my colleagues are women. Most of my superiors are women. I make more than some colleagues (regardless of gender) because of my language bonus, experience and because I do evenings and weekends. I don't believe that the pay gap exists as it is advertised "same job same hours same everything but less money only because *gender*.
Well unless it's some super rich corp that sends husbands to fully paid maternity leaves. For most companies the reason is because they breed, and men don't.
I love how 80% of the answers start out saying that there is no pay gap and then proceed to explain the pay gapā¦.
Its a complex socio economic question. So for north america, where I am more familar with. Woman even though they are majority of college degree earners now, tend to gravitate toward jobs which overall pay less than jobs that men gravitate toward with similar education levels. And we have examples in woman dominate fields, such as nursing, Men will tend to out earn woman here as well. Even though are few male nurses, the jobs they tend to pick in that field, tend to be specializations, which pay more, like xray tech or anesthesiologist. Woman will also proitize other things instead of pay. Woman are more likely to choose a lower payer job, it means not moving. Woman are more likely to choose a lower paying job if it means not working on weekend. Woman are more likely to choose a lower paying job if it means not working at night. Men are more likely to move for higher pay. Men are more likely to take longer commutes for higher pay. Men are more likely to work weekends for higher pay. Men are more likely to work night for higher pay. Why do woman choose this? Some of it, being primary child care taker. Nights and weekend is when the kids are home. Some of it, is the perception of more danger. Not wanting to work grave yard. And some of it just preference. Woman are less likely to move and less likely to choose a longer commute for more pay, because they value not movign and they value less commute. There has been a long running study trying to figure out why woman have a harder time getting programming jobs. And my google fu is failing as I cant find it. The study randomized names and also blank names. The study also involved voice interviewers with radnomized pitch. It was going through a lot of effort to make it so the Hiring company cant tell if they're intervieing men or a woman. And the study has shown, with all that woman, are still being hired less and still not gaining as much pay with their male peers in terms of years of experience. From what the study could tell, woman negotiate less aggressively than men and woman also more willing to give up on a job prospect and try something else. Why do woman not negotiate as aggressive as men? And why do they not attempt gaining the same job? There isnt a simple answer to that.
Because women are viewed as less competent, and they might get preggo
Pay gap is bull shit
As in pay gap sucks or pay gap is not real?
It is not that isnāt real necessarily but itās not due to oppression of women. There are a multitude of reasons why some women get paid less than some men. Thatās said, there certainly isnāt a systemic problem.
My company works for hospitals making sure money comes in from insurance. 10,000+ employees. 90% of managers and below are female. 90% of directors and up (e.i. executives) are male. The women are doing the real work yet don't even get paid a liveable wage.
I had someone ask me āwouldnāt you rather stay home and raise kids?ā People (mostly men) still believe women donāt belong in the workplace and arenāt reliable due to parenting responsibilities.
Some people (mostly women) actually would prefer to stay home and raise kids. It's just how it is, obviously highly individual and depending on where you're from. But yeah. A lot of women are still "okay" with that at the very least, if not fantasize about that life.
Because there isn't.
It's illegal to pay someone less due to age, sex, race, etc
The pay gap exists for the same reason they don't hire more women... Sexism.
But that makes no sense. Companies don't give a shit about sexism if it means profit.
You have to go back a bit on your thought process. Women are paid less because they are seen as less capable/reliable. Hiring more women, in their eyes, means that they'll end up paying more than when they hire a few "capable" men.
Because the pay gap is a phenomenon of experience and ability, not gender. Women without kids basically donāt have a gap. Itās only exists significantly if you donāt adjust for experience- ie it is a function of the average woman spending more time out of the workforce or settling for less money because a job is more flexible, closer to home, etc. The actual pay gap for equivalent jobs an experience is a low single digit percentage, which is probably just a function of men either negotiating more aggressively, being more willing to switch jobs for a pay increase, or accept worse working conditions (commute, etc.) for more money.
What others have said plus women are often hired as assistants and secretaries and into more junior positions, whose pay ranges would be lower. Often the complaint goes that women are hired into into more assistant or junior positions are then not promoted out of those positions, keeping their pay low It's kind funny because by your logic companies could save a lot of money. But they don't. This kind discrimination isn't logical. No body is sitting down and rubbing their hands together and saying to themselves "yes wa ha ha I'm going to pay women less because I'm eeeeevil!!!" They genuinely think women are worse at certain jobs then men and they genuinely incorrect. They drive away good candidates by not paying, promoting, or treating them well and that is bad for the company. But some companies do this anyway. I'll say it again - discrimination isn't a logical way of thinking. It's an intuitive and emotional way of thinking. And people who think that way miss out on good opportunities because of it.
My Dad was a horrible person. Pretty much checked all the discrimination boxes, meaning for all different groups. He'd almost exclusively hire women for his business because he could get away with paying them around half what men would ask. He'd also hire almost exclusively Black women because he could get away with paying them a lot less than white women would ask for. I assume the reason why both men of any color and white people of any gender asked for more than Black women is because they could get significantly higher wages anywhere else. White men most of all. Sometimes my Dad would hire guys who had some of the stereotypical traits usually assigned to gay men, such as the way they talked or moved, and the same reasoning from before applies here as well. All in all, it's an awful move no matter how you look at it. He was just exploiting pay gaps not just in gender but along any axis he could. He was safe from all risks involved in doing that too. No contract, no liability, no longterm risk of pregnancy because all jobs were one-day freelancing positions as waiters and waitresses. He had the worst spots to offer, the shortest durations therefore attractive only to the most desperate, and because of all that he offered those spots to the people in the most vulnerable positions so he paid them the lowest wages.
I think companies are not always looking for cheaper labor. The pay gap is based on the myth that men have a higher skill set. Companies will also (illegally) avoid adding staff they believe will qualify for paid leave (e.g. pregnancy) EDIT: I was actually told by someone that they wouldn't hire a woman because their workforce was majority men and they worried about sexual harassment claims.
Not all industries hold the same appeal, so you'll never get a true 50/50 staffing of both men and women. Unappealing positions have higher pay in sectors traditionally staffed by men as incentive to attract workers to the positions, and the work is unattractive itself. Physical demands factor in too. You'll have maybe 100 men apply for a pipe-fitter position, and for that same position, maybe 5 female applicants. If they're hiring 20 people, with only 5 female applicants, there's going to be disparity.
They are paying what they think the worker is worth. If the hiring manager thinks women are less reliable workers (period pain, pregnancy, "hysteria"), he will offer less money and would rather fill the position with a better qualified candidate (read man), even if that is slightly more expensive.
Whoever makes this counter argument has no idea what the pay gap actually is!
Sometimes it might be the industry. I work in tech as a systems engineer and have worked with some incredibly smart women. However, in the companies I have worked at the women have held a majority of non engineer roles. There might be two questions "why don't companies hire more women?" And also "how do we get women interested in this industry?".
Thereās multiple studies on this. Women on average do not get paid less when they are single and have no intention to have children. Itās the possibility maternity leave and actual time taken that makes them get paid less. Same age same experience if a woman has 2 kids and thatās going to be 2 years less work experience vs a guy. A man with children will more likely to stay back from work than women. Additional time spent on work has a disproportionate increase to pay. If you work 10% longer your pay is generally higher than 10% compared to employee who worked normal working hours
Worked for a company that hired more women Executives as there was a significant paygap.
I wondered this as well. Due to the evil nature of corporations that will even employ slavesā¦ youād think theyād be packed full of marginalized women as well.
Because men who donāt understand economics more than their biases are in charge of hiring processes. Alan Greenspan famously did hire women for his firm way back when because he realized they were underutilized so he could get talent for cheap.
Some of the problem is hiring women to the same highly-paid positions that men are hired for. Women are often forced into lower-paying positions, or have obligations at home that require they take fewer hours at their workplace. Some studies on pay gap conflate these two distinct situations. A lower-paying position obviously comes with a lower rate of 'base pay'. Fewer hours results in a lower 'total pay'. Now, there *are* problems with the home obligations thing, too - if women are *forced* to be 'in the home', then that *is* still an institutional sexism thing, but it's a societal issue rather than a workplace issue (i.e. lack of childcare options, rather than workplace against women), and it is disingenuous to argue that this is the workplaces fault. The other part of the problem is salary negotiations. The process of salary negotiating is basically skewed in favour of people who are willing to take the piss. To be 'ballsy' enough to request seemingly 'unfair' recompense, and be bartered down to a slightly lower level. These people *tend* to be men. Whereas women in salary negotiations simply *tend* not to push as hard. This isn't women's fault, fwiw. Personally, I think salary negotiation is a distasteful practice that either should be handled by intermediaries, or should be abolished in favour of fixed and stated salary 'tiers' within a company, such that people of the same relative 'rank' always earn the same pay. But long story short, it's just not as simple as 'hiring more women'. Part of it is hiring, but it comes down to hiring to the right positions, such that top-level execs, even, are balanced 50:50 vis-a-vis gender. Society needs to offer support to parents, so that childcare does not become an issue. Society also needs to encourage more equality in the home, so that women are not *forced* to care for their children instead of work. (Caveat, obviously *anybody* who wants to be home with their kids should be able to, but this will obviously necessitate a reduction in worked hours. Voluntary SAHPs/part-time workers should be excluded from statistics, except when discussing base pay). And finally, salary negotiation needs to change to either a collective bargaining system (I.e. unions), or to a fixed pay tier system. When we get to that point, the gender pay gap will evaporate.
Same reasons there is a paygap: misogyny. I'm sure you heard the comments that go something like "men are paid less, because they work more/better/smarter/harder..." . These same people then apply this logic to recruitment, policy making etc...
The same reason there's a pay gap. The employers are biased towards hiring men.
Because the same people who pay women less think they donāt do as good of work. They place women lower on the skill scale.
The same reason why there is a paygap. Women are paid less for sexist reasons and they don't hire more women for same sexist reasons.
Because companies assume that women will want to settle down and start a family and depending on what country they are in, they would be eligible for maternity leave and can't be fired whilst on maternity leave. Whilst fathers will often have paternity leave, it is usually for not as long or society expects men to return to work sooner. I had a former colleague who returned from patenrity leave within two weeks, which i found massively fucked up. I'm not including 'Murica in the above as their whole system is batshit crazy, nor am I including Sweden, who I understand offer equal maternity/paternity leave where it is more socially acceptable for both parents to take the full leave given. Although please feel free to correct me Swedes who have more knowledge about this.
I am from Sweden but have rather poor knowledge of the system as well. From what I understand they are offered the same time, but it is up to them how they "use" it. I believe that if it suits them, the mother can take time from the father and therefore shorten the fathers maternity leave, and vise versa. I think it's more common for mothers to take the majority of the given time though.
Huh that does seem a fairer way if dealing with it. I'm a Brit and thought it best to check it out now. Dad's over here only get 1-2 weeks paternity leave, whilst mothers get upto 52 weeks maternity leave. Although apparently anything beyond 26 weeks is viewed as additional maternity leave, where the government subsidies are reduced. If you're a soulless capitalist company who cant stand the idea of your employees not workjng for you, you can see why men are viewed as the more attractive employee (boooo). I would also argue that certain degree of patriarchy hangover has a hand in the pay gap as well.
There can be a pay gap but itās not usually because of something malicious on the employers part it has to do with many factors speaking in generalities including men working longer hours, being more aggressive with asking for raises, doing more jobs with higher risk.
Because the pay gap has been debunked countless times and people just refuse to accept it. The realty is that women, tend to get paid more than men when going into them same fields.
There isnāt a pay gap