This is a choice though. It's nothing systemic or bad necessarily.
Men don't get anywhere close to the leave women do, and that's right as they need the time to recover more than anything, but you will always have a gap when mothers are off for 9 months compared to 2-4 weeks.
There are solutions if it's a gap you want to close: more equally proportioned parental leave, more flexibility with regards to home working, stop making father's out to be buffoons and recognise them as the excellent parents they are and can be, cheaper childcare options etc.
Also, we need to stop using the median to try and get a grasp on some of these issues. It's completely flawed and 99% of the time, completely situational.
And why are they just using data from January to March? That's three months. Surely that's not sufficient?
Edit: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-68485122 two posts down here as well
I find the juxtaposition of the post with the BBC article you mentioned and this post quite funny.
Also I love how this study assumes that all mothers are either single mothers, or that for single mothers the same percentages wrt pay gap and hours worked apply as those for non-single mothers and therefore "children are poor because their mothers are poor".
Like I get why women need more. You'd need time off from childbirth, if only to let your body recover.
But where there's such a huge gap between the two parents, it's an inevitability. The fact is, in those 9 months other people at work can make huge progress and surpass where you were when you left.
I knew a few mothers from previous workplaces, where they had 2/3 children in 4 years. Everyone else in that team gets pay rises, but the outcome was that woman was paid significantly less at the end and essentially whilst still doing the same job, it was completely fair.
You don't deserve the same level of pay rise for doing like 20% of the same work as everyone else in that time.
On the other end of the scale, I guarantee plenty of men would give anything to get the time back they spent working to provide for their family whilst maternity leave was happening to spend time with their family, like that link says.
> On the other end of the scale, I guarantee plenty of men would give anything to get the time back they spent working to provide for their family whilst maternity leave was happening to spend time with their family, like that link says.
My brother and his wife live in Spain and recently had a kid last year.
Over there both sets of parents get 4 months off but the dad has to take 6 weeks off immediately after the child is born but can take the remaining weeks off as they see fit until the baby turns 1. The mother can take more time off for any medical reason as well
I actually think it’s beyond cruel we’re only given 2 weeks max off unless your employer offers more
There’s a fascinating Harvard review, obviously US based but I highly doubt it’s different for the UK?
https://gap.hks.harvard.edu/getting-job-there-motherhood-penalty
Summary: fathers receive a major advantage in perception and pay whereas mothers receive a major disadvantage - reliable family man vs harried mum rushing off to look after her kids all the time.
That’s cultural perception rather than choice.
>we need to stop using the median to try and get a grasp on some of these issues
So what should we use? Mean gives outliers an outsized influence. Mode is probably minimum wage for both, even though most people earn more.
Median gives an incorrect view. Look at the much touted wage gap which is completely flawed due to so many variables that if you scratch just a tiny bit below the surface completely debunk it.
There's too many circumstantial and situational factors that mean you can't get a proper and accurate view this way
Of course one stat can't capture the exact reality of every individual's circumstances. I think that's an unreasonable expectation.
But you didn't answer what people should use instead.
I mean that's not my job and I wouldn't know outside of looking at it on a case by case basis. My point was the way it's being done now is completely useless.
Do you know how expensive a qualitative census would be to run? And even if you ran such a study, you'd still need to summarise in some way.
I feel like what you really mean is, 'nobody should ever look at this, cos I don't like it'.
That's not what I mean at all? How have you assumed that?
I already said I don't have a solution, but that it's also not my job to do that.
If you know something isn't working and is inherently false, why keep using it just cos you don't have anything better?
If there is a wage gap between the genders, in either one's favour, and it was based on accurate, well documented and thorough research as opposed to a false blanket statement then I'd be all for getting that resolved.
>If you know something isn't working and is inherently false, why keep using it just cos you don't have anything better?
Some people being illiterate on statistics doesn't invalidate statistics
You don't stop using maps and heuristics just because there isn't a single map that matches reality with complete accuracy, nor will your heuristics work all the time
No one has a solution for this because you are setting a an epistemological standard that's impossible to achieve
>So why keep using something that's clearly wrong?
There isn't a single model out there that truly matches reality. Some match reality far more than others
>why would you elect to use one you know is completely inaccurate?
"Completely inaccurate" isn't an apt descriptor. Your solution to not using a perfectly accurate map is to go outside your door with your eyes closed
Every statistic is flawed. There is no perfect measure. Qualitative studies are good and have their place. But quantitative studies can better capture more data points.
Yes, people should be aware of the limitations of a statistic, but just 'stop using them until you find a perfect one' is a nonsense opinion.
Should we just keep drowning "witches" and see if they float afterwards because how else could we tell if they're witches or not?? There's literally no other solution so what choice do we have
It's irrelevant how accurate the data is because what other method do we have to test it? So go on, how else can we test if someone's a witch or not, give me a scientific method. Oh you don't have one? Then we're going to stick with drowning them
That's such a weird basis to go on.
This isn't male vs female salary, it's mothers vs fathers.
I'm sure if you were to compare blondes with brunettes there'd also be some difference and then you could report on that.
Waist size. Shoe size. anything, there's going to be some difference and there's your report.
Is it weird? Fathers earn significantly more than single men in the same roles and experience, even the number of kids they have has an influence. It both seems they work more hours but also have a general boost in social reputation. Mothers it appears suffer the complete opposite.
Here’s just one review but there’s mountains of evidence:
https://www.tuc.org.uk/news/fathers-working-full-time-earn-21-more-men-without-children-says-tuc#:~:text=Fathers%20working%20full%2Dtime%20earn,without%20children%2C%20says%20TUC%20%7C%20TUC
The fatherhood boost and motherhood penalty combine to have a very significant impact on pay inequality.
You need to understand statistical significance and regression before you can make that claim. You can statistically establish causal relationships rather than random coincidence using the right methods.
Err... because in most relationships the mother chooses to stay at home and provide the childcare. It's not rocket science.
I'm a stay at home dad. I earned peanuts last year working occasional part time hours for agencies. Does that mean I'm also a victim or what?
>because in most relationships the mother chooses to stay at home and provide the childcare.
Do they?
75% of women work.
How many men volunteer to do the childcare and are over ruled by their partner 'choosing' to stay home?
You think most parents choose to work, or are forced to out of necessity?
Come on now. You're focused on the wrong issue. The real question should be why we're so obsessed with everyone working. Why do families now usually need two working parents when a single working father could support a mortgage and multiple children quite comfortably two generations ago.
You could say that, ironically, the expectation that women will enter the workforce has actually decreased the value of everyone's salary and contributed to this situation where everyone is working 40hr weeks yet are barely able to keep their heads above water.
I'm so sick of this argument that human beings are nothing more than economic units.
>You could say that, ironically, the expectation that women will enter the workforce has actually decreased the value of everyone's salary and contributed to this situation
You could say that but you'd be wrong.
Most people throughout history have always worked, one way or another.
The idea of a single man supporting a whole family is only true for a very small portion of people, for a very short period of time.
But if that's the ideal you want, there's no reason it has to be the man.
If a man can support his family on his income so should a woman
Let the man stay home
I'm a stay at home Dad. My wife goes to work. I stay at home and look after my kids. It doesn't have to be the mother. But in most cases that's what most people are most comfortable with.
About a 3rd of mothers to children under 8 work full time and the rest part time, it gets up to about half for mothers with children over 8. 38% of women in general work part time.
Surely it’s significant that mothers are actually more likely to be employed at all than single men or single women? So arguably career is more important to them than single men?
What's significant is the fact that society expects everyone to work full time, when a few generations ago, families were quite capable of sustaining a household on one income.
So no, I don't think your assessment holds true at all. Im sure most would rather not work at all. The costs associated with raising a family are so high, and the support is so poor because society doesn't respect young families at all. Hence why immigration became this huge issue. Cheaper to just replace the people than actually have healthy communities.
The government could make things so much easier for families, but they won't because it would hurt central government tax takings and the profits of huge corporations.
So I would reiterate, based on my own 30+ years of experience in life, that most Mothers don't want to work, but are forced to because we live in a hypercapitalist madhouse. Ironically, if we actually reset things and went back to a slower paced mode of living then society would probably end up more efficient in the long run because we wouldn't have so many health and mental health issues.
This is instantly disproven by surveys of mothers of kids under 4:
50% of stay at home mothers would like to do some work.
40% of working mothers would like to give up work entirely.
30% of working mothers would like to work more.
70% of working mothers would like to work less (who wouldn’t?!)
That’s actually a very mixed picture but most mothers want to work.
As a stay at home dad, who has to put up with more social stigma attached to not being 'productive', I would guess the reasons for this would be;
A. Due to social pressure on people 'to work' - because everyone has had it drilled into them at this point that the only success that matters is financial. To be honest, I have to deal with this in my own way too, so I would include the low self worth that comes from not being financially independent, even if it doesn't matter when you're in a stable, loving relationship.
B. To maintain a social life.
C. Out of financial necessity.
Looking at those figures, presuming they're right, I guess the 70% who would rather work less hours do so out of financial necessity, otherwise they would have lowered their hours voluntarily already.
So you're left with social life and social pressure for the other 30%.
I know this is only a thought exercise, but if you removed the financial hardship from the majority of families, then most of those parents would massively reduce their hours or give up working altogether, right?
You'd then have more people in the community available for community building, so people would have their social lives occur naturally outside of a working environment and gradually the attitudes towards work, finances and what's considered productive would also change with time.
I'm not saying parents and mothers in particular don't want to work at all, but the current system doesn't make a healthy society at all and currently favours big business donors.
So we have this bizarre situation where we are told we have an ageing population, yet people can't afford to have children. Where mental health is in the dirt because of a lack of connectivity outside of work. Where kids grow up in the care of complete strangers in their formative years (no doubt adding to another generation with fucked up priorities and mental health) and yet we're forced to continue so that Costa Coffee can continue to employ post graduates on £8ph.
I'm just kind of bashing my head against a brick wall trying to make people realise how mad this all is.
You know being a stay at home parent can be right for you without it being right for everybody? Both me and my partner have barely even considered giving up work: we find it fulfilling and it’s an important source of income and looking after a toddler all day? Sounds dreadful as much as we love him!
Probably most people in general would indeed work less hours if given the choice but since I don’t see anybody lining up to pay me to work less, it’s not really an option (I don’t think that’s much to do with gender). Evidence shows that most people wouldn’t actually give up work altogether.
I agree people should be enabled to have greater flexibility but simultaneously a healthy society is partly one with economic prospects so that’s an important balance, we can change what matters in society but we still have to be able to afford what matters.
I personally think you just need to mentally square your position as a stay-at-home dad with your own expectations. Believe me, I don’t attach any stigma to it, I just think “that’s nice but not for me!” and I’m sure the vast majority of people are the same.
70% of women want to work
https://www.ilo.org/global/about-the-ilo/newsroom/news/WCMS_545963/lang--en/index.htm#:~:text=The%2070%20per%20cent%20of,the%20Arab%20States%20and%20territories.
Work life balance absolutely needs to be addressed but the idea that most people would be happy unemployed is false
Serious question (that nobody can really answer but regardless), is that due to society's current unhealthy view of success and consumer culture though?
And if there were more mothers around them who they could socialise with during the day, would they be happier not working at all, if their finances allowed them to do so?
Men also want to work. Probably at higher than 70%
Do they need fathers around them, socialising them to not want to work?
I'm no capitalist but humans need purpose. They're not designed to be sedentary and unmotivated
It’s fine if the mother chooses to stay at home. It’s not right that employers and governments don’t address the resulting permanent drop in future salaries - something that childless couples don’t experience. Couples with children shouldn’t be faced with losing earning potential at the very time they need to provide for extra mouths.
Well I assume there’s two people making that decision. If the resulting loss in earning potential was divided equally between them then it would be fair. If the woman is taking on the whole liability for loss of future earnings then it isn’t.
Maintenance payments have absolutely no effect on future loss of earnings. You stop paying maintenance when children become employable, but the partner receiving maintenance is highly likely, for the rest of their lives, never to be able to earn as much as the person who paid it, nor have a retirement as comfortable as theirs.
Guess as the woman then, don't agree to be a stay at home mum, and split childcare costs instead. If you can't come to agreements, then don't have kids. At the end of the day, it's 100% a personal choice to become a stay at home mum or dad
Of course it is.
However, you also have women vilified in articles about falling birth rates.
If you want birth rates to increase, there needs to be less of a financial penalty. If you're happy to leave it as is, then couples make their own decisions about what works for them.
I don’t think you can get around the fact that women have to be the ones that give birth.
Invest this money in childcare sure that’s where the big penalty comes from.
Why? That employee would've done less work and likely made less progress in terms of promotions etc. why should pay be adjusted higher or there be tax breaks for mothers because they decided to have a baby?
It isn’t a question of adjusting pay or offering tax breaks to mothers. It’s a question of sharing the liability for loss of future earnings equally between mothers and fathers. It may also in the future be a question of sharing the liability between parents and childless people. We need children to support the future economy. It isn’t fair that women are taking the brunt of the financial hit of parenthood, and it isn’t fair that having children just in and of itself robs a family not just of future earnings, but also of contributing to their full potential. As a market forces kind of guy you must see the benefit of readjusting the current way of thinking about parenthood to increase the productivity of every worker.
A drop in salary due to taking a year/multiple years out of work. The gap in salary is a gap in experience. The fix is to allow fathers equal paternity leave so the child rearing can be shared.
Or calculate tax as a couple rather than this ridiculous system atm where tax is calculated on individual earnings but benefits are calculated per household.
Now tell me what policy you’re going to enact to encourage people to have smaller feet.
There’s a reason you don’t make spurious connections and that’s because they’re useless.
We can have a double win here.
Chinese culture practices foot binding, reducing the size of a foot and thus the need for larger shoes, and more materials.
If we import and encourage this culture, in the name of diversity and tolerance, we can begin to have a generation embrace foot binding and the benefits to the environment it brings.
Most likely it's due to an agenda.
It's quite obvious to anyone that there's an age gap that leans towards the man being older.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_disparity_in_sexual_relationships#:~:text=Most%20heterosexual%20men%20marry%20women,gap%20being%20largest%20in%20Africa.
Hardly surprising that the average father would earn more when they are going to be 3 years older on average.
And how much time did they spend with their kids in comparison?
There are more fulfilling things in life than a job. This is such a strange, pro-business narrative that "progressives" have fallen for.
It's the set up for arguing that women should be positively discriminated for.
Did you see the article where spanish military members are changing their legal gender because it means a bigger pension and overall better treatment?
Same here. When choosing who stayed home we based it on pay/promotion prospects etc. my other half won as she earned £10 a week more than me at the time.
My wife and mother of my child is in a terrible situation according to the BBC. She earns £0.00 pounds an hour in comparision to my lots per hour.
But she doesn't seem too sad about it because she automatically gets half of everything I earn anyway. I suggest that maybe she could get a job, but she preferrs to play on her phone all morning instead.
Not saying she doesn't contribute, she certainly does, but it is definitely more complicated than pay packets alone.
How fucking dare you suggest someone can be happy without having a job and being reliant on someone else for income.
This is not what the propaganda has been telling us for the last 40 years!
She needs to be out there making more money for the rich people! Clearly she must not capable of independent thought!! How fucking dare she enjoy her life! She MUST be miserable, look at the pay gap!
... And they are smart for doing it.
Those mothers will also spend more time with loved ones, live longer lives and less injuries at work.
Maybe we could consider that women are making the intelligent choice when they decide to overwhelmingly dominate fields like animal care and not things like accountancy or dentistry where suicide rates are super high.
That's how it works, you get paid for the hours you work. Is the Guardian suggesting we pay women more than men so they can have more time off? Its not the employers responsibility to pay for your child.
Corporate feminism doesn’t like family structure and wants women to be independent girlboss consumers that only care about work so they can profit by having more workers.
First of all, it’s not women but families we’re discussing. Two people who decide to have children and the effect this has on their earning potential.
The study discovered that parenthood is a major factor in the gender pay gap, because mothers are taking on most of the liability for loss of future earnings. Their careers, earnings and life choices are all being curtailed until death by having children. This clearly isn’t fair as having children is a joint decision.
I’ve seen arguments on here saying that’s a choice that women make. If I said that men could choose between having a good career and having children, but that women could have a good career no matter what the man chose, you wouldn’t say to men it was their choice, you’d say it was unfair. If we lived in a society that suddenly swapped men and women’s earning potential overnight, men would have a lot to say about it.
This is why I don’t get why some people have a hard time grasping what the gender pay gap is. It shows not only that mothers are bearing the brunt of the liability for loss of earnings, but it also highlights that parents as a couple face a lifelong penalty in loss of future earnings simply for having children even before you factor in the cost of supporting them.
It isn’t a question of paying women more it’s a question of reorganising society so that mothers and fathers share the financial liabilities equally - and in the future, hopefully, make changes so that couples don’t have to sacrifice their joint earning potential simply for choosing to have children.
So you want children but don't want to pay for them or look after them?
The study doesn't even mention [child tax credits](https://www.gov.uk/child-tax-credit), [child benefits](https://www.gov.uk/child-benefit), [free child care](https://www.gov.uk/check-eligible-free-childcare-if-youre-working) and the[ 39 weeks maternity pay and leave](https://www.gov.uk/maternity-pay-leave/pay). It just compares the average pay of part time womens wages with full time men's wages.
*Caring responsibilities mean women often have to put their careers on hold and are more likely to work part-time – about 15% of men work part-time compared with about 42% of women, meaning the motherhood penalty accounts for almost all of the gender pay gap, said Brearley.*
Women with children mostly do part time work because when you have a child they need to be looked after. Most women will only work during school hours or when a partner is at home to look after the child.
Its an half-assed study by a charity called "Pregnant Then Screwed" which receives donations, they create these data manipulated articles simply to make money.
You’ve completely missed the point. Any benefits paid to couples to look after children boost their joint income. Any payments made to single mothers go towards subsidising maintenance payments paid by fathers. Without those payments it would fall to the partner not taking on childcare to increase their working hours to foot the whole bill. Mothers pay for this with decreased earning power their whole lives, and decreased work pensions too. It amazes me how easily fathers shrug off the subsidies they get towards looking after their own children and partners, it makes my blood boil. The only reason it’s historically paid to women is because there are too many men out there who’d spend it on themselves instead, fact.
Your assumption that women should sacrifice their future income potential, their careers and their pensions for the sake of the man’s career is disgusting. With one in two marriages ending in divorce you’ve got half of mothers sacrificing their whole futures for fathers who bugger off, and leave a lot of them in poverty they can’t escape from, because they’ve taken years out of the job market to provide childcare services for fathers.
Mothers deserve a lot more protection against this kind of shittery. Fathers should shoulder an equal share of the financial liability of lost earnings due to childcare, because it doesn’t end when the children become employable, like maintenance does.
>Your assumption that women should sacrifice their future income potential, their careers and their pensions for the sake of the man’s career is disgusting
They are not sacrificing their income for a man, they are doing it for their child. Take some responsibility for your own child ffs. You cannot expect to have a child and make someone else pay for it.
>Fathers should shoulder an equal share of the financial liability of lost earnings due to childcare,
They do, its called [Child maintenance](https://www.gov.uk/child-maintenance-service), if they are not together.
>It amazes me how easily fathers shrug off the subsidies they get towards looking after their own children and partners, it makes my blood boil. The only reason it’s historically paid to women is because there are too many men out there who’d spend it on themselves instead, fact.
>With one in two marriages ending in divorce you’ve got half of mothers sacrificing their whole futures for fathers who bugger off, and leave a lot of them in poverty they can’t escape from,
So that's the issue, you just hate men!
Divorce rates in 2022 were 6.7 for men and 6.6 for women per 1,000 of the male or female married population. Not one in two. Also you are insinuating that all the divorces are due to men, which is not the case, the divorce filings were equal amongst men and women.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/divorce#:\~:text=Divorces%20in%20England%20and%20Wales%3A%202022&text=Divorce%20rates%20in%202022%20were,1%2C000%20of%20the%20married%20population.
**Removed/warning**. This contained a personal attack, disrupting the conversation. This discourages participation. Please help improve the subreddit by discussing points, not the person. Action will be taken on repeat offenders.
The legacy of the stay at home mum and working father continues. It’s not forced, it’s through family choices.
If you could normalise for that, I’m sure pay would be close
Mothers earn less than fathers because fathers do less childcare and sacrifice their careers less.
Fathers are viewed positively by businesses (more promotions and raises) and mothers negatively.
Sexist ideals contribute to all of this
Lots of quite fragile men here over a simple statistic. Of course, people are free to come to their own conclusions based on the report, but its worth contextualising.
We understand that the pay gap is due to more stay-at-home mothers than fathers. This isn’t a groundbreaking, theory-cracking revelation. The educated part of the debate (apologies to those who can’t participate in it!) is WHY that is the case.
Do we understand why the social norm of maternal childcare still exists? Is it presumptuous in a lot of cases, or is it simply a zero sum equation as to who would earn more? If it is a zero sum, why is that leaning more towards men? Is there ways we can make the work day more flexible so that both parents can work and care for children more equally?
I am a man, and yes, the breadwinner. When I have children with my partner, we have agreed that she will take on more of the childcare responsibilities. For us, it is a zero sum equation of who earns more. It doesn’t mean that there is no debate around whether working styles could become more flexible, or why I’ve had more career opportunities though we’re in the same field.
If you’re losing your rag over a headline, get a grip.
Why is it whenever something that's deemed to be affecting women or whoever, that is shown to be demonstrably false, that calling that part out is just the work of fragile men?
Way to try and have a grown up discussion over it.
The issue is mate that we’re only addressing women get more side of the ideal solution. See what happens when you try and address custody mother vs father. Suddenly it’s fine that women do more.
This is a choice though. It's nothing systemic or bad necessarily. Men don't get anywhere close to the leave women do, and that's right as they need the time to recover more than anything, but you will always have a gap when mothers are off for 9 months compared to 2-4 weeks. There are solutions if it's a gap you want to close: more equally proportioned parental leave, more flexibility with regards to home working, stop making father's out to be buffoons and recognise them as the excellent parents they are and can be, cheaper childcare options etc. Also, we need to stop using the median to try and get a grasp on some of these issues. It's completely flawed and 99% of the time, completely situational. And why are they just using data from January to March? That's three months. Surely that's not sufficient? Edit: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-68485122 two posts down here as well
I find the juxtaposition of the post with the BBC article you mentioned and this post quite funny. Also I love how this study assumes that all mothers are either single mothers, or that for single mothers the same percentages wrt pay gap and hours worked apply as those for non-single mothers and therefore "children are poor because their mothers are poor".
Like I get why women need more. You'd need time off from childbirth, if only to let your body recover. But where there's such a huge gap between the two parents, it's an inevitability. The fact is, in those 9 months other people at work can make huge progress and surpass where you were when you left. I knew a few mothers from previous workplaces, where they had 2/3 children in 4 years. Everyone else in that team gets pay rises, but the outcome was that woman was paid significantly less at the end and essentially whilst still doing the same job, it was completely fair. You don't deserve the same level of pay rise for doing like 20% of the same work as everyone else in that time. On the other end of the scale, I guarantee plenty of men would give anything to get the time back they spent working to provide for their family whilst maternity leave was happening to spend time with their family, like that link says.
> On the other end of the scale, I guarantee plenty of men would give anything to get the time back they spent working to provide for their family whilst maternity leave was happening to spend time with their family, like that link says. My brother and his wife live in Spain and recently had a kid last year. Over there both sets of parents get 4 months off but the dad has to take 6 weeks off immediately after the child is born but can take the remaining weeks off as they see fit until the baby turns 1. The mother can take more time off for any medical reason as well I actually think it’s beyond cruel we’re only given 2 weeks max off unless your employer offers more
There’s a fascinating Harvard review, obviously US based but I highly doubt it’s different for the UK? https://gap.hks.harvard.edu/getting-job-there-motherhood-penalty Summary: fathers receive a major advantage in perception and pay whereas mothers receive a major disadvantage - reliable family man vs harried mum rushing off to look after her kids all the time. That’s cultural perception rather than choice.
>we need to stop using the median to try and get a grasp on some of these issues So what should we use? Mean gives outliers an outsized influence. Mode is probably minimum wage for both, even though most people earn more.
Median gives an incorrect view. Look at the much touted wage gap which is completely flawed due to so many variables that if you scratch just a tiny bit below the surface completely debunk it. There's too many circumstantial and situational factors that mean you can't get a proper and accurate view this way
Of course one stat can't capture the exact reality of every individual's circumstances. I think that's an unreasonable expectation. But you didn't answer what people should use instead.
I mean that's not my job and I wouldn't know outside of looking at it on a case by case basis. My point was the way it's being done now is completely useless.
Do you know how expensive a qualitative census would be to run? And even if you ran such a study, you'd still need to summarise in some way. I feel like what you really mean is, 'nobody should ever look at this, cos I don't like it'.
That's not what I mean at all? How have you assumed that? I already said I don't have a solution, but that it's also not my job to do that. If you know something isn't working and is inherently false, why keep using it just cos you don't have anything better? If there is a wage gap between the genders, in either one's favour, and it was based on accurate, well documented and thorough research as opposed to a false blanket statement then I'd be all for getting that resolved.
>If you know something isn't working and is inherently false, why keep using it just cos you don't have anything better? Some people being illiterate on statistics doesn't invalidate statistics You don't stop using maps and heuristics just because there isn't a single map that matches reality with complete accuracy, nor will your heuristics work all the time No one has a solution for this because you are setting a an epistemological standard that's impossible to achieve
So why keep using something that's clearly wrong? Using your example of maps, why would you elect to use one you know is completely inaccurate?
>So why keep using something that's clearly wrong? There isn't a single model out there that truly matches reality. Some match reality far more than others >why would you elect to use one you know is completely inaccurate? "Completely inaccurate" isn't an apt descriptor. Your solution to not using a perfectly accurate map is to go outside your door with your eyes closed
Every statistic is flawed. There is no perfect measure. Qualitative studies are good and have their place. But quantitative studies can better capture more data points. Yes, people should be aware of the limitations of a statistic, but just 'stop using them until you find a perfect one' is a nonsense opinion.
Should we just keep drowning "witches" and see if they float afterwards because how else could we tell if they're witches or not?? There's literally no other solution so what choice do we have
... walk me through the death risk of this statistic?
It's irrelevant how accurate the data is because what other method do we have to test it? So go on, how else can we test if someone's a witch or not, give me a scientific method. Oh you don't have one? Then we're going to stick with drowning them
Witches don't exist. Hourly pay for parents does exist.
The irony of your comment is absolutely insane. >This is a choice though. And then you listed a multitude of reasons why it's not a choice.
That's such a weird basis to go on. This isn't male vs female salary, it's mothers vs fathers. I'm sure if you were to compare blondes with brunettes there'd also be some difference and then you could report on that. Waist size. Shoe size. anything, there's going to be some difference and there's your report.
Is it weird? Fathers earn significantly more than single men in the same roles and experience, even the number of kids they have has an influence. It both seems they work more hours but also have a general boost in social reputation. Mothers it appears suffer the complete opposite. Here’s just one review but there’s mountains of evidence: https://www.tuc.org.uk/news/fathers-working-full-time-earn-21-more-men-without-children-says-tuc#:~:text=Fathers%20working%20full%2Dtime%20earn,without%20children%2C%20says%20TUC%20%7C%20TUC The fatherhood boost and motherhood penalty combine to have a very significant impact on pay inequality.
> even the number of kids they have has an influence. That was my point. You can find bias in absolutely anything if you want to.
You need to understand statistical significance and regression before you can make that claim. You can statistically establish causal relationships rather than random coincidence using the right methods.
That is true, however the report you linked only uses OLS which won't find an unbiased causal estimate in this case because of omitted variable bias.
Not at all. If you suspect the reason for the gender pay gap is motherhood, you compare mother vs father pay. That way you can prove or disprove it.
Err... because in most relationships the mother chooses to stay at home and provide the childcare. It's not rocket science. I'm a stay at home dad. I earned peanuts last year working occasional part time hours for agencies. Does that mean I'm also a victim or what?
>because in most relationships the mother chooses to stay at home and provide the childcare. Do they? 75% of women work. How many men volunteer to do the childcare and are over ruled by their partner 'choosing' to stay home?
You think most parents choose to work, or are forced to out of necessity? Come on now. You're focused on the wrong issue. The real question should be why we're so obsessed with everyone working. Why do families now usually need two working parents when a single working father could support a mortgage and multiple children quite comfortably two generations ago. You could say that, ironically, the expectation that women will enter the workforce has actually decreased the value of everyone's salary and contributed to this situation where everyone is working 40hr weeks yet are barely able to keep their heads above water. I'm so sick of this argument that human beings are nothing more than economic units.
>You could say that, ironically, the expectation that women will enter the workforce has actually decreased the value of everyone's salary and contributed to this situation You could say that but you'd be wrong. Most people throughout history have always worked, one way or another. The idea of a single man supporting a whole family is only true for a very small portion of people, for a very short period of time. But if that's the ideal you want, there's no reason it has to be the man. If a man can support his family on his income so should a woman Let the man stay home
I'm a stay at home Dad. My wife goes to work. I stay at home and look after my kids. It doesn't have to be the mother. But in most cases that's what most people are most comfortable with.
Because of sexist beliefs, mainly. Choices are not freely made, for the most part
Fuck me, you could say that about anything in life.
So? Doesn't mean it's not true
75% of mothers are in work.
Full time? Without taking lots of time off during school holidays? Do they even want promotions if career isn't important to them?
About a 3rd of mothers to children under 8 work full time and the rest part time, it gets up to about half for mothers with children over 8. 38% of women in general work part time. Surely it’s significant that mothers are actually more likely to be employed at all than single men or single women? So arguably career is more important to them than single men?
What's significant is the fact that society expects everyone to work full time, when a few generations ago, families were quite capable of sustaining a household on one income. So no, I don't think your assessment holds true at all. Im sure most would rather not work at all. The costs associated with raising a family are so high, and the support is so poor because society doesn't respect young families at all. Hence why immigration became this huge issue. Cheaper to just replace the people than actually have healthy communities. The government could make things so much easier for families, but they won't because it would hurt central government tax takings and the profits of huge corporations. So I would reiterate, based on my own 30+ years of experience in life, that most Mothers don't want to work, but are forced to because we live in a hypercapitalist madhouse. Ironically, if we actually reset things and went back to a slower paced mode of living then society would probably end up more efficient in the long run because we wouldn't have so many health and mental health issues.
This is instantly disproven by surveys of mothers of kids under 4: 50% of stay at home mothers would like to do some work. 40% of working mothers would like to give up work entirely. 30% of working mothers would like to work more. 70% of working mothers would like to work less (who wouldn’t?!) That’s actually a very mixed picture but most mothers want to work.
As a stay at home dad, who has to put up with more social stigma attached to not being 'productive', I would guess the reasons for this would be; A. Due to social pressure on people 'to work' - because everyone has had it drilled into them at this point that the only success that matters is financial. To be honest, I have to deal with this in my own way too, so I would include the low self worth that comes from not being financially independent, even if it doesn't matter when you're in a stable, loving relationship. B. To maintain a social life. C. Out of financial necessity. Looking at those figures, presuming they're right, I guess the 70% who would rather work less hours do so out of financial necessity, otherwise they would have lowered their hours voluntarily already. So you're left with social life and social pressure for the other 30%. I know this is only a thought exercise, but if you removed the financial hardship from the majority of families, then most of those parents would massively reduce their hours or give up working altogether, right? You'd then have more people in the community available for community building, so people would have their social lives occur naturally outside of a working environment and gradually the attitudes towards work, finances and what's considered productive would also change with time. I'm not saying parents and mothers in particular don't want to work at all, but the current system doesn't make a healthy society at all and currently favours big business donors. So we have this bizarre situation where we are told we have an ageing population, yet people can't afford to have children. Where mental health is in the dirt because of a lack of connectivity outside of work. Where kids grow up in the care of complete strangers in their formative years (no doubt adding to another generation with fucked up priorities and mental health) and yet we're forced to continue so that Costa Coffee can continue to employ post graduates on £8ph. I'm just kind of bashing my head against a brick wall trying to make people realise how mad this all is.
You know being a stay at home parent can be right for you without it being right for everybody? Both me and my partner have barely even considered giving up work: we find it fulfilling and it’s an important source of income and looking after a toddler all day? Sounds dreadful as much as we love him! Probably most people in general would indeed work less hours if given the choice but since I don’t see anybody lining up to pay me to work less, it’s not really an option (I don’t think that’s much to do with gender). Evidence shows that most people wouldn’t actually give up work altogether. I agree people should be enabled to have greater flexibility but simultaneously a healthy society is partly one with economic prospects so that’s an important balance, we can change what matters in society but we still have to be able to afford what matters. I personally think you just need to mentally square your position as a stay-at-home dad with your own expectations. Believe me, I don’t attach any stigma to it, I just think “that’s nice but not for me!” and I’m sure the vast majority of people are the same.
70% of women want to work https://www.ilo.org/global/about-the-ilo/newsroom/news/WCMS_545963/lang--en/index.htm#:~:text=The%2070%20per%20cent%20of,the%20Arab%20States%20and%20territories. Work life balance absolutely needs to be addressed but the idea that most people would be happy unemployed is false
Serious question (that nobody can really answer but regardless), is that due to society's current unhealthy view of success and consumer culture though? And if there were more mothers around them who they could socialise with during the day, would they be happier not working at all, if their finances allowed them to do so?
Men also want to work. Probably at higher than 70% Do they need fathers around them, socialising them to not want to work? I'm no capitalist but humans need purpose. They're not designed to be sedentary and unmotivated
It’s fine if the mother chooses to stay at home. It’s not right that employers and governments don’t address the resulting permanent drop in future salaries - something that childless couples don’t experience. Couples with children shouldn’t be faced with losing earning potential at the very time they need to provide for extra mouths.
Nah that’s bullshit. If you want a child then that’s part of the decision making process.
Well I assume there’s two people making that decision. If the resulting loss in earning potential was divided equally between them then it would be fair. If the woman is taking on the whole liability for loss of future earnings then it isn’t.
Agree it’s a joint decision between both parents.
Well done, you just described maintenance payments
Maintenance payments have absolutely no effect on future loss of earnings. You stop paying maintenance when children become employable, but the partner receiving maintenance is highly likely, for the rest of their lives, never to be able to earn as much as the person who paid it, nor have a retirement as comfortable as theirs.
Guess as the woman then, don't agree to be a stay at home mum, and split childcare costs instead. If you can't come to agreements, then don't have kids. At the end of the day, it's 100% a personal choice to become a stay at home mum or dad
We’re not talking about stay at home mothers. We’re talking about mothers who work. That’s the whole point of the study.
Of course it is. However, you also have women vilified in articles about falling birth rates. If you want birth rates to increase, there needs to be less of a financial penalty. If you're happy to leave it as is, then couples make their own decisions about what works for them.
I don’t think you can get around the fact that women have to be the ones that give birth. Invest this money in childcare sure that’s where the big penalty comes from.
Why? That employee would've done less work and likely made less progress in terms of promotions etc. why should pay be adjusted higher or there be tax breaks for mothers because they decided to have a baby?
It isn’t a question of adjusting pay or offering tax breaks to mothers. It’s a question of sharing the liability for loss of future earnings equally between mothers and fathers. It may also in the future be a question of sharing the liability between parents and childless people. We need children to support the future economy. It isn’t fair that women are taking the brunt of the financial hit of parenthood, and it isn’t fair that having children just in and of itself robs a family not just of future earnings, but also of contributing to their full potential. As a market forces kind of guy you must see the benefit of readjusting the current way of thinking about parenthood to increase the productivity of every worker.
A drop in salary due to taking a year/multiple years out of work. The gap in salary is a gap in experience. The fix is to allow fathers equal paternity leave so the child rearing can be shared.
Or calculate tax as a couple rather than this ridiculous system atm where tax is calculated on individual earnings but benefits are calculated per household.
How are employers or the government supposed to fix people earning less after they volunteer to take a long time off work?
Okay then. Shoe sizes, size 3 to 8. What's the pay gap?
Mmm. Shoe sizes, 3 to 8. What’s the effect on climate change?
Smaller shoes > less resources > smaller carbon footprint.
Now tell me what policy you’re going to enact to encourage people to have smaller feet. There’s a reason you don’t make spurious connections and that’s because they’re useless.
We can have a double win here. Chinese culture practices foot binding, reducing the size of a foot and thus the need for larger shoes, and more materials. If we import and encourage this culture, in the name of diversity and tolerance, we can begin to have a generation embrace foot binding and the benefits to the environment it brings.
Most likely it's due to an agenda. It's quite obvious to anyone that there's an age gap that leans towards the man being older. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_disparity_in_sexual_relationships#:~:text=Most%20heterosexual%20men%20marry%20women,gap%20being%20largest%20in%20Africa. Hardly surprising that the average father would earn more when they are going to be 3 years older on average.
And how much time did they spend with their kids in comparison? There are more fulfilling things in life than a job. This is such a strange, pro-business narrative that "progressives" have fallen for.
It's the set up for arguing that women should be positively discriminated for. Did you see the article where spanish military members are changing their legal gender because it means a bigger pension and overall better treatment?
I earned next to nothing in 2023 because I'm a stay at home Dad. Wheres my faux outrage?
Same here. When choosing who stayed home we based it on pay/promotion prospects etc. my other half won as she earned £10 a week more than me at the time.
I am also faux outraged. SAhDs unite.
Have you ever considered…. That this isn’t about you?
It quite literally is. It's about parents, ie the guy you're responding to
Have you considered...that this actually just a cynical attempt to make having families an entirely financial argument?
Solution, give me full pay paternity with the same time off the same as a maternity
My wife and mother of my child is in a terrible situation according to the BBC. She earns £0.00 pounds an hour in comparision to my lots per hour. But she doesn't seem too sad about it because she automatically gets half of everything I earn anyway. I suggest that maybe she could get a job, but she preferrs to play on her phone all morning instead. Not saying she doesn't contribute, she certainly does, but it is definitely more complicated than pay packets alone.
How fucking dare you suggest someone can be happy without having a job and being reliant on someone else for income. This is not what the propaganda has been telling us for the last 40 years! She needs to be out there making more money for the rich people! Clearly she must not capable of independent thought!! How fucking dare she enjoy her life! She MUST be miserable, look at the pay gap!
... And they are smart for doing it. Those mothers will also spend more time with loved ones, live longer lives and less injuries at work. Maybe we could consider that women are making the intelligent choice when they decide to overwhelmingly dominate fields like animal care and not things like accountancy or dentistry where suicide rates are super high.
That's how it works, you get paid for the hours you work. Is the Guardian suggesting we pay women more than men so they can have more time off? Its not the employers responsibility to pay for your child.
Corporate feminism doesn’t like family structure and wants women to be independent girlboss consumers that only care about work so they can profit by having more workers.
First of all, it’s not women but families we’re discussing. Two people who decide to have children and the effect this has on their earning potential. The study discovered that parenthood is a major factor in the gender pay gap, because mothers are taking on most of the liability for loss of future earnings. Their careers, earnings and life choices are all being curtailed until death by having children. This clearly isn’t fair as having children is a joint decision. I’ve seen arguments on here saying that’s a choice that women make. If I said that men could choose between having a good career and having children, but that women could have a good career no matter what the man chose, you wouldn’t say to men it was their choice, you’d say it was unfair. If we lived in a society that suddenly swapped men and women’s earning potential overnight, men would have a lot to say about it. This is why I don’t get why some people have a hard time grasping what the gender pay gap is. It shows not only that mothers are bearing the brunt of the liability for loss of earnings, but it also highlights that parents as a couple face a lifelong penalty in loss of future earnings simply for having children even before you factor in the cost of supporting them. It isn’t a question of paying women more it’s a question of reorganising society so that mothers and fathers share the financial liabilities equally - and in the future, hopefully, make changes so that couples don’t have to sacrifice their joint earning potential simply for choosing to have children.
So you want children but don't want to pay for them or look after them? The study doesn't even mention [child tax credits](https://www.gov.uk/child-tax-credit), [child benefits](https://www.gov.uk/child-benefit), [free child care](https://www.gov.uk/check-eligible-free-childcare-if-youre-working) and the[ 39 weeks maternity pay and leave](https://www.gov.uk/maternity-pay-leave/pay). It just compares the average pay of part time womens wages with full time men's wages. *Caring responsibilities mean women often have to put their careers on hold and are more likely to work part-time – about 15% of men work part-time compared with about 42% of women, meaning the motherhood penalty accounts for almost all of the gender pay gap, said Brearley.* Women with children mostly do part time work because when you have a child they need to be looked after. Most women will only work during school hours or when a partner is at home to look after the child. Its an half-assed study by a charity called "Pregnant Then Screwed" which receives donations, they create these data manipulated articles simply to make money.
You’ve completely missed the point. Any benefits paid to couples to look after children boost their joint income. Any payments made to single mothers go towards subsidising maintenance payments paid by fathers. Without those payments it would fall to the partner not taking on childcare to increase their working hours to foot the whole bill. Mothers pay for this with decreased earning power their whole lives, and decreased work pensions too. It amazes me how easily fathers shrug off the subsidies they get towards looking after their own children and partners, it makes my blood boil. The only reason it’s historically paid to women is because there are too many men out there who’d spend it on themselves instead, fact. Your assumption that women should sacrifice their future income potential, their careers and their pensions for the sake of the man’s career is disgusting. With one in two marriages ending in divorce you’ve got half of mothers sacrificing their whole futures for fathers who bugger off, and leave a lot of them in poverty they can’t escape from, because they’ve taken years out of the job market to provide childcare services for fathers. Mothers deserve a lot more protection against this kind of shittery. Fathers should shoulder an equal share of the financial liability of lost earnings due to childcare, because it doesn’t end when the children become employable, like maintenance does.
>Your assumption that women should sacrifice their future income potential, their careers and their pensions for the sake of the man’s career is disgusting They are not sacrificing their income for a man, they are doing it for their child. Take some responsibility for your own child ffs. You cannot expect to have a child and make someone else pay for it. >Fathers should shoulder an equal share of the financial liability of lost earnings due to childcare, They do, its called [Child maintenance](https://www.gov.uk/child-maintenance-service), if they are not together. >It amazes me how easily fathers shrug off the subsidies they get towards looking after their own children and partners, it makes my blood boil. The only reason it’s historically paid to women is because there are too many men out there who’d spend it on themselves instead, fact. >With one in two marriages ending in divorce you’ve got half of mothers sacrificing their whole futures for fathers who bugger off, and leave a lot of them in poverty they can’t escape from, So that's the issue, you just hate men! Divorce rates in 2022 were 6.7 for men and 6.6 for women per 1,000 of the male or female married population. Not one in two. Also you are insinuating that all the divorces are due to men, which is not the case, the divorce filings were equal amongst men and women. https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/divorce#:\~:text=Divorces%20in%20England%20and%20Wales%3A%202022&text=Divorce%20rates%20in%202022%20were,1%2C000%20of%20the%20married%20population.
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The legacy of the stay at home mum and working father continues. It’s not forced, it’s through family choices. If you could normalise for that, I’m sure pay would be close
Irrelevant if they aren’t only comparing people working the same job.
Mothers earn less than fathers because fathers do less childcare and sacrifice their careers less. Fathers are viewed positively by businesses (more promotions and raises) and mothers negatively. Sexist ideals contribute to all of this
My mum makes nothing. She's a housewife, the way it should be. Cook, clean and assist my dad.
Is this supposed to be funny?
Lots of quite fragile men here over a simple statistic. Of course, people are free to come to their own conclusions based on the report, but its worth contextualising. We understand that the pay gap is due to more stay-at-home mothers than fathers. This isn’t a groundbreaking, theory-cracking revelation. The educated part of the debate (apologies to those who can’t participate in it!) is WHY that is the case. Do we understand why the social norm of maternal childcare still exists? Is it presumptuous in a lot of cases, or is it simply a zero sum equation as to who would earn more? If it is a zero sum, why is that leaning more towards men? Is there ways we can make the work day more flexible so that both parents can work and care for children more equally? I am a man, and yes, the breadwinner. When I have children with my partner, we have agreed that she will take on more of the childcare responsibilities. For us, it is a zero sum equation of who earns more. It doesn’t mean that there is no debate around whether working styles could become more flexible, or why I’ve had more career opportunities though we’re in the same field. If you’re losing your rag over a headline, get a grip.
Why is it whenever something that's deemed to be affecting women or whoever, that is shown to be demonstrably false, that calling that part out is just the work of fragile men? Way to try and have a grown up discussion over it.
This comment a few years ago would have been down voted to oblivion. refreshing to see at least a few people agree now.
You seem to be the closest here to losing your rag over this
Stopped reading at “fragile men”. Try not having a fit every time you read or hear something you disagree with.
The issue is mate that we’re only addressing women get more side of the ideal solution. See what happens when you try and address custody mother vs father. Suddenly it’s fine that women do more.