Continuing with the theme from last week, I would like to discuss another economic issue with you, that of women suffering from economic inequality.
First of all, let's dispense right away with this "war on women" nonsense and "contraceptive rights." I drink a lot of Diet Coke. I have several Diet Cokes a day. I am certain that I spend more on Diet Coke in a month than most women do on contraception. There is no such thing as "free" Diet Coke. Somebody has to pay for it. The government does not pay for my Diet Coke. Does that mean that the government is denying me access to Diet Coke, or infringing on my right to have Diet Coke? Does that right to drink Diet Coke mean an absolute entitlement to have Diet Coke? Of course not. Is there anywhere in our Constitution that states the United States government is obligated to give me unlimited "free" Diet Coke? Even if that would promote my "general welfare?" Do you personally want to pay for my Diet Coke? If you do not want to support my Diet Coke habit, are you infringing upon my Diet Coke rights? Should the government forcibly take money from you to give to me to buy Diet Cokes? The absurdity of this argument would not pass muster when passed by a six year-old, but apparently makes sense to Georgetown law students.
What I wanted to address in this post is the commonly stated fact that women get paid less than men, even when doing the same work. Dr. Thomas Sowell, our wisest living economist, is going to explain why this is, from his book, "Economic Facts and Fallacies" (Basic Books, New York, 2008, Pages 55-86). The following is a summary with his references at the end.
Do women get paid less than men? Yes. In most societies and for most of history, this has been true. Does this fact alone mean that they have been the victims of discrimination? Let us look and see.
First of all, there is an unequal distribution of women across different job categories. Women represent 74% of clerical workers but only 5% of big-rig drivers. Women are less than 4% of construction workers, 2% of roofers, and 1% of heavy vehicle mechanics. Most of these latter jobs requiring heavy physical work and exposure to hazardous work pay more.
Secondly, many women have a career path significantly altered by having children. The years leading up to age forty are the years where mastery over one's field is developed, and it is often those very same years that are devoted to bearing and raising children. It can be difficult to re-enter the workforce and pick up at the same point one left off. Withdrawing from the workforce for several years often results in loss of seniority in jobs where this is important. When returning to the workforce, a woman will have less experience than a man of the same age who has been working continuously, and in many professions, there is a loss of skills and currency of knowledge that occurs while away. So even women working in the same profession as a man who has never been out of the workforce will make less money. Women tend to work in professions where their knowledge and skills will not become obsolete if they are away from their careers during those years of childbearing. If you compare men and women with PhD's, women received 60% of the doctorates in education but less than 20% of the doctorates in engineering, and the latter pays much better than the former. Already we can see, then, that a woman who has a PhD may make substantially less than a man of the same age who also has a PhD when all of these factors are taken into account.
Thirdly, women tend to take jobs with fewer hours, more flexible hours, and less travel requirements, especially in the legal and business fields. In jobs with extreme stress and work hour requirements, women occupy less than 20% of such jobs, and these are the jobs that pay the most. Therefore, for example, if you look at lawyers as a whole, men are paid more than women.
But look at this: if you are a college educated woman, never married, who works full time, between the ages of 40-64, your average income is $47,000. If you are a college educated man, never married, who works full time, between the ages of 40-64, your average income is $40,000. The women are making more than the men. And for the younger crowd, if you are living alone, childless, and between the ages of 20-31, there is no pay gap whatsoever.
What about my profession, medicine? Do men doctors make more than women doctors? You bet they do, forty-one percent more. But when you adjust this for specialty, practice setting, and other factors, there is no pay gap whatsoever. In fact, male physicians work over 500 hours more per year than female physicians. Just as with PhD's and lawyers, most women choose specialties with fewer years of training, fewer work hours, and more flexible work hours.
And the "glass ceiling" we have all heard about, in corporate America? Women are definitely under-represented in top-level management. This is due to less experience and fewer continuous years in the workforce. And although their pay is 45% less than men, that is explained by the fact that women are executives in much smaller corporations than men, again due to less experience.
The Bible tells us to treat others impartially, as He does. In Romans 2:11, Paul tells us, "For God shows no partiality, and James tells us in James 2:1, "My brothers, show no partiality as you hold the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory." But here is the thing. Different outcomes do not mean that people were treated differently or unfairly. Are women who do the same work as men paid less? No, because they don't do the same work as men, and not for as long, and not for as many hours. We have seen that women who perform exactly the same work as a man, with the same training and experience, working the same number of hours, without taking time off from the workforce, make the same amount of money or more. Those who foster a notion of a "war on women" are actually waging a war on those too intellectually lazy to research the issues and think through them. And unfortunately, there seems to be more of the former than the latter.
1. U.S. Bureau of the Census, "Evidence from Census 2000 About Earnings by Detailed Occupation for Men and Women," Census 2000 Special Reports, May 2004.
2. U.S. Bureau of the Census, "We the People: Women and Men inthe United States," Census 2000 Special Reports, May 2004.
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