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| Before computers, workers just stared at their desks. |
In their attempts to downplay or simply deny the Wage Gap between men and women, MRAs often turn to a study by the CONSAD research company that was commissioned by the Bush administration. According to CONSAD, their analysis
demonstrates that it is not possible now, and doubtless will never be possible, to determine reliably whether any portion of the observed gender wage gap is not attributable to factors that compensate women and men differently on socially acceptable bases, and hence can confidently be attributed to overt discrimination against women.
In plain English: we can’t prove that any of the wage gap is the result of sexism.
But that may be because CONSAD didn’t look in the right places, as Barry Deutsch, aka Ampersand, explains in a post on Alas, a blog that critiques the methology and the findings of the CONSAD study. Notably, he points out, CONSAD’s analysis ignores the issue of occupational segregation, which is at the root of much of the wage gap, as properly measured. And it ignores many other, more subtle kinds of discrimination:
When discussing direct employer discrimination, it’s more realistic to discuss elements like selective hiring, training, promotion ladders, and other things that are a good deal more complex than CONSAD’s vision of the labor market allows for. Given two equally able applicants for a $40,000 job, one male, one female – which one will employers tend to prefer? Once hired, who is more likely to get mentored? Who is more likely to be given the assignments that lead to promotion? Who is more likely to be perceived as doing good work, all else held equal? And if these factors mean that women are rewarded less than men for identical labor market participation, to what degree does that reduce women’s incentive to participate equally in the labor market? All of these are ways that sex discrimination actually happens in the marketplace — and none of them are detectable by by CONSAD’s methods.
There’s much more to his argument than this; I’d suggest reading the whole thing.
For more on the issue — including excerpts from and links to other useful posts on the wage gap by Barry — see my own Further Reading post on the subject.
>Wage gap again huh?Ive seen one mens rights source quoting that study, Ive seen studies from a number of different countries that all replicate each other.The last Irish one suggested that the best way to close it might be to offer men the same flexibility and opportunities to take time off that women have available.Sweden ran into problem with that aspect of wage gap and considered making it mandatory for men to take as much off as women, they ended up leaving it optional and making it possible for the couples to use each other time off by arrangement. Most mother use the father's leave.If there was a sexist wage gap in america, single women wouldn't out earn single men.Wage gap is an illusion created by ignoring the fact that the family wage is combined.Truth be told, women have more money than men when we acknowledge that the family wage is in fact a combined wage and not separate wages, and the spending gap tell us that the female partner spends x5 more of that wage on herself than the male partner does.So of there is a wage gap, its in womens favour."Occupational segregation", is that another way of saying differing career choices?
>[citations please]Also, IIRC, the "single women" earning more than men are actually single women in their twenties in big cities. That's a small percentage of the female population.
>Yes David, single women out earn men in big cities, in at least around 80 different occupations and at the higher levels of business. Here is your wage gap. “A strong majority of all working mothers (62%) say they would prefer to work part time…. An overwhelming majority [of working fathers] (79%) say they prefer full-time work. Only one-in-five say they would choose part-time work.” To close the wage gap, women’s groups are going to have to find a way to change women’s preferences and life choices.http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1360/working-women-conflicted-but-few-favor-return-to-traditional-roles
>If you read Barry's article and my "further reading" on the gender pay gap you will find many responses to that argument.
>But there is still a wage gap when you consider part time work.
>SandyWives that chose to work part time are in a combined wage. A wifes 50K part time plus husbands 100k full time = 150K combined. Its not a gap whats more she will likely spend more on herself, wear better shoes, have more clothes and in the event of divorce get at least half of the assets. Wage gap only exists when we pretend the family wage is not combined. David your sources are feminist sources, its advocacy research not real research. My sources are genuine research sources with outcomes that have been replicated in many countries in many studies.Family the key factor in gender pay divisionTHE SINGLE most important factor perpetuating the pay gap between men and women is family responsibilities, research being published today shows.The Gender Wage Gap in Irelandreport from the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) is the fifth in a series of reports arising from the Research Programme on Equality and Discrimination, commissioned by the Equality Authority. http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2009/0911/1224254278711.html
>Spam filter David.Sandy, economics tells that longer hours = more pay, it might seem unfair to you, but doing it your way would be an extreme injustice and there would be riots and economic collapse.
>So they have a reliable study that says you CANNOT prove nor disprove sexism in the so called wage gap and the feminist response is speculation. Amazing.Truly Amazing.Here's an evil "male" thought. Most men take more pride in their careers than their families and most women take more pride in their families than their careers and that is the cause of the "wage gap," if one even exists.What feminists really want, IMHO, is women making equal to men regardless of the amount of hours worked. Women having flex time and time to play with the rug rats and still getting paid as if they were full time workers. That's why these wage gap lies persist. Because feminists don't care how they get what they want, just that they get what they want. Lying is all part of the game. BTW that Alas a blog site sets off my McAfee warning filter.Random Brother
>"David your sources are feminist sources, its advocacy research not real research."You say this all the time, but it's not true. Clearly you haven't even looked at my further reading post. The main sources for empirical data there are the GAO (govt agency), an investment firm, and a report by the AAUW that offers a straightforward empirical analysis of census data.I offer links to feminist analysis of this data. Since you won't even bother to read these sources and offer specific criticisms of them rather than simply dismissing them out of hand, there is no point in further discussing this issue with you."economics tells that longer hours = more pay"That is true. Again, as is made clear again and again in the stuff I've already posted, this is NOT the cause of the real wage gap. The AAUW study — and again, though AAUW is a women's organization the data they use is taken directly from the census — compares full-time workers with full-time workers. The GAO specifically notes:"When we account for differences between male and female work patterns as well as other key factors, women earned, on average, 80 percent of what men earned in 2000. While the difference fluctuated in each year we studied, there was a small but statistically significant decline in the earnings difference over the time period. Even after accounting for key factors that affect earnings, our model could not explain all of the difference in earnings between men and women."That is, they correct for differences due to men and women working different numbers of hours. Barry also deals with this issue in the piece I link to on the wage gap page.
>@ DavidMost MRA's don't believe feminst sources. I'll never believe a feminst source. Never. Why? The same reason I don't believe creationist sources. The same reason I don't believe HBD. They are not, by definition, objective. They WANT a specific outcome. If tomorrow feminists did a study about taxes and the results were that women should pay more taxes would they publish and support it? Of course not.Why should I believe the same kinds who claimed that men go crazy after Superbowl Sunday and the abuse rate jumps astronomically? How often is a study later debunked and you see feminists on the news apologizing and correcting their study? I have never in my life seen it, and likely never will.They just come out with another study. Over and over again. I'll go with logic.And logic dictates if you can get away with paying women less, you could form your own all female company and beat the snot out of everyone. When I see THAT occur, I'll believe there is a wage gap.All the rest is feminists wanting their cake and eating it to.Random Brother
>RB, you have just shown why there is no point to discussing anything with you, as you'll simply dismiss everything I say since I'm — oh no! — a feminist. So I guess the conversation is over.
>If feminists want to be believed then when the err they should cop to it. They don't, as far as I've seen. I could be wrong, but I'm not going to be swayed by feminists studies, too many liars in the ranks. Your people have cried wolf too many times. (Not you necessarily – I'm beginning to think you're earnest, but just wrong).If it's tied, and not an interpretation, to a government study I might consider it.A question though. If there is a wage gap due to sexism, what do you suggest be done about it?Random Brother
>Spam filter David.I'm with RB on this one David, feminist sources are not to be taken literally. Its all designed to conform to a belief system and an agenda.See how you value whats written on a blog over multiple studies from multiple countries? Thats because what the blog says conforms to your belief system and that belief system to you trumps reason and multiple credible sources from multiple countries that all say pretty much the same thing.Its also insulting and dis-empowering for women to deny them the reality of the outcome of their choices. Its like they are non people without agency to you. The reality is that they can chose their own life path. It also must be mentally unhealthy for the ones that live in the feminist false consciousness in which there is an unseen hand always plotting against them and holding them back.It would be far better to fight the people that are actually oppressing us, the ruling class that control all the wealth and have just recently enslaved us in bail out debt than it is to pit ordinary men and women against each other over a debunked wage gap conspiracy theory. I have a feeling that the ruling class know that only too well and laugh at feminists when they mistakenly blame ordinary men and lobby for their oppression.
>I'll never believe MRA resources. Why? They are not real research. They are not, by definition, objective. They WANT a specific outcome. So they can justify portraying all women as inferior, evil, selfish whores and all men as superior, good, perfect angels. Then they can control the world, put women 'in their place', take away their vote, get them out of the workforce, and force them into servitude so they can get sex on demand, be served, and bully them without consequence.
>Christine WEMra's dont have mra sources, the movement doesn't real produce any research. We quote the independent research thats carried out by governments, universities and experts. Research that doesn't set out to conform to a specific belief system or superstition, its independent research that seeks to find out the truth.On the other hand feminist research is not just not taken seriously by mens rights people, its not taken seriously by independent researchers and academics either.And the rest of what you said is just paranoid bunk and/or stereotyping the mrm with the nonsense thats published by a tiny minority of idiots and feminist stereotypes of what the mrm is.At the end of the day, the MR is about equality between the sexes, there are a minority of traditionalists, usually american and religious but they dont seem to be going anywhere in the movement.
>Christine WE said… I'll never believe MRA resources. Why? They are not real research. They are not, by definition, objective. They WANT a specific outcome.The central bureau of statistics in Germany is not an MRA resource.It corrected the German gender wage gap down from 23/24 percent AVERAGE to 8 percent MAXIMUM on 25th October 2010.Download PDF of the entire studyhttps://www-ec.destatis.de/csp/shop/sfg/bpm.html.cms.cBroker.cls?CSPCHD=00000001000049flxfnU000000bwqWgK4yo_hWQtdyzGXkQg–&cmspath=struktur,vollanzeige.csp&ID=1026340Read additional information/explicationhttp://www.destatis.de/jetspeed/portal/cms/Sites/destatis/Internet/DE/Presse/pm/2010/10/PD10__384__621,templateId=renderPrint.psml
>Eoghan,How do we know the studies MRA's use are not developed by people who support the MRM? Why should anyone believe that MRA's are not conducting studies specifically to further their cause? Of course they are. You claim any study that doesn't have results you like are feminist studies. Why should anyone believe that every study that has results MRA's don't like are "feminist" studies.The rest of what I wrote is the main theme of MRM websites,,,women are inferior and evil, men are good and perfect, blah, blah, blah. Deny it all you want. It's all over MRM websites in black and white proving you wrong.
>@Christine WENot Eoghan, but I'll answer this:"How do we know the studies MRA's use are not developed by people who support the MRM?"There's a revolutionary thing at the back of every published article or study, it's called a bibliography and it contains an alphabetized list of sources that the study or article relied upon to back up it's claims. With help from this thing called the internet, or, should you prefer, a library, one is able to search these sources individually and read them for oneself and thus may determine whether or not they are feminist, mra, or fucking tapioca.
>Christine WE The credible independent research is not being carried out by an international secret cabal of undercover mra's. Thats like a creationist saying that satan is using minions to falsify evolution research, thats just paranoic nonsense. The independent research does not have the same characteristics as feminist research, in the same way that scientific research does not have the same characteristics as creationist research.One is genuine and the other seeks to conform to a belief system and specific agenda.Mra's quote the genuine research. Feminists quote advocacy research.And tell me what mra sites have you visited Christine or are you basing your opinion on what David Furtelle publishes here?
>"For me, probably the most important kind of sexism going into the wage gap is the sexism of unquestioned assumptions; unquestioned assumptions about who does the housework, unquestioned assumptions about who does the child-rearing, unquestioned assumptions about innate ability, and most of all, unquestioned assumptions about how jobs are designed for people with wives at home.I call this last factor the “Father Knows Best” economy; most jobs implicitly assume that workers have wives at home who are taking care of the kids and house, so that these responsibilities never need to be accommodated by employers. Maybe that assumption made sense half a century ago, but it doesn’t make sense now; and by continuing to implicitly make this assumption, our economy is making it unfairly difficult for caretakers (who are usually women) to have careers."Yes, yes, yes! This deserved quoting… E.g. When MPAs go on about how men work longer hours they conveniently neglect that women work longer hours overall when we include housework. It's like, yeah, I'd work longer too if I had a wife/mother at home to prepare my meals, clean my house, iron my work clothes, etc, etc! However, if you instead have to go home and do that for 3 other people including yourself, that changes things quite a bit…The other thing is there is a lot of classism with this. Despite what several MPAs would have us believe, 1950s-style housewifes were only possible in the upper middle class families and up…most poor women worked…
>Yohan and Natasha, you should be aware that the empirical data I presented on the wage gap (in my further reading post on the subject) COMES FROM GOVT. SOURCES. Eoghan is going on and on about biased data, feminist this, feminist that, but that's because he never actually looks at anything I ever cite. He's not arguing in good faith here. To expand on what Christine said, the fact is that there ARE antifeminist ideologues who get cited by MRAs all the time — MRAs are constantly citing the "research" of people like Warren Farrell and Christina Hoff Sommers, both of whom are ideologues whose use of data is questionable. There are domestic violence researchers who are driven by antifeminist ideology as well. There ARE feminists who are similarly sloppy/biased with data, but I don't cite them here. At this point, I see no point whatsoever in debating with people who simply dismiss feminist research without even reading it. If someone is actually willing to engage in a real debate — actually reading the information and arguments and sources I've put out there, and offering specific arguments against that, then we can debate. If not, there's no point.
>Eoghan, this is almost all complete nonsense. Much of the research I have presented here is "independent" — the bulk of the empirical data I presented on the wage gap came from US govt sources, for example. I've stated this several times already. But no, here you go again: "Mra's quote the genuine research. Feminists quote advocacy research." Well, yeah, if you define everything you disagree with, without reading or even looking at it, including government reports, as "advocacy research." But the thing is, I'm not going to debate this with you any longer. I'm not going to debate ANYTHING with you any longer. Life is short, and I really don't have time to debate anything with anyone who won't debate in good faith — that is, anyone who regularly distorts what I say, puts words in my mouth, or rejects the information and studies I cite without even looking at them (because of their preconceived ideological notions or because of simply laziness). I am sick of wasting my time refuting your repeated lies and misrepresentations — about me, about feminism, about everything. If you had raised specific questions about any of the specific sources I cites or arguments that I or others I cite had made, we could have had a discussion. But it's pointless. I have given you many chances, I have given you the benefit of the doubt too many times. No more. From now on I will simply delete your comments without reading them.
>Yohan and Natasha, you should be aware that the empirical data I presented on the wage gap (in my further reading post on the subject) COMES FROM GOVT. SOURCESYou should be aware too, that my data about the gender wage gap are from government sources, central bureau of statistics Germany, and are from 2010, this year.In this thread I do not see any link from you regarding any government source. About which government data are you talking and when were they published?
>This is what I referred Eoghan to earlier:http://manboobz.blogspot.com/2010/11/further-reading-gender-pay-gap.htmlAlso, the study you linked to is in German. Given that this is an English-language blog, that neither I nor (I imagine) most of the readers of this blog don't speak German, that's really not a useful addition to the discussion.NOTE: This should not be taken to mean that I think the US is the center of the universe, merely that it's not very helpful to post documents in one language on a blog that's in a different language.
>TEC: how men work longer hours they conveniently neglect that women work longer hours overall when we include housework You cannot expect the employer to pay for housework of family members of the employees.What has this to do with the gender salary gap?