
When all job differences are accounted for, the pay gap almost disappears - ptr
https://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2017/08/daily-chart
======
oldboyFX
Still not sure what to believe on this issue.

Some points of discussion are (unrelated to article):

1\. If women were 25% cheaper than men while being as competent, wouldn't
white/male capitalists trip over themselves to only hire women to increase
their profits?

2\. Women are less likely to negotiate salary and assert themselves, as women
in general are more agreeable than men. Is this behavior based in biology or
is it social construct?

3\. Women tend to choose lower paying jobs, such as teacher, caregiver etc. In
general women tend to care about people, while men care about things (STEM).
Again: biology or social construct?

For example in Sweden, which is doing it's best to increase gender equality,
sex differences between men and women maximized
[http://jamda.ub.gu.se/bitstream/1/833/1/scb_eng_2014.pdf](http://jamda.ub.gu.se/bitstream/1/833/1/scb_eng_2014.pdf)

So perhaps occupation differences are healthy and natural. Of course, in
Sweden engineers don't earn 300% more than teachers, so it's not a huge
problem like in the USA.

The logical solution would be to increase pay in women dominated professions.
But this kind of thing spits in the face of capitalism.

It's a tough problem to solve, and I still have no idea how to go about
solving it.

EDIT: Additional explanations

~~~
rayiner
> 3\. Women tend to choose lower paying jobs, such as teacher, caregiver etc.
> In general women tend to care about people while men care about things
> (STEM). Again: biology or social construct

Social construct. Look at Asian countries that by all accounts have less
gender quality than the west but have more women science graduates. India is
double the U.K. on that metric.

The fact that Sweden has skewed representation doesn't capture what I call the
"princesses and fairies" problem. Just because society doesn't explicitly
discriminate against women doesn't mean that it's not telling women that they
should be interested in princesses and fairies instead of legos. My daughter,
four, is the only one of a few girls in the STEM programs I signed her up for
at summer camp. This is entirely parents projecting gender norms onto their
kids.

My mom grew up in bangladesh in the 1960s. She majored in chemistry as did
several of her sisters. The expectation was that an upper class woman would be
educated so she could marry well, not for work. But the western gender norm
about women being suited for certain professions doesn't exist.

~~~
mpweiher
>Social construct. Look at Asian countries

> that by all accounts have less gender quality

> than the west but have more women science

> graduates. India is double the U.K. on that metric.

How do you conclude "social construct" from that data? When external pressures
are greater, gender differences equalize. When external constraints fall away,
gender differences are allowed to express themselves. So it is no surprise
that self-segregation is pretty much directly and positively correlated to
measures of societal progress and gender equality. Just to repeat that: the
more egalitarian and progressive the society, the more the genders self-
segregate in the workplace.

Here's a quote from a BBC article asking "Why is Russia so good at encouraging
women into tech?" The answer is in the article: necessity.

"Most of the girls we talked to from other countries had a slightly playful
approach to Stem, whereas in Russia, even the very youngest were extremely
focused on the fact that their future employment opportunities were more
likely to be rooted in Stem subjects." \--
[http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-39579321](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-39579321)

~~~
eloary
No such correlation exists.

~~~
mpweiher
"Gender differences in personality tend to be larger in gender-egalitarian
societies than in gender-inegalitarian societies"

[http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1751-9004.2010....](http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1751-9004.2010.00320.x/abstract)

"Most importantly and contra predictions, we showed that economically
developed and more gender equal countries have a lower overall level of
mathematics anxiety, and yet a larger national sex difference in mathematics
anxiety relative to less developed countries."

[http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal....](http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0153857)

"Previous research suggested that sex differences in personality traits are
larger in prosperous, healthy, and egalitarian cultures in which women have
more opportunities equal with those of men. In this article, the authors
report cross-cultural findings in which this unintuitive result was replicated
across samples from 55 nations (N = 17,637)."

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18179326](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18179326)

"What might be surprising to most people, as we shall see, is the specific
pattern of cross-national variation in the gender gap in authority. To cite
just one example, in the United States, the probability of a man in the labor
force occupying an "upper" or "top" management position is 1.8 times greater
than the probability of a woman occupying such a position, whereas in Sweden,
the probability for men is 4.2 times greater than for women."

[https://www.ssc.wisc.edu/~wright/Published%20writing/CC-C9.p...](https://www.ssc.wisc.edu/~wright/Published%20writing/CC-C9.pdf)

Your move.

------
Quanttek
I hate these kinds of statistics because all they say is "If we discount all
the things creating the pay gap, basically no pay gap exists". Industries
typically inhabited by women getting paid less? Predominantly male/female
industries suddnely decreasing/increasing in average pay when women/men enter
it? Women having a lesser likelihood of getting promoted? Women having a lower
likelihood of getting hired for higher-paying positions (recruiter biases)?
Those are _some_ of the reasons

~~~
x220
The purpose of the article is to refute the claim that "women get paid
significantly less for the same work as men". It does not try to prove that
there is no discrimination in hiring or promoting. Most people think that the
pay gap is as simple as managers deciding to pay women less, which is wildly
inaccurate and nearly never happens, as the article shows. It is up for debate
what has the larger impact on what jobs women take and how far they advance:
their personal preferences or discrimination.

------
Joeri
Women don't advance in rank as fast as men, and so end up being paid less.
Thus article doesn't refute that because it admits that level is factor in the
pay gap.

As to why women don't advance as fast ... my opinion is that it's primarily
motherhood that does it. It puts a career on hold for 6 months times the
number of children, and women are socially expected to be primary caregivers
so they feel pressured not to work long hours (and so advance less). Before
they get pregnant employers will suspect impending motherhood and offer fewer
opportunities so as to rely less. It's not fair, but it is how it is.

~~~
danielharrison
Minimum 6 months in some countries.

------
rayiner
The "for the same work" piece of it rings hollow and is fighting a battle that
didn't need to be won. It's enough to get across the point that women are
socialized into lower paying roles and held back professionally because of
child care obligations.

My daughter is four. Her summer camp has all sorts of course choices every
week. So I signed her up for "little engineers," "little scientists," etc.
(There was also princess and fairy-related options.) Fast forward a couple of
weeks and she's the only girl in "tech machines." I had to flip out at my
wife, au pair, mother in law, etc. not to let anyone hint to her that there
might be anything unusual or undesirable about this.

These are four year olds, they have no preferences. It's purely parents
projecting gender roles onto their kids. My kid is super into princesses and
fairies, but also comes home every day with a new project and says it was "the
best day ever" because she learned about buoyancy or whatever.

~~~
dionidium
_" These are four year olds, they have no preferences. It's purely parents
projecting gender roles onto their kids."_

Without litigating this specific case in any detail, I just want to argue more
generally that _of course_ 4-year-olds (and _much_ younger) have gender-based
preferences and that there is loads of research confirming this. It's
remarkable that this is considered even _remotely_ controversial.

~~~
rayiner
I'm talking about preferences regarding science camp versus princess camp (or
a chemistry degree versus an English degree). My daughter is incredibly gender
normative. Everything is pink and frilly and she refuses to wear pants. But
she has no idea that science is for boys.

------
hacknat
Personally I think the biggest caveat avoided "when job differences are
accounted for" is the care of children. Women, by-and-large, really get hosed
with the negative externalities of having children (time off, career halting,
etc). Most Western countries are not generous or equitable by half, and the
USA is downright savage.

~~~
throwaway2229
Sure, women who take time off to raise kids will take a hit to income. In a
married family, the husband compensates. If the woman is unmarried, she gets
child support/alimony to make up the difference. So, either you're arguing
that child support/alimony is too low, or that _married couples_ get hosed
with the externality of having children. This is recognized in law, and people
with children get tax deductions, and if they don't earn enough, they get
government provided healthcare, food stamps, WIC, housing assistance, etc. On
the other hand, the married couple gets the joy of raising children, the
satisfaction of contributing to the next generation, and hopefully someone to
look after them when they're old. You can argue that this isn't an equal trade
between society and parents, but it's not an issue of male/female
discrimination.

~~~
hacknat
> Sure, women who take time off to raise kids will take a hit to income.

There's a lot more to it than just that. If there was only a one-time hit to
income, everything you said afterwards would hold true, but that's not the
only issue, and you're quite naive for thinking so.

Also it shows poor faith in the community to hide behind a throwaway. I
wouldn't down vote you for stating the opinion you just stated, but I will
take the argument you just made less seriously because your making it in a
cowardly fashion.

I take downvoting someone very seriously and will only do so if I think they
are harming the community with their speech.

~~~
throwaway2229
That's a fair point. However, alimony can most certainly extend beyond the age
of majority for the kids, and marital property is usually divided in such a
way as to compensate a woman for taking time off to raise kids. Social
Security also allows divorced women to partially receive benefits based on
their ex-husband's income, even income earned after the end of the marriage.

Regarding my lack of faith in the HN community, I like your attitude, and I
also take downvoting seriously. Unfortunately empirically the comment was
downvoted, so obviously not everyone agrees with us. It's become politically
(both here and elsewhere) unacceptable to have a belief that perhaps being a
woman in America isn't so bad. I think it's worthwhile to have this
discussion, but I'm not interested in having my head put on a pike for it.

~~~
hacknat
I think it's true that being a woman in America isn't all that bad if you're
in a privileged group, but under-served populations tend to get the shaft (in
more ways then one), and especially women.

While the wage gap between men and women is close when you adjust for "job
differences", I think the strong reaction against that caveat is "adjusting
for job differences" equates strongly with "behaving like a man".

Fair point on the community our regard for being politically correct is
obnoxious, and I definitely don't think you should have been down voted for
expressing an intellectually earnest opinion, c'est la vie.

------
ProAm
I always wonder when they say 'Same work' do they mean same output, or same
job title? I've seen this argued both ways in the US and have no idea what to
believe anymore.

~~~
danharaj
The article uses the definition that "same rank" == "same work", which is
ridiculous for many reasons, one in particular being that title often
corresponds to a pay level for an area of work covered by a ladder of such
titles so by definition it will be true that such a gap is insignificant.

> According to data for 8.7m employees worldwide gathered by Korn Ferry, a
> consultancy, women in Britain make just 1% less than men who have the same
> function and level at the same employer.

~~~
FT_intern
It's not ridiculous because the alternative is almost impossible to quantify
and calculate

~~~
micahbright
It's easy, just like the income tax. Get into every nook and cranny of how
things are done and control absolutely everything.

------
jmull
It hardly seems like a fair measure of pay gap if you don't take into account
disparities in promotions.

At the same level, company and function the pay gap is small. Yet, women are
stuck in lower-ranked positions in greater proportion for some reason.

~~~
x220
Perhaps it is because many women put their career advancement on hold if they
choose to have children?

~~~
MartinCron
There's another way to frame that... too few men put their career advancement
on hold when they choose to have children. Instead of sharing the burden,
society expects a disproportionate sacrifice from women.

Typical example: Nobody asks a male CEO or politician who is staying home to
take care of the kids.

~~~
makomk
Of course, missing out on your kids growing up is also a sacrifice itself,
even if it's something that maybe we as a society value less than a big salary
- and it's certainly something men are expected to value less.

~~~
MartinCron
Absolutely. I have two children and I got to be much more involved in the
early childhood of one than the other. It's a sacrifice that I've felt
personally. It's just not anywhere close to a level playing field.

------
carlmcqueen
This rigged need to prove the same work is being paid the same always rings
pretty hollow for me.

In my first corporate job I was the most technical employee by far, I did the
work of far senior roles because my managers were wise to use a lot of my
technical skill to get complex work done all the while having HR tell me I
didn't have enough years and experience to have the higher paying job title.

Just because someone has the job title they have and the pay to go with it
often has nothing to do with the work they do.

In both directions.

~~~
coldtea
> _This rigged need to prove the same work is being paid the same always rings
> pretty hollow for me._

That's not about "the same work being paid the same" in general. Individual
businesses can pay more or less for the same tasks, even the same business can
pay people differently for the same task. Senior employees might be paid more
while junior employees do all the real work, etc. Those things are true.

But this article is not about that, it is about whether on average women and
men are paid the same for the same jobs.

~~~
micahbright
>But this article is not about that

It seems like the article is actually precisely about that. If the authors
didn't take these factors into account, their findings would be useless.

------
fiatjaf
Perhaps companies who hire more women are companies that pay less generally.
They are hiring women because they are cheaper.

Perhaps jobs that pay less are less attractive to men who can be better paid
at some other job, so these jobs attract more women.

If the above is true, then there is indeed a "pay gap", but it is not the
consequence of any systemic sexism.

~~~
xxSparkleSxx
Spitballing, but I have read that when an industry begins to be dominated by
women the average wages decrease and when they are dominated by men the
average wages increase. This could be due to women being less likely to
negotiate salary which has an effect not only on themselves but on every other
worker in the industry.

So a woman in a female-dominated industry may suffer not only from their own
negotiation tactics but also the negotiation tactics of most of the workers in
the industry

As someone that works in the biotechnology industry, I can see a lot of
corollaries. Scientists love being martyrs and there is a strong culture of
"don't care about your pay - only care about the work." I could see how women
could be more susceptible to this line of reasoning and/or taught to care more
about "passion" than their bottom line (compared to men).

Again, lots of spitballing. Probably way off.

~~~
micahbright
>This could be due to women being less likely to negotiate salary which has an
effect not only on themselves but on every other worker in the industry.

It could also be due to men leaving industries that have ongoing lowering of
wages.

------
oDot
Relevant remark by John Carmack (ignore the poor YouTube title):
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vzmbW4ueGdg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vzmbW4ueGdg)

~~~
jackmott
There is apparently a woman working for them now doing some of the hard Vulkan
stuff nobody else wants to do, per John's tweets lately.

------
Huhty
If you reached limit of article views, here is the link to google around the
soft pay wall:

[https://www.google.com/search?q=Are+women+paid+less+than+men...](https://www.google.com/search?q=Are+women+paid+less+than+men+for+the+same+work)

(Click on first link from economist.com)

------
FlashGit
How unsurprising. Firstly, for most professions there are plenty of resources
documenting what typical salaries are for degree/experience, so if you end up
making less than that, well that seems like that is on you.

It flies in the face of economic common sense that if you could hire an
equally skilled women and they would consistently accept 75% the pay as a man,
then companies would have taken advantage of that fact. Just like they do with
lower paid immigrant workers.

------
abritinthebay
Generally speaking the problem isn't that _individuals_ get paid less.

It's systemic issues - which are harder to fix.

For example: women _as a whole_ are less likely to be in higher paying jobs in
STEM roles. Or CEOs. Or high level Politicians. Why? Multiple reasons but the
overall point is there is _institutional_ and _social_ pressure (mostly
unconscious or learned) for women to avoid those fields.

So the average gets lowered.

This is also true of socially acceptable behaviors causing issues: women are
usually less comfortable pushing for raises for example. Or negotiating for a
higher initial salary after an interview.

So the average gets lower.

Then we get to what is the more contentious issue (at least… in places like
HN) - community behavior. It's inarguable that many STEM fields have a very
hostile default behavior that women (even if it's not directed at them) find
unpleasant enough to avoid. The level of drop outs of women in tech due to
this is very high.

This is the point that usually is the "sexism in tech" conversation.

But arguably that's just a symptom of the previous problems.

~~~
greenshackle2
About 20% of the workforce in tech is women.

 _Less than_ 20% of students who take the AP Computer Science test are female.
[1]

So whatever makes women uninterested in programming happens before college.

Men are much more thing-oriented than women, who are more people-oriented. The
size of the effect is "very large", larger than any other difference in
personality [2]. Programming is obviously a thing-oriented activity.

Anecdotally, this split seems to happen at a young age - little boys play with
cars, little girls play house, etc.

Anecdotally, kids are far more sexist than any adult I know. Try being a 5
year old boy who likes to play with dolls.

(EDIT: maybe not 5 year old. I don't have kids of my own, I forget exactly
when kids start thinking the other sex is gross, maybe a bit older)

I don't know how to even begin to fix this, as far as I know children learn
most of their culture from each other and older peers, not from their parents
or teachers [3].

I'm willing to bet that most of the problem comes way upstream of the
workplace. The tech industry can do as much hand-wringing as they want over
sexism in the workplace, it's not gonna fix the fact that adolescent girls are
choosing to not take the AP Comp Sci test.

[1] [https://thinkprogress.org/not-a-single-female-student-
took-t...](https://thinkprogress.org/not-a-single-female-student-took-the-ap-
computer-science-test-in-two-states-d54ca3475ee6)

[2] [http://sci-hub.cc/10.1111/j.1751-9004.2010.00320.x](http://sci-
hub.cc/10.1111/j.1751-9004.2010.00320.x)

[3]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nurture_Assumption](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nurture_Assumption)

~~~
abritinthebay
I agree. I said basically that?

The culture problem in tech is not the cause, it’s just the end symptom of
many things - including what you’re taking about.

~~~
greenshackle2
You said that:

> The level of drop outs of women in tech due to this is very high.

But if that were true I'd expect women would be underrepresented in tech
compared to AP Comp Sci. As it is they are slightly over-represented.

If you have clearer evidence on that point I'd like to see it. I've heard
convincing anecdotes of women dropping out because of sexism but I find it
hard to reconcile with the data.

~~~
abritinthebay
You're comparing different things - one is _current_ levels of CompSci (small,
limited, sample size - hell _I_ wouldn't show up in CompSci numbers) which is
also basically at an all time high. The other is a total size metric that
won't show churn.

I get what you're trying to show but the comparison doesn't follow.

------
anotherbrownguy
I think the whole issue of "unequal pay" seems very made-up and political and
does not make any sense at all, at least in any way anyone can do anything
about it... bear with me while I try to explain it.

Lets say there are differences in how much certain demographics of people get
paid over another. Lets take short vs tall people or black vs white or with
blood groups positive vs negative. Lets say that there is a difference in
average pay for people with positive blood groups vs negative blood groups. So
what? It could be completely arbitrary or there could be an underlying cause
that makes employers pay one type of blood group over another. Either way, why
should an employer pay any more than what they think the position is worth as
long as someone is willing to voluntarily work for that amount of money?
What's in it for any employer to pay more than the employee negotiated to work
for?

~~~
monktastic1
Do you think it's possible and worthwhile to change attitudes? If we once
believed (and no doubt some still do) that black people are worth less than
white people, and so black people were effectively _forced_ to accept less
(though nobody was holding a gun to their heads), was that an acceptable state
of affairs? What was in it for any of the (non-black) people to change
anything about it?

Given the stories we regularly hear from female employees in the tech industry
(of being harassed and/or left out of the "inner circle"), it seems
unreasonable to conclude that the effects we see might be "completely
arbitrary" as opposed to caused by those attitudes (in addition to other
causes that have been pointed out, such as difference in priorities, of
course).

~~~
anotherbrownguy
>Do you think it's possible and worthwhile to change attitudes?

Depends.

>If we once believed (and no doubt some still do) that black people are worth
less than white people, and so black people were effectively forced to accept
less (though nobody was holding a gun to their heads), was that an acceptable
state of affairs?

Yes. Westerners didn't arbitrarily decide that blacks were worth less to them,
it was because they were. Blacks could not contribute anything to the
westerners other than slave labour... and they were too ignorant of the
western power structure to organize themselves to fight for equal worth from
the states they were in. When they figured it out however, they did get the
same worth from the states they were in.

>What was in it for any of the (non-black) people to change anything about it?

Not sure about all non-blacks but the Republican Party of the US which was
founded by anti-slavery activists who believed in independence and freedom for
all people. They already had examples of free blacks who were just as capable
of learning and contributing to the society and letting some people own some
of them and treat them as animals wasn't acceptable to them and a lot of
others. So, they used it for political leverage and were very successful.

>Given the stories we regularly hear from female employees in the tech
industry (of being harassed and/or left out of the "inner circle")

Nobody is stopping women from having their own niche occupation where they
make their own inner circles... oh wait there are those occupations, they are
called nursing and teaching. Men and women in general have different life
goals and different preferences in their careers. Also, "harassment" happens
to men too (specially when everything is harassment)... men just deal with it
differently i.e. by not complaining about it to others and doing something
about it themselves.

------
snovv_crash
I'm curious if they also included benefits and likelihood of men vs women
leaving the company or going on sick or extended maternity/paternity leave.

I know I have my own anecdotes about this, but I'd like to see some hard data.

------
sirgg0119
does anyone have any studies on breaking this down further to pay per hour? as
men generally are seen as working more hours which could lead to why they get
more pay too

~~~
jxramos
Thomas Sowell dug into various figures on this debate over the course of
several decades if I recall. He's pretty entertaining to watch on old Uncommon
Knowledge videos.

------
dgfgfdagasdfgfa
Accounting for all job differences is a hell of a claim.

------
fulldecent
Before all the thought experiments, which I'm sure will ensue below, I just
want to ask. Is it possible that men and women are actually different?

(The `flag` button above to mod this comment into oblivion.)

------
danharaj
> __Although the average woman’s salary in Britain is 29% lower than the
> average man’s, the bulk of that gap results from differences in rank within
> companies, firms’ overall compensation rates and the nature of the tasks a
> job requires. __

If Software Engineer II makes less than Software Engineer III, and women of
equivalent skill and experience to men have a significantly higher chance of
being Software Engineer II than III, then the wage gap exists for "the same
work".

This is particularly difficult to measure, but still possible with proper
diligence, because rank throughout a career is a compounding advantage.

P.S. disable javascript to get past the paywall

~~~
monochromatic
> women of equivalent skill and experience to men have a significantly higher
> chance of being Software Engineer II than III

Unfortunately, there's no evidence whatsoever that this is the case.

~~~
ebola1717
Did you even google it

[http://www.nber.org/digest/feb07/w12321.html](http://www.nber.org/digest/feb07/w12321.html)

[http://www.nber.org/papers/w20761](http://www.nber.org/papers/w20761)

[http://www.wsj.com/specialcoverage/women-in-the-
workplace](http://www.wsj.com/specialcoverage/women-in-the-workplace)

~~~
monochromatic
>equivalent skill

At a quick glance, your links don't speak to that aspect at all. And that's
sort of the most important thing.

~~~
ebola1717
> controlling for all variables, including worker performance ratings, men's
> promotion rates were still 2.2 percentage points higher than women's.

------
pbadenski
Is anyone aware of the existence of similar data for the US?

------
lap42
Wow, the globalist Economist saying that is really something.

------
mcappleton
This whole debate about gender pay is based on the flawed assumption that
marriage is not an integral part of human society. Humanity has functioned
since time immemorial with marriage as a fundamental human institution. Sure,
it's not honored in many cases, but by and large it is a part of human social
fabric. Today, however, we are experimenting with disposing of time tested
marital roles, instead expecting both spouses to do the same things. Business
101 would instruct you to pick a partner with an opposite skill set from what
you have and each work on what they are good at. Yet today we reduce
efficiency by having both man and woman split both tasks, or worse, do the
task both by him or herself.

It's time that we start considering the family as a unit again.

------
johnfn
The whole point is that society systematically undervaluing women-dominated
professions _is sexism._ It makes sense that the pay gap disappears when the
job differences go away, because the job differences _are_ the pay gap.

A good example is teaching. Teaching is an incredibly valuable job. It's also
dominated by women. It also happens to be way, way underpaid.

It embarrasses me to see this on HN.

~~~
darawk
> The whole point is that the way society systematically undervalues women-
> dominated professions is sexism at work.

What? Can you explain how that is possible? As far as I know, people value
things according to what value they obtain from them. There is no way for that
to be 'sexist'. People are paid according to the value they produce. To call
that sexist is just completely inconsistent with any reasonable conception of
economics to my understanding.

EDIT: In your edit you added the example of teaching. And that is, fairish.
I'd grant you that teachers are underpaid, but that isn't sexism, it's a
consequence of the structure of our education system. They're not underpaid
because they're women, they're underpaid because they're being paid by a
bureaucracy.

~~~
Others
The problem is gender roles. Women are taught by society to think that, as
women, they should go into certain careers. These careers, like teaching, tend
to be lower paid than the careers men are encouraged to go into.

~~~
klipt
Men are pressured to be breadwinners, so they are more likely to pick careers
based on pay.

Women are not pressured to be breadwinners, so they're more likely to pick
careers that sound fulfilling and satisfying, but are less lucrative.

Media likes to focus on the pay gap, but has anyone investigated the
fulfillment and satisfaction gap? I wouldn't be surprised if overall men are
less fulfilled and satisfied by their jobs.

~~~
rarec
Men are typically raised from a young age that you do defines your worth.
Women are typically raised with the idea that they have value in and of
themselves. There are pros and cons to both sides of encouragement.

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twobyfour
Too many women are raised to believe not that they have value in and of
themselves but that their value is in their reproductive potential.

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AjithAntony
I'd say both men and women at some level value themselves in their
attractiveness to the opposite sex. Women feel value by being attractive to
men. And Men feel value by being attractive to women. Men are attracted to
women who display youth and beauty as a proxy for reproductive value, and
women are attracted to wealth and status as a proxy for support.

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twobyfour
Sure, but women are taught (mostly subconsciously but in some ways explicitly)
that their primary value as human beings is in physical attractiveness when
young, in their fertility in their 20s, and in their ability to nurture when
older.

We teach men that their value is in their accomplishments, which is a) more
empowering; b) more under their control; and c) more conducive to independence
and pursuit of self-realization (in career or in other aspects of life),
positions of power, and yes, powerful and high-paid careers.

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belorn
Men are not valued for their accomplishments, they are valued for their
resources and ability to gain more resources. No where in any data that I have
seen, for example dating, can we see that people who travel or achieve
personal accomplishments are out competing people with wealth.

For example, let say we take two groups of men in the age of 30. Those in
group A have traveled and accomplished a bunch of personal goals, but are at
this point jobbing at minimum wage jobs. Those in group B stayed put and
studied and work hard to position themselves at high earning jobs. Which group
is rewarded highest by society? My bet if they did such study would be group B
with a very clear margin.

Men are being taught that their primary value as human is to chase wealth.
This causes men take more risk, die at a earlier age, and have a smaller
social network to take care of them at old age. Regardless of gender, neither
men or women live a life of roses, and being valued for physical
attractiveness rather than wealth has benefits and drawbacks.

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onewhonknocks
When adjusted for factors such as hiatuses for raising kids, the answer is
'no.'

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rexpop
Why don't men take these hiatuses?

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mobiplayer
Because women are paid less, so couples decide the best paid member will keep
working.

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ashark
Magnifying this effect, my understanding is that men are much more open to
marrying down on the income ladder than women are. So the average gap within
marriages/partnerships/whatever is even worse than you'd expect just from the
base, general salary difference in the population.

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module0000
The trick to advancing your cause, is to do more than whine incessantly about
it.

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31reasons
In other words, "When we are looking to eliminate pay gap from data, job
differences seems to be the right place to look".

