
Chart shows cause of the gender wage gap - iron0013
https://www.vox.com/2018/2/19/17018380/gender-wage-gap-childcare-penalty
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sleighboy
From the methodology of the cited Danish study where the data comes from it
includes those who left work outright and this represents a wage of 0. That is
going to be quite the reduction in wages no matter where you start, to drop to
0. The charts don't seem so dramatic considering that. And the conclusion is
no surprise either if you factor that in, of course wages drop when you are
not working. No mention of that in the article though, doesn't fit the
narrative I guess.

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pergadad
You're only reading at surface level. It's described in the text, but for a
quick sense of it look at the graphs on page 39 and the footnote - for
earnings the participation is not considered but for hours worked and wages it
only considers those in the labour force. You can see that the effect is less
pronounced but it's still there. If I read this right women earn 10-15% less
after having at least one child. Noticeably the dip in year 1 is much weaker,
so in the overall earnings graph this dip might be due to women not working
(much) in the first year and then going back to work - but on average with a
comparably lower salary.

What you should also consider here is that this article is not looking at wage
comparison within one company. It's looking at overall earnings in the
population with a very thorough and deep analysis. It's an analysis for policy
making, not for grandstanding. And for this whether women continue to work is
also relevant - as the authors note this is quite a significant consideration
even for labour force planning/statistics. Moreover thinking of e.g. pensions
this is a very important point - as women will have lower pensions due to
lower lifetime earnings.

Please do look at the whole picture, rather than just try to validate your
viewpoint. There are many interesting tidbits here, for example that earnings
fall 10% for each following child. The graph on p42 comparing childless women
and mothers is also particularly impressive.

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powerslacker
> The gender wage gap is mostly a penalty for bearing children.

> Men also worked, on average, a few more weekly hours and had a bit more
> prior experience as they entered the workforce.

> Childless women have earnings that are quite similar to men’s salaries,
> while mothers experience a significant wage gap.

Hard-hitting stuff Vox. I've got some ideas for the next article in this
series, feel free to use any of them:

\- Shocking study shows micro-transactions prey on children

\- Groundbreaking research shows businesses don't trust ex-convicts

\- Scientists prove that Captain Crunch damages the roof of your mouth

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hn_throwaway_99
So, the subtitle of this article is "The gender wage gap is really a child
care penalty." But why is it seemed a "penalty"? People choose to do different
things, and it seems quite normal to me that people who choose to take focus
off of their work to focus on their family would end up in lower positions
than people who stayed focused on their careers.

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Cenk
Yes — but as you can very clearly see from the chart, only women’s earning
drop significantly after a child. Men’s do not.

~~~
treis
Only women, generally, go through pregnancy and take significant time off of
work to raise children.

~~~
repolfx
It's amazing that such an obvious statement has to be said!

The title of the article is like something out of a comedy: it's "stunning"
that people who drop out of work for a while earn less, and that more women
than men drop out of work because of childcare? How many people on the street
would really be stunned to "learn" that? It's the basics of how the species
has always reproduced itself.

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eigenspace
Nice article, the title is a bit clickbaity though.

Ideally it should contain the thesis since it's pretty succinct. Something
like "The gender wage gap is mostly a child care gap"

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DoreenMichele
_He finds that women start to gravitate toward different jobs after the birth
of a child, ones with fewer hours and lower wages._

The concepts of "the second shift" and "pink collar ghettos" are related to
this. Women need to be able to give time and energy to the child when they are
at home. They can't afford to work so hard that they are too exhausted to wake
up if a child comes into their room in the middle of the night.

Men with well-paid jobs tend to be exhausted after work, too exhausted to do
things like that. If both parents get that exhausted, then no one is able to
provided the care the child needs.

Even if you are a heartless monster, society puts pressure on parents to
actually take care of their own kids. Someone has to do it.

For various reasons, this tends to fall more to the mother than the father.

I'm actually kind of weirded out seeing this piece. I thought this was
incredibly well established and fairly obvious on the face of it to boot.

I will add that all the reading I have done over the years suggests that
countries that primarily address the gender gap by trying to lighten the
child-bearing and child-rearing burden for women are the ones that have
generally been more successful in reducing the gap. Simply decrying the gap as
sexism or whatever tends to not be particularly helpful.

This can be addressed in part via cultural practices. It isn't just about laws
or official policies. From what I have read, a lower divorce rate and a
general expectation that the extended family helps out with the kids tends to
be helpful. When a woman stays married and her mother or aunt is the primary
babysitter while she is at work, you see women do better at advancing their
careers.

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treis
Saw chart. Not stunned.

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soared
Interesting that men who eventually will have kids earn less than men who
eventually won't have kids (4 years prior to the first child birth, fathers-
to-be still earn less). That is not the case for women.

Difficult to tell how pronounced that is without the raw data though.

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randyrand
It's an interesting observation.

Maybe "~all" women expect to have kids?

