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Economic Gender Gaps: In the U.S. and Internationally
Brown Eyes:
I've been thinking that it's important to have a thread here in the new forum about the issue of women and economic inequality. This most certainly can turn into a wide-ranging discussion.
I thought I'd start by posting an article I just found a minute ago on CNBC's website. [Sorry that the very interesting chart at the end copies in such a messy way... I don't know how to format a neat and tidy chart here in a post.]
http://www.cnbc.com/id/27674429
Gender Gap Narrows, But US Trails in Equality Stakes
Equality between the sexes improved globally in 2008, according to the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap report. Norway topped the poll for cutting the gender gap, but the United States trailed Western countries in 27th place.
Despite the modest ranking, the US is making progress in terms of sexual equality and is set to gain further, Saadia Zahidi, head of consentience at the World Economic Forum, told CNBC.com.
The US result was held back by the relatively small percentage of women currently working in political decision-making positions, Zahidi said. But that number is set to jump as more and more women make it into high-level political jobs, she said.
The US is currently just bellow Cuba and Barbados.
Finland, Sweden, Iceland and New Zealand all joined Norway at the top of the rankings.
The worsening global economic climate shouldn't signal a set-back for equality between the sexes, Laura Tyson from Hass Business School, Berkley told CNBC.
“Our work shows a strong correlation between competitiveness and the gender gap scores. … countries that do not fully capitalize effectively on one-half of their human resources run the risk of undermining their competitive potential,” Tyson said in a research note.
Moving Up the Charts
Switzerland jumped up the rankings to 14th from 40th in 2008 as the number of women in parliament and at ministerial-level positions increased rapidly.
France also made a strong improvement, rising to 15th from 51st due to both economic participation and political empowerment.
China soared 17 places to 57th as women narrowed the gap in educational attainment, economic and political participation.
The bottom-ranking countries showed a mixed picture of improving and worsening performance. Syria, Ethiopia and Saudi Arabia all fell farther in the rankings, but Tunisia, Jordan and United Arab Emirates showed improving equality.
Overall the study indicated a move toward greater equality between men and women as more than two-thirds of the countries posted gains.
The Global Gender Gap 2008 Rankings – Top 20
Country 2008 Score 2007 Change
Norway 1 82.39% 2 +1
Finland 2 81.95% 3 +1
Sweden 3 81.39% 1 -2
Iceland 4 79.99% 4 0
New Zealand 5 78.59% 5 0
Philippines 6 75.68% 6 0
Denmark 7 75.38% 8 +1
Ireland 8 75.18% 9 +1
Netherlands 9 73.99% 12 +3
Latvia 10 73.97% 13 +3
Germany 11 73.94% 7 -4
Sri Lanka 12 73.71% 15 +3
United Kingdom 13 73.66% 11 -2
Switzerland 14 73.60% 40 +26
France 15 73.41% 51 +36
Lesotho 16 73.20% 26 +10
Spain 17 72.81% 10 -7
Mozambique 18 72.66% 43 +25
Trinidad & Tobago 19 72.45% 46 +27
Moldova 20 72.44% 21 +1
Brown Eyes:
I have a really basic question about the equal pay dilemma facing female workers (essentially everywhere). Why do women put up with this... or why have we put up with this for so long. The gap in pay between men and women has existed pretty much throughout history. Why aren't women in the streets demanding that this situation be fixed. It's so fundamentally unfair... the idea that two people could be paid differently for the same work simply based on gender. This is an issue that is not only upsetting on principle, it impacts people's lives in the most basic and fundamental ways.
I know lots of women have complained, written and protested about this in the past and even currently. And, clearly the issue comes up during election cycles like the one we just witnessed. But, why isn't there even more of a sense of urgency? What are we waiting for in terms of really pushing to fix this really unaccepatable situation?
HerrKaiser:
In answer to the question of 'why do women put up with this?', the problem is that the premise or question is flawed. Pay inequity is one of many misrepresented aspect of the current set of gender issues.
The classic misrepresentation of data comes on this subject by using ALL males income averages vs ALL female income averages and then comparing the two. So, a male executive earning a fair salary of $100K would be averaged with a female staffer earning a fair salary of $45K shows a pay inequity for the female. The stats that show women earning 77 cents for every dollar men earn is based on this calculation.
When equal education, experience, responsibily, performance, etc, are accounted for, the pay equity is at near parity, and in some cases, women far out earn men, such as in K-12 education.
Interestingly, John McCain's senatorial staff showed a pay rate for his females indexing 104 to that of his male staff. Obama's women were underpaid by an index of 87.
serious crayons:
Right. I think businesses rarely if ever pay men more than women, or vise versa, for doing the exact same job.
The trouble is, what seem to be apples vs. oranges comparisons somehow almost end with the apples making more money than the oranges. That is, the jobs JudgHolden mentioned, construction, tow-truck driver, etc., as well as plumber, electrician, carpentry and other jobs that women are capable of doing but rarely do ... those jobs tend to pay more generously, it seems, than jobs in fields traditionally dominated by women: nursing, teaching, cashiering, secretarial work. I'm not going to take the time now to do an extensive wage comparison, so I may be wrong on a few of those details. But the point is, are we absolutely sure that the well-paying male-dominated jobs are worth more than the lesser-paying female jobs? Do the men's jobs necessarily involve more dirt, danger and odd hours, as JudgeHolden mentioned? Are they of more value to society? Do they require more training and/or education? Do they carry more responsibility? Are they in successful industries?
And most important, I guess, are the wages of each simply set at the level the market will bear?
That is a valid point, though, about women taking time out from the workforce to raise children. That really does lower their earning potential, not to mention their retirement savings, their seniority, their promotion opportunities, their Social Security ... On the one hand, I think this helps explain the earnings inequity. On the other hand, women who care for their children -- and raising the next generation is supposedly a job we as a society value -- sacrifice all of that economic opportunity. Their jobs are often every bit as hard as their well-compensated hubands (and yes, I'm aware there are some Mr. Moms, but again their number is disproportionately small).
I agree there are many sociological factors involved. Women do tend not to go into certain better paying fields, perhaps in part because even if they are not officially barred from those fields, there are still some cultural pressures to go into more traditional "women's fields." And JudgeHolden, even if those hazing stories are 20 years old, they still pack a punch. "North Country" came out only a few years ago.
I work in a field that, though originally male, has been "co-ed" for a long time. So I have worked in groups involving lots of women and men. And this
--- Quote ---I hate to say it, but when its one woman and a bunch of guys, she will do fine, but when its several women, it turns into high school. Women dont yet seem to know how to be impersonal, and compete professionally and objectively with each other, and boy howdy, they still see only the other women as there competition.
--- End quote ---
Is not something I have observed among women any more than among men. In fact, I don't really know what it means. You think women see other women as competition, but men don't look at their coworkers or other men that way? Hunh.
brokeplex:
--- Quote from: serious crayons on November 19, 2008, 06:28:25 pm ---
Is not something I have observed among women any more than among men. In fact, I don't really know what it means. You think women see other women as competition, but men don't look at their coworkers or other men that way? Hunh.
--- End quote ---
oh, come on Crayons!
take a hypothetical play sandbox out on a playground
put in 3 little boys, say age 8, give them toys appropriate to sandbox playtime, and the boys will mostly "cooperate" in competitive games.
take 3 little girls, same age, give them their toys, and two of the little girls will gang up "verbally on the other one.
what amuses me is many on the feminist left just refuse to acknowledge that boys and girls on average have cognitive, aptitude, and perceptual differences, and ironically on the other hand they insist because of "identity politics" that women should have their own caucuses, business support groups, safe zones, and that little boys who are naturally boistrous need to be dumbed down by Ritalin because they intimidate the little girls.
hence the feminization of the primary school curriculum and a generation of female teachers who haven't a clue as to how to discipline little boys. this wouldn't be too big an issue, but since it has lead to the decline in grad rates among little boys as they are bored stiff with the feminized curriculum, it is in effect a war on boys perpetrated by the educational establishment and the teachers unions.
on a related note:
that poor old Clintonoid Larry Summers, who just had the temerity to once speak the truth about the differences between men and women.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Women want Larry Summers off Don’t back him for Cabinet
By Christine McConville | Sunday, November 16, 2008 | http://www.bostonherald.com
A controversial comment at a Cambridge conference may cost former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers a second stint in the Cabinet.
“I’m concerned about his judgment and ability to listen,” said Nancy Hopkins, a biology professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and one of the many women who say they are concerned about Summers’ rumored appointment as President-elect Barack Obama’s Treasury secretary.
In 2005, Hopkins walked out of an academic conference after Summers, the keynote speaker and the president of Harvard University at the time, said that innate differences between men and women might be one reason fewer women succeed in science and math careers.
Summers and his defenders have said that he was only putting forth hypotheses based on the scholarly work assembled for the conference, and the conference organizer has said that Summers was asked to be provocative.
Still, the ensuing outcry played a role in his eventual ouster as Harvard’s president and paved the way for the university’s first female president, Drew Faust.
And now women’s groups have expressed so much outrage over Summers’ possible appointment that, according to top Democratic sources, his name may even have been stricken from the short list.
Summers currently works as a Harvard professor, and was not available for comment.
But one of his former students, Sheryl Sandberg, has been defending him.
“Larry has been a true advocate for women throughout his career,” wrote Sandberg, now the chief operating officer at Facebook, on the blog Huffington Post.
“In 1992, as Chief Economist of the World Bank, Larry argued in front of the world’s Finance Ministers that the highest return investment they could make in their economies was to educate their girls,” she wrote.
Rumors of Summers as the next Treasury Secretary come after he spent a year as one of Obama’s top economic advisers.
Sandberg, who worked for Summerts at the World Bank and then at the U.S. Treasury Department during the Clinton administration, has said he would be an excellent choice.
“Many people note that our nation has few economists with his intelligence,” she has written. “They should also know that we have few leaders, if any, in the financial world who have done more for women.”
Other women disagree.
Just after Obama won, National Organization for Women president Kim Gandy told the Huffington Post she had “mixed feelings” about Summers, saying he doesn’t “get” the economic implications of gender-based wage disparities.
The New Agenda, a nonpartisan women’s rights group, issued a press release, saying Summers’ “record of derogatory comments aimed at women ensures that his selection would be divisive and thus distract from efforts to fix the economy.”
And the Rosalind Franklin Society, which promotes women in the life-sciences field, has urged Obama to appoint “someone whose qualifications have not been compromised.”
Hopkins said that locally, anti-Summers sentiment began during his tenure as Harvard’s president.
Female faculty members tried to talk to him about the dwindling numbers of women faculty, “but he doesn’t listen,” she said.
And now with the world economy in upheaval and financial experts uncertain of what move to make next, she said, “to have someone who can’t listen, that’s a real concern,” she said.
Other possible contenders for the Treasury post include New York Federal Reserve Chairman Timothy Geithner and New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine, a former Goldman Sachs executive who has served in the Senate
http://www.bostonherald.com/business/general/view/2008_11_16_Women_want_Larry_Summers_off:_Don_t_back_him_for_Cabinet/
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