Research Challenges Labor Day Myth: “Men Paid More for Same Work”

Q&A on the Pay Gap Myth with Dr. Warren Farrell

MND NEWSWIRE

New research throws doubt on one of the most long-held assumptions of
Labor Day—that women’s labor is paid less than men’s even when it’s the
same.

Dr. Warren Farrell’s Why Men Earn More, a multi-year analysis of
previously unpublished U.S. Department of Labor Census data, purports
to uncover, as its subtitle implies, The Startling Truth Behind the Pay
Gap -- and What Women Can Do About It.

Actually, in the Census Data according to Farrell, although men make
more than women for different work, women now make more than men for
the same work. A claim like that calls for a few cross-examining
questions...

Q: What is this “different work” that supposedly leads to women’s lower
pay?

Farrell: Men and women make 25 different work-life choices. Each leads
to men earning more money; and each leads to women having better lives.

Q: Women’s lead to better lives? What do you make of that?

Farrell: Once again, the women have outsmarted us! It’s great for my
two daughters; and great for creating flexibility in who works and who
cares for the children.

Q: Are you saying the road to high pay is a toll road?

Farrell: Yes, essentially, it is a road with at least 25 different
tolls. The trick is discovering which tolls are worth it. For example,

a traveling nurse gets paid about twice what a stationary nurse gets
paid. For a single person, traveling may be a plus; for a parent, a
negative.

Q: Why does it nevertheless still appear men earn more than women for
the same work?

Farrell: Because in most fields men still do earn more for the same
job title. For example, technically, male doctors earn more than female
doctors. But male and female doctors behave very differently. The man
is more likely to be the surgeon (vs. GP or psychiatrist), work in
private practice (vs. HMOs), work hours that are longer and less
predictable, for more years. It is only when everything is equal that
the women earn the same or more. I used to teach at the School of
Medicine at the University of California in San Diego. I saw my female
students even in their first year expressing preference for shorter,
more predictable hours, and a desire to avoid surgery.

Q: Wait. Aren’t male executives paid more than female executives?

Farrell: Comparing the earnings of male executives to female executives
is also comparing apples and oranges. Women are 15 times more likely
to become female executives prior to the age of 40. So the female
executive has fewer years of experience. More important, the men are
more frequently executives of larger national and international
firms—firms with more personnel and revenues; the men are more likely
responsible for bottom-line sales, marketing and finances, not human
resources or pr. It’s apples and oranges.

Q: So if men and women make twenty-five decisions that lead to the pay
gap, are these different decisions innate? And if they’re not innate,
what are they about, and what’s the evidence?

Farrell: They are not innate. They are about the division of labor that
occurs when a couple has children. Thus, women who have never been
married and are without children earn 117% of their male counterparts.


Q: Women who have never been married and never had children earn more?
Why the reversal?

Farrell: Men without family responsibilities make career decisions
similar to women’s: they prioritize jobs in the arts and social
sciences that pay less, etc.; conversely, these women’s decisions are
more like men’s: jobs in math, science, engineering, sales; a
willingness to travel more, etc. When the sexes’ work-life decisions
are comparable, the women earn more. (The 117% figure is for men and
women with equal education, equal hours worked and the same years of
work experience.) To paraphrase a political aphorism, “It’s about the
family, stupid.” If the pay gap were about discrimination against
women, never-married women without children would not earn more than
their male counterparts.

Q: Is there discrimination against women?

Farrell: Yes. And there is also discrimination against men. Against
women: men are still the top executives, and men criticize each other
and have sexual humor that gets repressed when women are around—which
makes them uncomfortable. Against men: try being a man and getting a
job as a dental hygienist, nursery school or first grade teacher,
cocktail waiter, restaurant host at Denny’s, a housekeeper in any
hotel, selling women’s or men’s apparel at Wal-Mart or Costco.

Q: Is there other evidence that points to family decisions being
primary and discrimination against each sex being about equal?

Farrell: Lots. Women who own their own businesses earn only 49% of male
business owners. That is, women make 80% of what men make when their
bosses are usually men, but 49% when their bosses are themselves.

Q: Why?

Farrell: Different goals. When the Rochester Institute of Technology
surveyed business owners, they discovered money was the primary
motivator for only 29% of the women, vs. 76% of the men. Women wanted
flexibility with family opportunities, freedom, control, no commute.

Women have always run their own small business with no one to fire
them—it was called the family.

Q: When we stop focusing our binoculars on discrimination do we
discover opportunities for women?

Farrell: Myriad. For example, there are now 80 fields in which women
earn more than men—fields such as financial analyst, speech-language
pathologist, radiation therapist, library worker, biological
technician, funeral service worker, motion picture projectionist....
Female engineers (who sell their company’s product) make 143% of their
male counterparts; female statisticians, 135%. Go figure.

Q: So you’re saying a woman with binoculars focusing on discrimination
misses opportunities--like knowing these 80 fields, or the 25 ways to
higher pay? You said there is a myriad of opportunities the
preoccupation with discrimination makes women miss. What are three
others you discovered doing the research for Why Men Earn More?

Farrell: OK, here are three of them...

1. For women with fewer skills and less education, join the Marines or
Air Force. Only two women in the War in Iraq has been killed the
Marines and Air Force, and both offer opportunities that translate well
into civilian life, such as training in administrative work, weather,
computer fields and health services--which also happen to be the fields
that keep one safe.

2. Pharmacists now earn more than doctors, have far more control over
their lives, and do not experience the emotional taxation of being
intimately involved with patients as they die.

3. People who work 44 hours per week make twice what people earn who
work 34 hours per week. The extra hours, if well used, lead to
disproportionately fast promotions, and job opportunities that would
not otherwise be available.

Q: So this Labor Day is a cause for celebration.

Farrell: Yes. Especially for our daughters.

Q: Where can we find out more?

Farrell: See www.WarrenFarrell.com.

Q: A web site with a name you couldn’t forget, eh?