Here’s another takedown of the 77 cent myth. I’m certain there’s a gender pay discrepancy, to varying degrees and highly variable from one industry to the next, but I don’t think the simplistic way in which it’s been presented by many is even remotely accurate (reference the OP video):
http://www.aei.org/publication/the-77-cents-on-the-dollar-myth-about-womens-pay/
Men were almost twice as likely as women to work more than 40 hours a week, and women almost twice as likely to work only 35 to 39 hours per week. Once that is taken into consideration, the pay gap begins to shrink. Women who worked a 40-hour week earned 88% of male earnings…
BLS reports that single women who have never married earned 96% of men’s earnings in 2012…
Many working mothers seek jobs that provide greater flexibility, such as telecommuting or flexible hours. Not all jobs can be flexible, and all other things being equal, those which are will pay less than those that do not…
men are four times more likely to bargain over salaries once they enter the job market…
While the BLS reports that full-time female workers earned 81% of full-time males, that is very different than saying that women earned 81% of what men earned for doing the same jobs, while working the same hours, with the same level of risk, with the same educational background and the same years of continuous, uninterrupted work experience, and assuming no gender differences in family roles like child care. In a more comprehensive study that controlled for most of these relevant variables simultaneously—such as that from economists June and Dave O’Neill for the American Enterprise Institute in 2012—nearly all of the 23% raw gender pay gap cited by Mr. Obama can be attributed to factors other than discrimination. The O’Neills conclude that, “labor market discrimination is unlikely to account for more than 5% but may not be present at all.”
My suspicion is that, anecdotally, these findings jibe with people’s experience in the workforce.
I can speak from the perspective of someone making $0.77 on the dollar to my counterparts, because of the very same factors that supposedly suppress womens’ wages. Mrs sphere works 9-5, M-F. This is by choice, and by necessity as she worked to support us while I finished my Master’s. We have two boys. I decided that I would not take a job that required full-time daycare for the boys, and so I took a job that offered 24h shifts, but that notoriously underpaid PAs, almost to the exact same percent on the dollar as what people claim women make relative to men. This was entirely by choice, because I placed a higher value on the flexibility and schedule than I did salary. My department is flush with parents who stay for the very same reason, the majority of whom are female. We recently secured a paltry pay raise, but we still earn below the 50th percentile for our specialties in the DC metro area. There is no negotiating for higher pay; you take it, or you go elsewhere. Women and men are paid precisely the same rate, with raises on the same schedule.
If you lump us in with the other PAs in the same specialties in the area, our female-dominated staff could skew the statistic and give the false impression that women are being underpaid, relative to men. Not taking these benefits into account results in a worthless statistic that in no way reflects reality. Our employer underpays everyone, but we choose to stay with that employer because of the unique value it adds to our family lives.
On a related note, women often cite the flexibility of the profession as one of the primary reasons they chose PA over MD, and that almost entirely derives from family considerations. I would hazard a guess that among PAs, the “pay gap” is even more sizable, as so many female PAs tend to leave the workforce for periods that extend well beyond the standard maternity leave.
