Equal Pay Debate

davidtrios

In this country, U.S. women make 77 cents to the dollar for the same job men do. However, women take more days off than men. So, it's pretty fair...right?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/artic ... g-ill.html

blackredyellow

:corn:


In all seriousness, I would bet that more women than men use sick days when their children are sick, so that probably makes up some of the small disparity.

brianlux

davidtrios wrote:

In this country, U.S. women make 77 cents to the dollar for the same job men do. ill.html

I'm helping balance that equation and not afraid to admit it.

Godfather.

those women must be non union

Godfather.

brianlux

Godfather. wrote:

those women must be non union

Godfather.

Ah, shit man, they own the joint.

comebackgirl

well I am union and I have so many vacation days stored up that they forced me to take a bunch this summer. Oh...and I'm female. They also just hired a guy who has less education, fewer credentials and less experience to the same position as me and 2 other females, and they hired him at a higher pay grade. So I guess I am going to start passing off those difficult cases and using up a bunch of my days. :thumbup:

Zoso

women who have kids tend to take more days off but I know single dad's that take a whole bunch of days off also and earn more then their female counterparts. So it really isn't equal anyway you look at it.

Godfather.

comebackgirl wrote:

well I am union and I have so many vacation days stored up that they forced me to take a bunch this summer. Oh...and I'm female. They also just hired a guy who has less education, fewer credentials and less experience to the same position as me and 2 other females, and they hired him at a higher pay grade. So I guess I am going to start passing off those difficult cases and using up a bunch of my days. :thumbup:

that sucks ! I'm sorry to hear that.
the union I am in now and the one before had no gray areas in the pay scale it does not matter man or woman the pay scale is the same for both,sense I have been at my current job I have seen several women get into mechinac positions but they always go for a managment position in other areas after a few years then tell me what a bad idea that was but a few are now upper managment now infact one is our vice president and let me tell you this gal knows her stuff about aerospace.

Godfather.

comebackgirl

Godfather. wrote:

comebackgirl wrote:

well I am union and I have so many vacation days stored up that they forced me to take a bunch this summer. Oh...and I'm female. They also just hired a guy who has less education, fewer credentials and less experience to the same position as me and 2 other females, and they hired him at a higher pay grade. So I guess I am going to start passing off those difficult cases and using up a bunch of my days. :thumbup:

that sucks ! I'm sorry to hear that.
the union I am in now and the one before had no gray areas in the pay scale it does not matter man or woman the pay scale is the same for both,sense I have been at my current job I have seen several women get into mechinac positions but they always go for a managment position in other areas after a few years then tell me what a bad idea that was but a few are now upper managment now infact one is our vice president and let me tell you this gal knows her stuff about aerospace.

Godfather.

Thanks. We're fighting it. Our pay grades are supposed to work the same way, so it should be pretty cut and dry. They tend to move people to other departments when they're not happy with them, so I'm preparing to be moved to the plant department any day

inlet13

Watch this, it will probably answer a lot of the questions here:

http://www.learnliberty.org/content/do-women-earn-less-men

Zoso

inlet13 wrote:

Watch this, it will probably answer a lot of the questions here:

http://www.learnliberty.org/content/do-women-earn-less-men

this video is right to a point but it doesn't take into account the women who

a) never had, have or want kids. hence they won't take as much time off as mothers or expected mothers

b) in a company that has men and women working in it.. it's a fact that you will find that women get paid less then their male co workers.. even women without kids... sometimes the women work harder, as hard and have the same job title.

concluding.. as I said above.. single fathers or fathers who get time off almost as much as mothers or more get paid more then women (even if these women haven't got kids).

inlet13

Zoso wrote:

inlet13 wrote:

Watch this, it will probably answer a lot of the questions here:

http://www.learnliberty.org/content/do-women-earn-less-men

this video is right to a point but it doesn't take into account the women who

a) never had, have or want kids. hence they won't take as much time off as mothers or expected mothers

b) in a company that has men and women working in it.. it's a fact that you will find that women get paid less then their male co workers.. even women without kids... sometimes the women work harder, as hard and have the same job title.

concluding.. as I said above.. single fathers or fathers who get time off almost as much as mothers or more get paid more then women (even if these women haven't got kids).

Do you have data that show this?

Zoso

inlet13 wrote:

Zoso wrote:

inlet13 wrote:

Watch this, it will probably answer a lot of the questions here:

http://www.learnliberty.org/content/do-women-earn-less-men

this video is right to a point but it doesn't take into account the women who

a) never had, have or want kids. hence they won't take as much time off as mothers or expected mothers

b) in a company that has men and women working in it.. it's a fact that you will find that women get paid less then their male co workers.. even women without kids... sometimes the women work harder, as hard and have the same job title.

concluding.. as I said above.. single fathers or fathers who get time off almost as much as mothers or more get paid more then women (even if these women haven't got kids).

Do you have data that show this?

no I don't...

I was taught it in school for the last 10 years and have seen countless cases of women holding the same job as a male co worker and getting underpaid.

inlet13

Zoso wrote:

no I don't...

I was taught it in school for the last 10 years and have seen countless cases of women holding the same job as a male co worker and getting underpaid.

Why were you taught this in school? In what class? Did you think of questioning the teacher on his/her source?

I'm not so sure this is actually true. I haven't found any data proving it is. If it's just observations - I've seen the opposite hold true just as often as the former, personally.

comebackgirl

Zoso wrote:

inlet13 wrote:

Watch this, it will probably answer a lot of the questions here:

http://www.learnliberty.org/content/do-women-earn-less-men

this video is right to a point but it doesn't take into account the women who

a) never had, have or want kids. hence they won't take as much time off as mothers or expected mothers

b) in a company that has men and women working in it.. it's a fact that you will find that women get paid less then their male co workers.. even women without kids... sometimes the women work harder, as hard and have the same job title.

concluding.. as I said above.. single fathers or fathers who get time off almost as much as mothers or more get paid more then women (even if these women haven't got kids).

I can't view the link right now, but look forward to watching it later.

This is anecdotal, but this is true for me and 2 of my female co-workers. Two of us had more than twice the caseload size of our former male counterpart, and were openly assigned the most difficult cases because of our experience and knowledge in the field. In addition to our clinical work, we are both in charge of large scale outreach/education programs and supervise interns and student workers, something that our male counterpart didn't do. She and I do not have children and rarely took days off. I do not reschedule clients unless absolutely necessary; I came in and did therapy when I didn't have a voice last winter (that was interesting) Our male counterpart did have children and would understandably take off days as need for their care. Our other female co-worker also saw about 50% more clients than he did. She also does not run a large scale program (her responsibilities are about the same as his were). She also has children and takes off as needed. The 3 female workers (including me) all earn the same pay range. The former male co-worker and the one just hired are in higher pay grades, despite less experience, less education and fewer credentials. Those in charge of hiring openly discussed that they didn't think the 2 male colleagues would accept the position for our pay grade. So this is just one example, but it absolutely does happen that females are paid less for the same position and same work (or more work!) than their male counterparts.

Kel Varnsen

inlet13 wrote:

Zoso wrote:

no I don't...

I was taught it in school for the last 10 years and have seen countless cases of women holding the same job as a male co worker and getting underpaid.

Why were you taught this in school? In what class? Did you think of questioning the teacher on his/her source?

I'm not so sure this is actually true. I haven't found any data proving it is. If it's just observations - I've seen the opposite hold true just as often as the former, personally.

Exactly, I mean if this was true, why would any company ever hire men, when they could hire only women and automatically pay 25% less in wages. It would be like a new form of outsourcing.

mikepegg44

comebackgirl wrote:

but it absolutely does happen that females are paid less for the same position and same work (or more work!) than their male counterparts.

couldn't you replace females with people and eliminate male from the sentence above like so

it absolutely does happen that people are paid less for the same position and same work (or more work!) than their counterparts.

It happens to everyone. Does anyone have a study comparing wage discrepancy for same job samples like they do when breaking it down between men and women?

that isn't to say the equal pay debate shouldn't be had, because it is quite obvious it should. I often wonder if personality traits are more of a reason...Ego, bravado and for lack of a better term, machismo... I wonder if men and women who share the same personality types are paid less for the same jobs...

how do you solve it?

Kel Varnsen

comebackgirl wrote:

Zoso wrote:

inlet13 wrote:

Watch this, it will probably answer a lot of the questions here:

http://www.learnliberty.org/content/do-women-earn-less-men

this video is right to a point but it doesn't take into account the women who

a) never had, have or want kids. hence they won't take as much time off as mothers or expected mothers

b) in a company that has men and women working in it.. it's a fact that you will find that women get paid less then their male co workers.. even women without kids... sometimes the women work harder, as hard and have the same job title.

concluding.. as I said above.. single fathers or fathers who get time off almost as much as mothers or more get paid more then women (even if these women haven't got kids).

I can't view the link right now, but look forward to watching it later.

This is anecdotal, but this is true for me and 2 of my female co-workers. Two of us had more than twice the caseload size of our former male counterpart, and were openly assigned the most difficult cases because of our experience and knowledge in the field. In addition to our clinical work, we are both in charge of large scale outreach/education programs and supervise interns and student workers, something that our male counterpart didn't do. She and I do not have children and rarely took days off. I do not reschedule clients unless absolutely necessary; I came in and did therapy when I didn't have a voice last winter (that was interesting) Our male counterpart did have children and would understandably take off days as need for their care. Our other female co-worker also saw about 50% more clients than he did. She also does not run a large scale program (her responsibilities are about the same as his were). She also has children and takes off as needed. The 3 female workers (including me) all earn the same pay range. The former male co-worker and the one just hired are in higher pay grades, despite less experience, less education and fewer credentials. Those in charge of hiring openly discussed that they didn't think the 2 male colleagues would accept the position for our pay grade. So this is just one example, but it absolutely does happen that females are paid less for the same position and same work (or more work!) than their male counterparts.

So why didn't you ask for a raise? If they people that got raises did and you didn't should your boss be required to give you one too to keep things fair?

blackredyellow

mikepegg44 wrote:

comebackgirl wrote:

but it absolutely does happen that females are paid less for the same position and same work (or more work!) than their male counterparts.

couldn't you replace females with people and eliminate male from the sentence above like so

it absolutely does happen that people are paid less for the same position and same work (or more work!) than their counterparts.

It happens to everyone. Does anyone have a study comparing wage discrepancy for same job samples like they do when breaking it down between men and women?

that isn't to say the equal pay debate shouldn't be had, because it is quite obvious it should. I often wonder if personality traits are more of a reason...Ego, bravado and for lack of a better term, machismo... I wonder if men and women who share the same personality types are paid less for the same jobs...

how do you solve it?

And to muddy the water even more, physical traits can also come into play when for being hired/promoted/given raises.

Like you said, equal pay should be talked about, but across the board stats and anecdotal stories leave so much out of the equation.

comebackgirl

davidtrios wrote:

In this country, U.S. women make 77 cents to the dollar for the same job men do. However, women take more days off than men. So, it's pretty fair...right?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/artic ... g-ill.html

I found another article from the uk that said the opposite It said men take off more days because of work stress. I'm having trouble finding and US articles, but would love to see them if they're out there!

http://www.medicash.org/news/articles/m ... -toll.aspx

comebackgirl

blackredyellow wrote:

mikepegg44 wrote:

comebackgirl wrote:

but it absolutely does happen that females are paid less for the same position and same work (or more work!) than their male counterparts.

couldn't you replace females with people and eliminate male from the sentence above like so

it absolutely does happen that people are paid less for the same position and same work (or more work!) than their counterparts.

It happens to everyone. Does anyone have a study comparing wage discrepancy for same job samples like they do when breaking it down between men and women?

that isn't to say the equal pay debate shouldn't be had, because it is quite obvious it should. I often wonder if personality traits are more of a reason...Ego, bravado and for lack of a better term, machismo... I wonder if men and women who share the same personality types are paid less for the same jobs...

how do you solve it?

And to muddy the water even more, physical traits can also come into play when for being hired/promoted/given raises.

Like you said, equal pay should be talked about, but across the board stats and anecdotal stories leave so much out of the equation.

I could, but I'm discussing my particular situation. I'm sure it does happen in other situations, but I don't know of any first hand, so I can't speak to those. I would love to see more research on it.

blackredyellow

comebackgirl wrote:

Zoso wrote:

inlet13 wrote:

Watch this, it will probably answer a lot of the questions here:

http://www.learnliberty.org/content/do-women-earn-less-men

this video is right to a point but it doesn't take into account the women who

a) never had, have or want kids. hence they won't take as much time off as mothers or expected mothers

b) in a company that has men and women working in it.. it's a fact that you will find that women get paid less then their male co workers.. even women without kids... sometimes the women work harder, as hard and have the same job title.

concluding.. as I said above.. single fathers or fathers who get time off almost as much as mothers or more get paid more then women (even if these women haven't got kids).

I can't view the link right now, but look forward to watching it later.

This is anecdotal, but this is true for me and 2 of my female co-workers. Two of us had more than twice the caseload size of our former male counterpart, and were openly assigned the most difficult cases because of our experience and knowledge in the field. In addition to our clinical work, we are both in charge of large scale outreach/education programs and supervise interns and student workers, something that our male counterpart didn't do. She and I do not have children and rarely took days off. I do not reschedule clients unless absolutely necessary; I came in and did therapy when I didn't have a voice last winter (that was interesting) Our male counterpart did have children and would understandably take off days as need for their care. Our other female co-worker also saw about 50% more clients than he did. She also does not run a large scale program (her responsibilities are about the same as his were). She also has children and takes off as needed. The 3 female workers (including me) all earn the same pay range. The former male co-worker and the one just hired are in higher pay grades, despite less experience, less education and fewer credentials. Those in charge of hiring openly discussed that they didn't think the 2 male colleagues would accept the position for our pay grade. So this is just one example, but it absolutely does happen that females are paid less for the same position and same work (or more work!) than their male counterparts.

This isn't uncommon, but it often has nothing to do with sex. Depending on how desperate a company is to fill a position, and how strong of a candidate they are trying to hire, pay rates will fluctuate.

We had some changeover where I work now, and I ended up coming in from another facility in another state that our company managed. I came in at a decent amount more of a starting salary than my female predecessor had before leaving, but also at more money than I was making at my old job (same position different building). This facility was desperate to hire someone who could do the job, and based on seasonal timing and lack of an internal candidate, my "value" went up.

On the face, you could say that it was unfair that they paid a new male candidate more than the previous female one, but our sexes had no bearing on it at all.

blackredyellow

comebackgirl wrote:

blackredyellow wrote:

mikepegg44 wrote:

couldn't you replace females with people and eliminate male from the sentence above like so

it absolutely does happen that people are paid less for the same position and same work (or more work!) than their counterparts.

It happens to everyone. Does anyone have a study comparing wage discrepancy for same job samples like they do when breaking it down between men and women?

that isn't to say the equal pay debate shouldn't be had, because it is quite obvious it should. I often wonder if personality traits are more of a reason...Ego, bravado and for lack of a better term, machismo... I wonder if men and women who share the same personality types are paid less for the same jobs...

how do you solve it?

And to muddy the water even more, physical traits can also come into play when for being hired/promoted/given raises.

Like you said, equal pay should be talked about, but across the board stats and anecdotal stories leave so much out of the equation.

I could, but I'm discussing my particular situation. I'm sure it does happen in other situations, but I don't know of any first hand, so I can't speak to those. I would love to see more research on it.

Me too... I just think it would be so hard to do definitive research. There are so many other factors that can affect pay rate, that it would probably be impossible to quantify.

comebackgirl

Kel Varnsen wrote:

comebackgirl wrote:

Zoso wrote:

this video is right to a point but it doesn't take into account the women who

a) never had, have or want kids. hence they won't take as much time off as mothers or expected mothers

b) in a company that has men and women working in it.. it's a fact that you will find that women get paid less then their male co workers.. even women without kids... sometimes the women work harder, as hard and have the same job title.

concluding.. as I said above.. single fathers or fathers who get time off almost as much as mothers or more get paid more then women (even if these women haven't got kids).

I can't view the link right now, but look forward to watching it later.

This is anecdotal, but this is true for me and 2 of my female co-workers. Two of us had more than twice the caseload size of our former male counterpart, and were openly assigned the most difficult cases because of our experience and knowledge in the field. In addition to our clinical work, we are both in charge of large scale outreach/education programs and supervise interns and student workers, something that our male counterpart didn't do. She and I do not have children and rarely took days off. I do not reschedule clients unless absolutely necessary; I came in and did therapy when I didn't have a voice last winter (that was interesting) Our male counterpart did have children and would understandably take off days as need for their care. Our other female co-worker also saw about 50% more clients than he did. She also does not run a large scale program (her responsibilities are about the same as his were). She also has children and takes off as needed. The 3 female workers (including me) all earn the same pay range. The former male co-worker and the one just hired are in higher pay grades, despite less experience, less education and fewer credentials. Those in charge of hiring openly discussed that they didn't think the 2 male colleagues would accept the position for our pay grade. So this is just one example, but it absolutely does happen that females are paid less for the same position and same work (or more work!) than their male counterparts.

So why didn't you ask for a raise? If they people that got raises did and you didn't should your boss be required to give you one too to keep things fair?

we have. It's going up through the chain of command as we speak, so we'll see how it. plays out. There are very specific guidelines that they are supposed to follow, and the documentation shows they haven't followed the guidelines.

comebackgirl

blackredyellow wrote:

comebackgirl wrote:

Zoso wrote:

this video is right to a point but it doesn't take into account the women who

a) never had, have or want kids. hence they won't take as much time off as mothers or expected mothers

b) in a company that has men and women working in it.. it's a fact that you will find that women get paid less then their male co workers.. even women without kids... sometimes the women work harder, as hard and have the same job title.

concluding.. as I said above.. single fathers or fathers who get time off almost as much as mothers or more get paid more then women (even if these women haven't got kids).

I can't view the link right now, but look forward to watching it later.

This is anecdotal, but this is true for me and 2 of my female co-workers. Two of us had more than twice the caseload size of our former male counterpart, and were openly assigned the most difficult cases because of our experience and knowledge in the field. In addition to our clinical work, we are both in charge of large scale outreach/education programs and supervise interns and student workers, something that our male counterpart didn't do. She and I do not have children and rarely took days off. I do not reschedule clients unless absolutely necessary; I came in and did therapy when I didn't have a voice last winter (that was interesting) Our male counterpart did have children and would understandably take off days as need for their care. Our other female co-worker also saw about 50% more clients than he did. She also does not run a large scale program (her responsibilities are about the same as his were). She also has children and takes off as needed. The 3 female workers (including me) all earn the same pay range. The former male co-worker and the one just hired are in higher pay grades, despite less experience, less education and fewer credentials. Those in charge of hiring openly discussed that they didn't think the 2 male colleagues would accept the position for our pay grade. So this is just one example, but it absolutely does happen that females are paid less for the same position and same work (or more work!) than their male counterparts.

This isn't uncommon, but it often has nothing to do with sex. Depending on how desperate a company is to fill a position, and how strong of a candidate they are trying to hire, pay rates will fluctuate.

We had some changeover where I work now, and I ended up coming in from another facility in another state that our company managed. I came in at a decent amount more of a starting salary than my female predecessor had before leaving, but also at more money than I was making at my old job (same position different building). This facility was desperate to hire someone who could do the job, and based on seasonal timing and lack of an internal candidate, my "value" went up.

On the face, you could say that it was unfair that they paid a new male candidate more than the previous female one, but our sexes had no bearing on it at all.

I think this is part of it. They have been trying to fill this position for 8 months now and they desperately want a man for the position (men can be hard to come by in this field). I agree that we do need a man for this position for a variety of reasons, including to provide some diversity of choice for our clients. Our former male co-worker was really wonderful and gifted clinically, but our supervisor (who isn't in charge of our salaries) had even noted the disparity in workload and responsibilities. They may have some reasons for the pay disparity, but the hiring guidelines they have in place are supposed to prevent that from happening.

inlet13

comebackgirl wrote:

Zoso wrote:

inlet13 wrote:

Watch this, it will probably answer a lot of the questions here:

http://www.learnliberty.org/content/do-women-earn-less-men

this video is right to a point but it doesn't take into account the women who

a) never had, have or want kids. hence they won't take as much time off as mothers or expected mothers

b) in a company that has men and women working in it.. it's a fact that you will find that women get paid less then their male co workers.. even women without kids... sometimes the women work harder, as hard and have the same job title.

concluding.. as I said above.. single fathers or fathers who get time off almost as much as mothers or more get paid more then women (even if these women haven't got kids).

I can't view the link right now, but look forward to watching it later.

This is anecdotal, but this is true for me and 2 of my female co-workers. Two of us had more than twice the caseload size of our former male counterpart, and were openly assigned the most difficult cases because of our experience and knowledge in the field. In addition to our clinical work, we are both in charge of large scale outreach/education programs and supervise interns and student workers, something that our male counterpart didn't do. She and I do not have children and rarely took days off. I do not reschedule clients unless absolutely necessary; I came in and did therapy when I didn't have a voice last winter (that was interesting) Our male counterpart did have children and would understandably take off days as need for their care. Our other female co-worker also saw about 50% more clients than he did. She also does not run a large scale program (her responsibilities are about the same as his were). She also has children and takes off as needed. The 3 female workers (including me) all earn the same pay range. The former male co-worker and the one just hired are in higher pay grades, despite less experience, less education and fewer credentials. Those in charge of hiring openly discussed that they didn't think the 2 male colleagues would accept the position for our pay grade. So this is just one example, but it absolutely does happen that females are paid less for the same position and same work (or more work!) than their male counterparts.

...and men are also discriminated against. Particularly, white men. I'll give you an example -

When I was applying for graduate school , I was discriminated against because I was a white male. Theres a certain amount of spots in the PhD program, there's a certain amount of women each department needs to fill their quota system. There's a certain amount of quotas based on race a department must fill as well. I literally was told that it's much more difficult for a white-male with equal GPA, GRE, etc. to be accepted then it is for a female or other race due to the quota system based on the subject I was studying. Luckily, I made the cut, I know others did not, and others didn't receive assistance because of this. One of the main reasons for this was due to that math-intensive nature of what I was studying. Economics - which was my subject - was lumped in with all social sciences (which in broader terms is not math-oriented compared to econ). If a department was considered - social sciences - for example, the highly-intensive math field (like econ) would get more foreigners and Asian Americans to fill the non-white quota for the entire department, not just econ. So, poly sci, sociology, etc have relatively less than econ. On top of that, there is then the female to male ratio. Once again, more men go into math fields (on average) than women. Yet, there's a quota, so the program needs a certain amount of females. Therefore, an average female may get the nod over a bit more than average male to fill the spot.

This not only occurred in getting into graduate school, but it also occurs when sealing up an employment opportunity in a math field. It's just done over again. An employer may need to satisfy these types of quotas as well and the process may happen again.

With all of the above stated, I don't really care. I got into school, I graduated, I received a scholarship, I did find a job. I'm not complaining, I'm just pointing out that reverse racism/sexism exists too.

All in all, I think what causes unequal pay would mainly be a function of the jobs women take (nurses, admin, etc) vs the jobs men (business, etc) take as the video pointed out.... AND government mandates, or institutional mandates, that do always result in a person being paid strictly for merit. Personally, I believe a woman is capable of doing every bit of a good job as a male. I believe an African American can do every bit of good job as a White American, etc. In this day and age - I don't see a need for racial or sexual quotas, at least at the employment level.

comebackgirl

inlet13 wrote:

comebackgirl wrote:

Zoso wrote:

this video is right to a point but it doesn't take into account the women who

a) never had, have or want kids. hence they won't take as much time off as mothers or expected mothers

b) in a company that has men and women working in it.. it's a fact that you will find that women get paid less then their male co workers.. even women without kids... sometimes the women work harder, as hard and have the same job title.

concluding.. as I said above.. single fathers or fathers who get time off almost as much as mothers or more get paid more then women (even if these women haven't got kids).

I can't view the link right now, but look forward to watching it later.

This is anecdotal, but this is true for me and 2 of my female co-workers. Two of us had more than twice the caseload size of our former male counterpart, and were openly assigned the most difficult cases because of our experience and knowledge in the field. In addition to our clinical work, we are both in charge of large scale outreach/education programs and supervise interns and student workers, something that our male counterpart didn't do. She and I do not have children and rarely took days off. I do not reschedule clients unless absolutely necessary; I came in and did therapy when I didn't have a voice last winter (that was interesting) Our male counterpart did have children and would understandably take off days as need for their care. Our other female co-worker also saw about 50% more clients than he did. She also does not run a large scale program (her responsibilities are about the same as his were). She also has children and takes off as needed. The 3 female workers (including me) all earn the same pay range. The former male co-worker and the one just hired are in higher pay grades, despite less experience, less education and fewer credentials. Those in charge of hiring openly discussed that they didn't think the 2 male colleagues would accept the position for our pay grade. So this is just one example, but it absolutely does happen that females are paid less for the same position and same work (or more work!) than their male counterparts.

...and men are also discriminated against. Particularly, white men. I'll give you an example -

When I was applying for graduate school , I was discriminated against because I was a white male. Theres a certain amount of spots in the PhD program, there's a certain amount of women each department needs to fill their quota system. There's a certain amount of quotas based on race a department must fill as well. I literally was told that it's much more difficult for a white-male with equal GPA, GRE, etc. to be accepted then it is for a female or other race due to the quota system based on the subject I was studying. Luckily, I made the cut, I know others did not, and others didn't receive assistance because of this. One of the main reasons for this was due to that math-intensive nature of what I was studying. Economics - which was my subject - was lumped in with all social sciences (which in broader terms is not math-oriented compared to econ). If a department was considered - social sciences - for example, the highly-intensive math field (like econ) would get more foreigners and Asian Americans to fill the non-white quota for the entire department, not just econ. So, poly sci, sociology, etc have relatively less than econ. On top of that, there is then the female to male ratio. Once again, more men go into math fields (on average) than women. Yet, there's a quota, so the program needs a certain amount of females. Therefore, an average female may get the nod over a bit more than average male to fill the spot.

This not only occurred in getting into graduate school, but it also occurs when sealing up an employment opportunity in a math field. It's just done over again. An employer may need to satisfy these types of quotas as well and the process may happen again.

With all of the above stated, I don't really care. I got into school, I graduated, I received a scholarship, I did find a job. I'm not complaining, I'm just pointing out that reverse racism/sexism exists too.

All in all, I think what causes unequal pay would mainly be a function of the jobs women take (nurses, admin, etc) vs the jobs men (business, etc) take as the video pointed out.... AND government mandates, or institutional mandates, that do always result in a person being paid strictly for merit. Personally, I believe a woman is capable of doing every bit of a good job as a male. I believe an African American can do every bit of good job as a White American, etc. In this day and age - I don't see a need for racial or sexual quotas, at least at the employment level.

I was able to watch the video, which goes along with your last point and makes a lot of sense as to where the "stats" come from. I think my situation is about filling a specific need to a point - we very much need a male in this role and they are hard to come by in this field. I have seen situations in which men were not even considered for a position (when I worked at a DV shelter). I didn't mean to imply it doesn't happen both ways. It's just that it does happen where women are paid less for the same position when there's no objective criteria to support it. It's frustrating.

know1

mikepegg44 wrote:

comebackgirl wrote:

but it absolutely does happen that females are paid less for the same position and same work (or more work!) than their male counterparts.

couldn't you replace females with people and eliminate male from the sentence above like so

it absolutely does happen that people are paid less for the same position and same work (or more work!) than their counterparts.

It happens to everyone. Does anyone have a study comparing wage discrepancy for same job samples like they do when breaking it down between men and women?

that isn't to say the equal pay debate shouldn't be had, because it is quite obvious it should. I often wonder if personality traits are more of a reason...Ego, bravado and for lack of a better term, machismo... I wonder if men and women who share the same personality types are paid less for the same jobs...

how do you solve it?

I agree with this. I'm OK with people being paid differently. They cut their own deals and are free to move on if they want something more.

inlet13

comebackgirl wrote:

I was able to watch the video, which goes along with your last point and makes a lot of sense as to where the "stats" come from. I think my situation is about filling a specific need to a point - we very much need a male in this role and they are hard to come by in this field. I have seen situations in which men were not even considered for a position (when I worked at a DV shelter). I didn't mean to imply it doesn't happen both ways. It's just that it does happen where women are paid less for the same position when there's no objective criteria to support it. It's frustrating.

Gotcha. I understand. You're right - there's no doubt it can be frustrating.