Is it still true that women aren't paid as much as

[Big Blue Machine]

If its still true, I think it's totally silly. Just because woman is working with men doesn't mean she should be paid less.

[kimmy]

I think it all depends on how you add up the statistics...

I think for instance that when you take years of seniority into account, the difference almost vanishes.

As well, the statistics don't take into account that often men put in longer hours. A woman might say "I'm going home now to look after my kids" while a man might work all night to get the report out on time. If it means not seeing his family for a whole week, you might question his priorities, but at the same time he's made that choice and it'd be unfair not to acknowledge the extra work he has contributed.

As well, and this is the dishonest one I think, is that these statistics don't usually claim it's the same work... they use the word "equivalent". "Work of equivalent value", etc. What is "equivalent value" is highly subjective and might fail to take some key factors into account. Is a garbageman doing work of equivalent value to a grocery store clerk? Neither job requires much in the way of education, so maybe the survey maker would say yes. However, the garbageman is doing work that can be physically demanding and just plain revolting. If he is earning a few dollars more than the grocery clerk, I don't begrudge him that... I think it is his fair compensation for doing work that would have the grocery clerk vomiting. When the person compiling these statistics is deciding what "female" profession would be of equal value to a construction worker, does she remember that the construction worker is doing physically strenuous work and is at high risk of injury, while his female "equivalent" is probably safe and indoors?

These statistics have become difficult to trust because the numbers can be manipulated to support a viewpoint.

-kimmy

[RB]

yes it is true women are paid less than their male counterparts for the same job, the difference is blatant in managment level jobs and greater than 20% difference

the other thing that bugs me is the industry where the women are found.

Here are the Best Employers for Women 2002, these are companies that women can advance through the ranks to mangement. Also women make up to 87-50% of management. These are employers that practice gender equality in the marketplace.

Joseph Brant Memorial Hospital

Bethany Care Society

Trillium Health Centre

IMS Health Canada Ltd

Banff Centre

Georgian College

are women prone to be caregivers forever

[playfullfellow]

I do not agree with women getting paid less than their male counterparts if they are doing the same job and they are doing the same quality job. In my years working in agriculture, I saw the industry progress greatly over 15 years when it came to female employees. Now plenty of farm managers are female and making the same as their male counterparts. Now I work construction and there are not a lot of ladies that prefer this type of work. It is strenous, stressful and often dangerous and down right miserable when you are working outside in the rain. If a woman could do the same job with the same quality as the people on my team now, then she would be paid the same as everyone else. Thats the way it should be as well as any woman should have the oppertunity to prove she can do the job to the same standard that we currently do.

[Slavik44]

Women's income is lower on average than that of men in part because they generally work less, leave the labor force for longer periods and tend to hold jobs that pay less, a congressional study found.

But even after adjustments are made for those factors, women still earned an average of 20.3 percent less than men in 2000, investigators said Thursday.

The 20 percent gap has been relatively unchanged in the past two decades. The difference was 19.6 percent in 1983.

The study could not explain reasons for the earnings difference, but noted that experts have speculated it could be due to discrimination or the decision by some women to forgo career advancement for family-friendly jobs that offer more flexibility and less stress.

the thing that worries me is that it sounds like this study has no connection to the jobs women take, If someone can find it, is their a report out their that specifically shows the pay inequality in a certain job? I mean it is hard to just say if we compare bill gates to oprah we see a suprsing difference in pay inequality, that is a given.

[RB]

The true is historically women started late, and there was some argument connected with biological purpose of the women who are prone to be silly if they did work.

Women have progress, but still when there is a ratio of 52:48 percentages of women to men with discrepancies in wages and position occupied is a fair indication of the very relatively slow progress.

The strange experience I have had is that men always say they are surrounded by females in the workplace, in fact women exist everywhere in the workplace...yeah, they serve the fill of mostly clerical jobs. Question who attend those board meetings? and now look at real statistics. The discrepancies are larger, huge the steeper the climb -- first the representation of women is not there, and then there are wage difference.

And I attribute it to the historical nonsense of what the male says and even now how they still have the control of who progresses. In Canada, look how long it took us to have a certified woman doctor, in fact our first doctor was educated in the US, a woman lawyer, a judge, a woman politician, a woman dentist, a woman professor, how about a woman mayor, a woman prime minister, how many women CEO, and we didn't put the colors of the women on yet.

The demographics has changed in the past 15 years in Ontario, yet is not representative of the same, it seems we are always playing the catch-up and so 10 years from now we are sorry again

But Ontario and Alberta are very progressive and proactive in the quest to make right. I guess women will keep the arguments for “equal opportunity” means equal pay etc. and the voices are still too small at the top to make a big difference

Sometimes I wonder about this argument that in order to accomplish such a feat as equality, equal pay and so on, we must allow people to be individual and treat everyone the same way. That it is the way for fairness to prevail. What equal means is everyone must have a base starting point and be able to compete equally, as in the case for jobs and promotion?

But again if we look at the real statistics of going ahead with this information, more blatant discrepancies. The level playing field of “equal opportunity” is not the same for women. It is usually why we need proactive recommendation for employment equity legislation.

Most of the argument I have seen is to keep women depressed and are about reverse schemas to portray male as victims and tends to reduced inequality to trivialization. And the reason I figured is to assure the males that they are not the receipts of unfair advantage, and to further emphasize the males are not the one who need proactive intervention.

[daniel]

If its still true, I think it's totally silly. Just because woman is working with men doesn't mean she should be paid less.

Careful, BB, you're starting to think like a socialist.

[Big Blue Machine]

Ba-zing, I'm not sounding like a socialist. It's just Common Sense. If two people are working, one man and one woman, they should get the equal amount of pay.

Women can't be secetaries forever.

[daniel]

Of course I agree with you here, but this cause is normally championed by the left of our society. The Right, those that let the marketplace solve all our problems and believe what is good for the marketplace is good for society is cool to the idea.

First, how would we equalize the wages? Raise all the women's wages to be equal to the men they work with? That's no good to the bottom line of the company involved. Or cut the wages of men to be equal to that of women they work with - unfair to workers.

I think the Ontario NDP tried to tackle this discrepancy but I'm not sure how far it got. I think it only went as far as government employees and no more because there was already too much corporate backlash.

So that's why it's so surprising you taking up a cause that the NDP tried and the Harris Tories couldn't care less about.

Good luck.

[Hugo]

How far are you willing to go with this? Employment is simply a transaction, labour for money.

If I contract with a female accountant, am I discriminating against male accountants? If I employ a male cleaner, am I discriminating against female cleaners?

To reverse the transaction (not to change it's fundamental nature) and make it money for labour, am I discriminating against Zellers by shopping at Wal-Mart? If I buy a loaf of bread from the male-owned corner shop, am I discriminating against the female-owned one down the street?

How will you address this?

[Big Blue Machine]

Daniel, I would appericate if you stop connecting me with Mike Harris. I'm a Conservative, but I don't believe in cut, cut, cut all the time.

[Bakunin]

It all depend on the sector but i would like to bring out another thing, the woman kind of job like secretary are underpaid... this is another big problem, the woman type of job are considered to worth less then they should.

[Cartman]

When you control for "time away from the job" due to maternity leave, "seniority" and "education", the differences in wages b/t men and women almost disappear, but not entirely. Even using the median (less sensitive to extreme cases) to calculate weekly earnings by occupation, women still earn considerably less. Compared to men, women are far more likely to live in poverty regardless of how it is measured. It has, however, changed considerably over the past 100 years.

[RB]

The definition of employment is a tricky one and is interpreted in the Employment Standard Act, Human Rights Act

While I can agree with the usage of transaction, your argument does not stand to support the statement “labor for money” as it excludes groups: for example employment of volunteers who receives no monies, but contributes to production and also satisfies the condition of binding contract suggesting a legal transaction.

Since you would like me to believe it is about money, my argument rest on the notion that the transaction fails to capture amount monies that is arrived at through negotiations and is exactly where the disparity lies in equality between men and women, even when they are considered for the opportunity the pay is 30% less

When a preparation of offer for labour is negotiated, it looks at: qualification, experience, performance standards, job duties, work history, remuneration, length of employment, terminations, non-solicitation etc. For this argument I equate equality with equal opportunity with equal pay - that men and women are considered equal in their potential to do a good job base on whatever criterias are the "mesh" and now the mesh is always subjective I have an example of a Church.

This church asked to a group of folks to take a look at some resumes and make the recommendation as to who will be interviewed. There was a resume the church had difficulty accepting even it through it stood out as a potential fit. A female applicant openly admit to her sexuality in her cover letter -- apparently this was the subjective "fit" perhaps another time, but now it was not person for the job.

Also I think you expected me to say this that nowadays there is human alienation from the work which creates value. So I will use Marx to mention that no one buys labour. Otherwise, look at who are thieves and mercenaries. What it means that an employee wage is by far less than the value added to production. An employer usually harnesses and buys “labor power” at its justum pretium

I like the rhetorical arguments used to argue what is reverse discrimination and merit principles like "If I contract with a female accountant, am I discriminating against male accountants? If I employ a male cleaner, am I discriminating against female cleaners" I did not look up the stats for the male vs female cleaners but I bet that there are a lot more female cleaners and because of the low pay, there is not much difference in the wages, and good if it was unionised.

What is clear in your response on a broader sense when the numbers are total is "overt discrimination in the hiring of white males". Like here is your able bodied white male who is looking for work. Look, here is also what your argument is saying. For generations disadvantage people plea with you to get them out of their pigeon holes and look at their abilities as individuals to do a job. Lets all now fixate on it. Why change things around why not stay behind the Potemkin Village of the right wing agenda.

And I can define the agenda, is clearly not "special interest" groups, and are clearly not recipients of costly government programs. Also now I just hope we don't interject some liberal principles and values and tradition here as it would definitely be hypocritical, like say we all have the starting point, the individual is autonomous and unconnected to others, hence looking out for the self, so if all people have the same opportunity, same rights, the results ... fairness.

Your assumptions, and examples do not resonate well with people who need interjection.

[Big Blue Machine]

Interesting, very interesting.

[JWayne625]

I too do not have a problem paying a woman doing the same job as a man, the exact same wage, in fact they should be paid to same. Where I have a problem and where other's have a problem is the "Work of equal value." It is very subjective, depending on who is doing the comparisons, and exactly what criteria is being used to judge this work. I don't for instance think that a clerk, male or female, sitting in a cozy office during inclement weather should be paid different rates of pay with the same seniority, but at the same time how do you compare those jobs to someone working outside either on the deck of vessel during a storm or moving material on the wharf? There is simply no comparison between these occupations, especially since some are sitting in a cozy office, while others are out risking life and limb. Yet many clerks at the Coast Guard got $thousand in retro pay because someone doing the comparison between various jobs on a Coast Guard Base thought there was merit in comparing the different occupations.

I know one lady who after she had retired from an office job at Transport Canada (Coast Guard), due to ill health received a cheque for around $55,000.00 retroactively in compensation for working all those years in a job now deemed as being somehow equilavent to entirely different occupations on the same base, far more dangerous than what she had been doing. My argument to her was to ask her if she was satisfied with the wages she was paid for the work she did while working, and the wage rate negotiated through her union, and she answered; "Yes, but if the government wants to give me a cheque for thousands of dollars, who am I to say no."

[Charles Anthony]

Within this thread, CartMan comes ever so close with:

When you control for "time away from the job" due to maternity leave, "seniority" and "education", the differences in wages b/t men and women almost disappear, but not entirely.

but just misses the mark.

expropriated from the more recent

Elizabeth May -- The Green Party Grabbing into CPC Territory? thread.

If we have million's of reports, why can't you give us a link. I'm not here to back up your argument, you have to that on your on. Once again show a report in Canada that says Canadian women in the same occupation get paid less than men, and a reason for it.

I have no reports nor am I interested in finding any. However, I can offer logic to explain "a reason for it" instead.

The reason is simple: as a population of laborers, men and women are physiologically unequal because women get pregnant and nobody can reasonably expect them not to get pregnant.

An employer who hires a women is taking the chance that the women will have to quit work. That risk deserves a premium.

Would you expect people to pay the same price for two identical cars? Yes!

Would you expect people to pay the same price for two "almost identical" cars if you were sure that one of them could randomly and unpredictably be out of commission or less productive for 9 month stretches? No!

Now put the shoe on the other foot:

Would you be a client of a lawyer who would randomly not show up and have a replacement for 9 months of the year?

[JerrySeinfeld]

If you're going to give women with less experience, seniority, or merit the same money as men, you'll have to do it for everyone else too, which would completely anihalate the main criteria for compensation as we know it and replace it with a bunch of centralized bureacrats telling business how it should compensate/insentify (word?) it's employees.

Come to think of it - isn't that what the wacko social engineering marxist who support these plans dream of on a daily basis anyway?

It's all a ploy to undermine the entire capitalist system.

[Black Dog]

I have no reports nor am I interested in finding any. However, I can offer logic to explain "a reason for it" instead.

The reason is simple: as a population of laborers, men and women are physiologically unequal because women get pregnant and nobody can reasonably expect them not to get pregnant.

An employer who hires a women is taking the chance that the women will have to quit work.

Would you expect people to pay the same price for two identical cars? Yes!

Would you expect people to pay the same price for two "almost identical" cars if you were sure that one of them could randomly and unpredictably be out of commission or less productive for 9 month stretches? No!

Now put the shoe on the other foot:

Would you be a client of a lawyer who would randomly not show up and have a replacement for 9 months of the year?

CA are you saying women get paid less because they might get preagnant?

Women, on average, make less than men. That is, in part, due to the time off for maternity leave and time out of the workforce. It's also due to the fact that women do a lot more unpaid labour (ie. housework) than men. And it's also due to the fact of institutionalized sexism that sees women as little more than potential breeding machines.

[JerrySeinfeld]

I have no reports nor am I interested in finding any. However, I can offer logic to explain "a reason for it" instead.

The reason is simple: as a population of laborers, men and women are physiologically unequal because women get pregnant and nobody can reasonably expect them not to get pregnant.

An employer who hires a women is taking the chance that the women will have to quit work.

Would you expect people to pay the same price for two identical cars? Yes!

Would you expect people to pay the same price for two "almost identical" cars if you were sure that one of them could randomly and unpredictably be out of commission or less productive for 9 month stretches? No!

Now put the shoe on the other foot:

Would you be a client of a lawyer who would randomly not show up and have a replacement for 9 months of the year?

CA are you saying women get paid less because they might get preagnant?

Women, on average, make less than men. That is, in part, due to the time off for maternity leave and time out of the workforce. It's also due to the fact that women do a lot more unpaid labour (ie. housework) than men. And it's also due to the fact of institutionalized sexism that sees women as little more than potential breeding machines.

Let's get to the day-to-day decision making about compensation.

Do you employ anyone black doggy?

[Black Dog]

Let's get to the day-to-day decision making about compensation.

Do you employ anyone black doggy?

NOYFB

[Saturn]

When you control for "time away from the job" due to maternity leave, "seniority" and "education", the differences in wages b/t men and women almost disappear, but not entirely. Even using the median (less sensitive to extreme cases) to calculate weekly earnings by occupation, women still earn considerably less. Compared to men, women are far more likely to live in poverty regardless of how it is measured. It has, however, changed considerably over the past 100 years.

Care to show us stats where controling for seniority, education and maternity leave produce almost no difference? From what I've seen this no difference is roughly 20%.

[JerrySeinfeld]

Let's get to the day-to-day decision making about compensation.

Do you employ anyone black doggy?

NOYFB

OK...touchy subject.

Well let's make the stretch and ASSUME for a minute that you do.

Now here's the scenario. You're interviewing for a new management position both externally and internally. This position has above average compensation because it requires specific skills and performance.

What factors are you going to consider when making your decision?

[Charles Anthony]

CA are you saying women get paid less because they might get preagnant?

Indirectly, yes.

More accurately, I am saying if you can hold all other variables equal, it makes perfect sense to pay a woman less than a man and for a woman to expect to be paid less -- unless she can prove herself to be infertile. However, it is not possible to hold all variables equal on an individual basis for the reasons you list nor to question fertility. Thus, we see a statistical phenomena of women getting paid less. Women who are willing to settle for less pay will get hired quicker than women who wait for equity. By the way, that is called a market force.

Analogously, we commonly refer to an average price for gasoline throughout large jurisdictions. Despite the price being a little different here and a little different there, all of the smaller jurisdictions follow the same trend of the market. At each pump, we have no idea who is willing to pay a little more for that gasoline or who really really really REALLY needs gasoline to survive or who just needs gasoline for joy-riding. On a large scale, we will observe all of the prices following the same market forces if you just look at global statistics.

You can call that an economism perspective if you are reluctant to call it applying economics to the real world.

[BC_chick]

If its still true, I think it's totally silly. Just because woman is working with men doesn't mean she should be paid less.

Depends on the profession, and another interesting factor - whether or not the woman has children. On the average, women with children earn 75cents for a man's dollar (for the same job), vs. 92 cents for the dollar when they don't have children.

They say it's because of the career interruptions.

And then there are professions where the discrepency is just ridiculous. For example, in BC full-time female paralegals and fullt-time male counterparts earn $40,300 and $48,500, respectively.