Kiwiblog

APNZ at NZ Herald report:

A campaign has been launched to demand equal pay for women after finding that, on average, men are paid at least 10 per cent more than women.

Women should be paid the same as men – of course. But I am unsure that this is an issue that can be solved centrally.

A recent study fund that around 60% of men do not just accept a salary and terms offer but try and negotiate it upwards. By contrast only 10% of women do the same. So reversing that 90% of women just accept what is offered as opposed to 40% of men.

I’d say the best way to close the pay gap is for individual women to be more assertive in pay negotiations.

“Pay equity is a structural problem that requires structural solutions.”

I’m not at all convinced that is the case.

Eric Crampton quotes Big Think:

The wage premium paid to lesbian workers is a bit of a mystery. Sure, lesbian women are better-educated on average, are more likely to be white, live predominantly in cities, have fewer children, and are significantly more likely to be a professional. But even when you control for these differences, the wage premium is still on the order of 6%. …

Eric offers some theories on why this might be:

First, and most importantly, maternity risk. If an employer expects a lesbian employee to be less likely to take maternity leave, and if maternity leave imposes costs on an employer, then the employer will be more likely to hire and to promote the lesbian over the straight woman. What evidence do we have? Petit’s field experimentshowing that maternity risk is responsible for a fair bit of women’s lower average salaries.

How could this be tested in the data presumably available in the original study? Test whether the wage gap between lesbian and straight women is larger for younger women than for post-menopausal women. That will confound with age cohort effects, but there may be a way around it: use state insurance mandates on assisted reproduction, or state policies with respect to same-sex adoption. If some states require that insurers cover fertility treatments as part of an employer’s insurance package and others don’t, or if some states make it easier for lesbians to adopt kids, then we’d expect the wage gap between lesbians and straights to be smallest in those states that make it easiest for lesbians to have kids.

Second, testosterone and negotiation strategies. Women, on average, are less aggressive in wage negotiations. If testosterone correlates with aggressiveness in salary negotiations, and some evidence suggests higher than average testosterone levels among lesbians as compared to heterosexual women (though that evidence iscontested), then we’ve another candidate explanation.

I’d put money on the maternity risk variable. I’d only put money on the negotiations one at decent odds.

I go the other way to Eric. I think the theory of more assertiveness in salary negotiations is most likely to explain the gap.

NZPA report:

A new study of graduates with bachelor degrees has revealed that men start earning more than women a year after starting work.

Women’s Affairs Minister Pansy Wong said today her ministry’s study used data from Inland Revenue and looked at the difference between the income of male and female graduates between one and five years after they started their employment.

The pay gap started developing from the first year, and after five years it ranged between 1 percent and 20 percent, with the biggest difference in management and commerce.

“While the income gap varies between different fields of study, no matter what area of study is pursued an income gap has emerged between men and women … and it is quite a significant gap,” Ms Wong said.

“The bottom line is that a bachelor’s degree held by a woman should be worth the same in the marketplace as one held by a man.”

It is disappointing there is a pay gap between male and female graduates, so soon after entering the work force.

The fact that overall average female pay rates are only 88% of male pay rates, has never convinced me this is due to discrimination.  The reality that many women take time out of the workforce when their children are young, makes it unlikely one will ever have the average pay rates the same. There is also the issue of different professions having different gender compositions.

So in a way the overall average pay rates for men and women, are not very useful – just as overall crime rates are also not very useful.

But the study referred to by Pansy Wong, does lend credence to the theory that there is discrimination in pay rates. You would expect a female and male commerce graduate who both enter the same profession to be attracting the same pay rates – at least in the initial years.

The ministry was using the extra $2 million it was being given over four years to increase its ability to address the gender pay gap, she said.

Part of this would be the ministry working with universities to recruit up to 6000 students graduating this year who would be tracked over the next 10 years.

That would also be worthwhile research – far better to track a large group of students, than merely to just compare the average wages over all occupations.

I’m generally reluctant to conclude discrimination, and look for other factors, because discrimination is just so plain stupid. I can’t understand how anyone would think someone is more or less capable in a job because of their gender, and would pay them less. Mind you, I think the discrimination might be subconscious, rather than a conscious decision.