By Meg Smith, University of Western Sydney
Recently released earnings data from the Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA) indicated a gender pay gap as high as 45% among managers. Yet basic myths continue to obstruct informed debate about why the gap exists.
Myth 1: Women are less qualified due to interrupted careers.
This myth has been debunked by a wide range of labour market studies which investigate whether women receive the same labour market rewards as men with similar qualifications, experience and personal characteristics.
Both in Australia and internationally, such studies consistently show that only a small proportion of the earnings differences between women and men can be explained by differences in education and work experience or other productivity related characteristics.
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While it has been assumed that women’s poorer earnings relate to their lower levels of education and qualifications, recent data demonstrates clearly that the earnings gap has persisted despite women’s increased entry into higher education.
Today a higher proportion of women (26%) than men (22%) hold a Bachelor Degree or higher qualification, while a higher proportion of women (42%) than men (36%) are currently engaged in undergraduate education.
Grading earnings data indicates also that the gender earnings gap cannot be simply equated to women choosing to have children. Relevant here is the evidence of a persistent gender pay gap among graduates in their 20s, a period that predates career interruptions due to childcare.
Myth 2: The statistics are wrong. Organisations treat all employees equally and pay them fairly.
The statistics are not wrong. The WGEA data is derived from the data organisations have provided to the Agency. The strong story to come out of this evidence is of ongoing gender pay inequity, and its cumulative impact on women’s current and lifelong earnings. Even allowing for the different labour economics paradigms used to investigate the gender pay gap, a significant proportion of the earnings gap remains unaccounted for by what economists term “measurable characteristics”.
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The determinants of the gender earnings gap cannot be easily reduced to a single factor. Contributing factors to the gap include the undervaluation of feminised work and skills, differences in the types of jobs held by men and women and the method of setting pay for those jobs, and structures and workplace practices which restrict the employment prospects of workers with family responsibilities.
Looking at management and leadership positions within organisations, a number of key barriers to the earnings recognition of women in leadership positions and their progression within leadership structures have been identified. These include negative perceptions about competing work-life priorities and women’s ability to lead.
These perceptions not only rest with individuals within an organisation but are embedded in organisational structure and practices. Within organisational settings, unconscious biases specifically related to or informed by expectations about what is appropriate behaviour for men and women, including masculinised models of leadership, do have a systematic and sustained negative impact on women.
Myth 3: Women don’t ask for pay rises and don’t make their case well. Women lack competitive drive and this has an impact on their performance and their pay.
These myths blame women, linking the gender pay gap to women’s capacity to bargain rather than to institutional and workplace practices that fail to organise and value work and performance fairly. These practices include the assessment of the value of a job and performance including recruitment processes and selection criteria, as well as benchmarks used to assess promotion.
On the issue of negotiation, research has highlighted differences in negotiation styles, behaviour and outcomes between women and men. Such differences may contribute to gender differences in earnings, noting also that there is a larger gender pay gap among top income earners. Studies also suggest that these differences are not innate and can be shaped by the organisational environment, which includes cultural stereotypes about gender and negotiation styles.
Myth 4: Women have broader personal goals and benchmarks for success so they don’t care as much about their income.
This myth conflates a number of key factors. The disproportionately high burden of caring work that falls to women does shape the labour market choices made by women, including women in senior positions. Yet such choices are clearly constrained ones and are impacted by a range of factors including the impact of effectively high marginal tax rates (on the income of couple households), the availability of child care and gender norms about what constitutes good parenting.
Within workplaces, opportunities for women, particularly those who have caring responsibilities can be enhanced or restricted by the availability and quality of flexible work practices that support rather than impede career progression. These factors are also linked with gendered constructions of what constitutes “leadership”. Hannah Piterman has noted that it is the fragility in the link between women and authority and between men and family responsibilities that continues to marginalise women’s position in the workforce.
The inequities in the distribution of unpaid domestic work do not mean that women in leadership lack interest in their career or the conditions that attach to it. Rather than a lack of interest, much of what shapes women’s aspirations to leadership lies in factors such as insufficient career development, promotion pathways and mentoring provision and the cost of childcare.
Progress to gender pay equity is not assisted by myth-making. What is required is support for effective and sustained institutional and cultural reform capable of addressing the factors that shape the earnings gap.
This article was originally published on The Conversation.
Read the original article.
Top Comments
Thanks for this, these exact lies and deflections are repeated over and over by determined sexists. This won't stop them, because they already know they are lying. But it will help make it clear to those who are confused by their lies.
With regard to qualifications and higher education, it then assumes that a degree will lead to higher income. Trades earn massive amounts of money and are male dominate. Bring back technical schools? Open up the market and encourage more women into trades? Take the emphasis off academia and that always leading to higher income because it doesn't.
Attitudes towards women in leadership. I agree, women are judged on their physical appearance and determined if they fit the boys club, but leadership styles are changing to suit better management at the moment. The entire leadership philosophy needs an overhaul and that includes leaders demonstrating work life balance by managing it themselves.
I agree, men are still viewed as the main provider and employers tend to empathise with that in decision making. Would it be fairer to have a family tax threshold? It stops the rorts of income splitting for those who can benefit from it and it places income responsibility on both parents. One combined income for family benefits (as it is now) so one combined family income to work out tax rates? So a couple with both earning $70k would report and pay tax on an income of $140k. A couple where one is on $40K and the other on $100k would also pay tax on a combined $140k. It would be fairer for everyone and cut through gender pay based on provider perceptions.
Myth four. Some women care about money. Some men care about money and some don't. Some people are motivated and driven by an income level but not everyone is. Maybe men feel as though they are more desirable the more money they have. Maybe women don't think it's as important for them to earn as much because it's not the entire value of them. As we see, very ordinary rich men can land a young beautiful wife who more than likely wouldn't look twice at the man if he didn't have money. What's the solution to that?
In fact, what is the solution to the pay gap? There is plenty of analysis around it and legislation has been put in place but apparently the pay gap is widening despite this. And there are a multitude of factors to consider. I wonder if society is ready for a complete overhaul of IR legislation, welfare, taxation and gender identification to achieve equity across the board.
The solution to stop women marrying unattractive men they don't love is to stop stripping them of opportunities because they are female, stop locking them into gender role cages from the cradle to the grave, start paying them fairly and equally so they don't feel that's the only way not to have the threat of poverty hanging over their heads, stop lumbering them solely with the child care whether they want it and are suited for it not, and stop commenting on how they look and making it very clear from birth to death that you only value their appearance.
As we all know, men also marry wealthy women they are not attracted to and we have seen much more of this since women have made small footholds into wealth and power.
But then, you already know all this.
Oh, and of course the real solution lies with men. If she is half your age, a tenth of your income and five times as attractive as you - do the maths and stop embarrassing yourself. Unless you have no problem with the fact that you are a roof over her head and security for her future and not, in any way, her great love even if she grows quite fond of you after a while. And of course, men overall can and would do EXACTLY the same when their choices are severely limited.
And while you're at it, ask for an independent attractiveness rating of both she and you, as it has been scientifically proven that men trying to date imagine they are more attractive than they are, while women imagine they are less. Fascinating study which explains a great deal.
http://homepage.psy.utexas....
As always, no discussion will be entered into with flat earthers and determined sexists.
I have heard before about the fact that men in general, tend to overestimate their attractiveness, while women in general, tend to underestimate theirs. Interesting study.
It really is fascinating. I particularly found it interesting that they discovered that if men were attracted to a woman they mis perceived her being attracted in return, and the more the men felt the attraction, the more they wrongly assumed she felt it too no matter what she said.
Which certainly explains the butthurt and over entitled behaviour of certain men when women tell them over and over they are not interested. I think the main two things for men who think they are being hard done to by the women they are approaching is are a) get an independent attractiveness rating and BELIEVE it and b) listen to her words, not what you think she is saying.
It also explains the whole "women can always get sex" nonsense that some people claim. Well, sure, if she's willing to sleep with someone who is a lot less attractive than she is. Just like men.
And of course, if you are a woman who is an 8 but thinks she is a 6, you might well consider another 6 a good match, we do tend to gravitate to people around our own attractiveness level. So if a woman who is an 8 only approaches sixes she will receive many fewer refusals.
And of course it has an evolutionary advantage. If you get 1,000 knock backs but then manage to snag a 7 or an 8 when you are only a 5 (who thinks he is a 7) you will have a good chance at really attractive children. Whose boys then, unfortunately, may well inherit their father's cognitive deficiency and go on to think they are hard done to when women say no, thanks. And thus the myths are perpetuated.
And of course these cognitive distortions did not hold true for the more
attractive men. Probably because, evolutionarily they never had to
evolve this deficiency, finding it easy to attract a mate.
I find the science behind the bullsh** mythology quite fascinating. I also find myself laughing when I hear certain men claim women don't like nice guys. 1. Men who think they are nice guys rarely are, and 2. you're just not hot enough for her, nothing to do with your personality. Newsflash, women overlook personality flaws when they get a chance at someone hot. Just like men :)
Anyway, I notice most of the usual trolls are giving this piece a wide berth so far, embarrassed at being called out on their bullsh** I reckon. So I will be off to pastures new :)