The common concensus is that the average woman makes 75% of the wage that an average man does. Actually, it’s closer to 77% and is true as it is worded.
Before I get into a few facts, imagine a company of all women. If they truly made 3/4ths of what a man made, well…. they would have a labor cost advantage of 25%! This “All Woman” would be able to undercut all of their competition. However we don’t see this happening.
Why does the average woman make so much less? Most people, not just feminists, will tell you that this is because of men like to hire people like themselves. While this seems to make sense, why would most managers pay $10,000 or more dollars just to have a man? Actually in most men saturated arenas, such as technology for instance, an employer will choose an equally qualified woman over a man for diversity’s sake.
An interesting fact that is sometimes seen as insulting, is the fact that Women with children earn much less on average than women withouth children. There is a much greater gap between “women” vs “women with children” than there is between “men” vs “women”. Why do families, who need more money than individuals, make less money? It all breaks down to time.
Men are much more likely (sorry I don’t have an actual percentage) to work more than 40 hours. They are much more likely to work outside. They are much more likely to work in hazardous environments (think underwater welder and hazard pay) and they are more likely to have 20+ years experience in their current occupation. When asked what is more important about a job, women will cite “flexibility” much more often than men which is possibly due to them being the primary care giver for children. Men will say “Money” is more important more often than women.
These few facts might aggrevate a lot of you that are reading this. If so, I am glad. This brings up a very intersting point. Saying that “women make the same amount of money for the same work” (or possibly more money) is taboo. Saying these types of things are very unpopular. Unfair lawsuits are often settled quickly so that prolonged bad press does not happen. It is the very nature of the feminist movement to perpetuate these stereotypes. While these kind of movements are great for raising awareness and raising quality for their groups initially, they will alway prevent complete equallity because they are always drawing lines in the sand. These organizations are incapable of stoping when things are on an equal level.
Men make more mostly because they take jobs that fewer people want. They have an longer average commuter time, longer hours, safety risks. An interesting fact is that women take more jobs where they have to stand where women had jobs where they sat.
Warren Farrell possibly says it best. “Women and men look at their life, and women say, ‘What do I need? Do I need more money, or do I need more time?’ And women are intelligent enough to say, I need more time. And so women lead balanced lives, men should be learning from women.”
