2011 Gender Gap Report

It seemed to me that the Gender Gap Report does not really measure equality for both men and women. It seems like equality is achieved when women outperform men.

Table D1: Labour force participation

Country Female Male Female-to-male ratio Rank Burundi 92 88 1.04 1

Table D4: Legislators, senior officials and managers

Country Female Male Female-to-male ratio Rank

Jamaica 59 41 1.44 1

Philippines 55 45 1.21 2 2

Lesotho 52 48 1.08 3 3

Fiji 51 49 1.04 4 4

Table D5: Professional and technical workers

Country Female Male Female-to-male ratio Rank

Estonia 68 32 2.15 1

Latvia 67 33 2.06 2

Lithuania 67 33 2.06 3

Kazakhstan 67 33 2.02 4

Moldova 66 34 1.98 5

Anyone else seeing a pattern here?

edited 3rd Nov '11 1:11:19 PM by Paracletus

You might want to format that post properly, use an asterisk to make bullet points or something. I'm going to assume that you're talking about categories in which women outperform men. The article lays out the number for you. For instance, woman in Canada/Sweden/USA all outperform men in tertiary education. The number is in the article. However, women are still paid less.

Also, would you guys arguing the "wage gap" is fake, stop claiming something false like "They don't take into account of factor x". Wage gap calculations are based on women of equal experience/education compared to men in the same position. It's not 100% accurate, but it's fairly good when used on a statistically large base like millions and millions of people. Afterall, the minute anecdotal difference between a slightly better person with 5 years experience and a bachelor's degree and another of the same, becomes meaningless when studying across 100 000 of such people. The percentage difference is there.

Additionally, the report is called "gender gap". At no point did it claim that women outperforming men was awesome. Actually it's claim was that women are more well educated than men on average and yet earn substantially less money, which is a very suspicious statistic (ie. women appear to be vastly underpaid for their expertise).

Also, as for maternity leave.

• Canada/Sweden allows parental leave, meaning that either or both parents may use it
• Canada/Sweden has the government pay for the leave, not the corporation, so there is no loophole or anything

Granted, a corporation still isn't happy if an employee suddenly leaves for a year and then comes back and that should probably be a factor included in wage gap comparisons (continuous years experience versus broken up years of experience). However, a female is not likely to produce hundreds of babies. The American average, being quite high in the west, is what 2 something kids per family? That is at most (6 months per leave), a year time gone in a life time of work (which would be something on the order of 40+ years). That is hardly a good reason for women to suffer at a freaking 66% of men's wages in USA.

edited 3rd Nov '11 1:08:59 PM by breadloaf

@psychological differences between genders.

Possible, but I don't really buy into sociobiology that much. I'd say that there is psychological difference, but it is socially derived, not fundamental in nature.

edited 3rd Nov '11 1:20:03 PM by USAF721

USAF713 on his phone or iPod.

Actually it's claim was that women are more well educated than men on average and yet earn substantially less

Becuase it's measuring all wages, not just education. And women are ony recently outperforming men in educaiton (and why that is is another thread).

Woman get paid less because they work less hours and are less likely to work overtime. This isn't sociobiology, this is stats. I can't give the source, as I remembere this from n earlier thread.

Do you know what feminists need to do here? Nothing.

Why? Because women are now or will overpowering men. 80% of spending is in women's hands, women achieve better in uinversity education and are less likely to dropout, and the media is much likely to perpatrate negative stereotypes, attitudes, and double standards about men. And if the media does do something substainstial against woman, feminists are there to reverse it. But agaisnt men? Nothing. Where are the protests of Lifetime movies?

If you don't like a single Frank Ocean song, you have no soul.

IOW, women have both human rights and rights as members of the group "women", while men only have rights as generic humans.

“Love is the eternal law whereby the universe was created and is ruled.” — St. Bernard

No it is measuring comparable wages. This wage is based on an average of workers with respect to education and years of experience and industry. Considering that professional/technical vocations don't even pay overtime in most cases, I don't think it justifies earning 75% of what men earn.

I think the biggest problems today are cultural. Academic expectations, physical expectations and family work expectations.

Considering that most media has men as heroes or main characters, are more likely to be fleshed out, I find the accusation that "men are underpowered in media" as rather silly.

Erock, Rottweiller: Then why aren't more men protesting and publicizing these injustices against malekind? Don't tell me it's because public opinion is against them, public opinion was against women too for the longest time but they still protested. That's what raising public awareness is for.

Feminism is not against you. However, being largely run by and for women and generally focused on cases where women were denied full equality (which, historically, was a larger category than what men were denied), it may overlook cases where men are being discriminated against for their gender. Personally, I prefer to call myself a 'gender equality advocate' - there is still a lot of work to be done and many places where one gender has an advantage over another simply because of their sexual characteristics and not what they have the capability to do outside the sphere of making babies. And any time that is true, it should be challenged.

edited 3rd Nov '11 2:03:56 PM by TheGirlWithPointyEars

She of Short Stature & Impeccable Logic My Skating Liveblog

Oh, I don't disagree.

“Love is the eternal law whereby the universe was created and is ruled.” — St. Bernard

Okay, I'm glad we're in agreement. It seems agreement happens so seldom in OTC.

She of Short Stature & Impeccable Logic My Skating Liveblog

Got a primary source there (i.e. the actual research manuscript)? Or at least a secondary one? A recent study in Europe was presented with a similar claim, that was verifiably false (they just averaged over all wages). The claim wasn't made by the research group themselves, but from a third party that just assumed this.

If you don't have a primary source, do you know how "years of experience" and "industry" were defined? What did they do with heigth discrimination? Included or excluded? How did they exclude overtime as a means of raising in the ranks of the company from the results? How was willingness to move factored in? How distribution of overtime (i.e. at weekends or only during the week)? How were general amount of work hours factored in?

It would be interesting to see the general effects of those criteria on wage distribution, independent of a gender question...

Pour y voir clair, il suffit souvent de changer la direction de son regard www.xkcd.com/386/

"Woman get paid less because they work less hours and are less likely to work overtime. This isn't sociobiology, this is stats. I can't give the source, as I remembere this from n earlier thread."

Please do give the source, as I remember distinctly from an economic geography course that women, particularly in developing countries, work more hours on average.

And why would it matter how many hours are worked if we are comparing equivalent amounts of time?

edited 3rd Nov '11 3:07:57 PM by kashchei

And better than thy stroke; why swellest thou then?

Here... I usually go by Stat Can because they are quite thorough:

http://www.statcan.gc.ca/daily-quotidien/020619/dq020619b-eng.htm

Twelve years is considered rather dated when talking about social trends. Is there something more recent?

edited 3rd Nov '11 3:13:53 PM by kashchei

And better than thy stroke; why swellest thou then?

One thing I never understood is why something being classified "women's work" immediately means lower wages, regardless of amount of labour involved.

My mom is a factory labourer and usually works on Saturdays, often on Sundays too, and the drunkard men who sit around in the warehouse and do only about half the work they are supposed to do (the other half is done by the women because they have no choice or their work will stall) still earn more than she does.

Then why aren't more men protesting and publicizing these injustices against malekind?

Becuase they simply accept the status quo, and I don't blame them for that.

If you don't like a single Frank Ocean song, you have no soul.

Okay... http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/75-001-x/2011001/pdf/11394-eng.pdf

This is from 2011 if i read the date properly.

That's a little more helpful, but I am still interested in worldwide statistics.

Has the number of hours been juxtaposed against the incidence of single parenting? More single parents are women, and they need to work fewer hours when raising a child.

And better than thy stroke; why swellest thou then?

But then you argue that men pay child support, thus requiring them to also work longer, and add in the female fvouring in custody cases...

If you don't like a single Frank Ocean song, you have no soul.

Uhhh broadloaf, according to your source only 8% of the wage gap is unexplained after accounting for differences in the workplace (industry, part-time, work experience)*

. That means after accounting for only those factors, the wage gap is at 92% earnings of men, in contrast to your 75% claim "that includes all factors" *

^{Well, you didn't directly say that, but that's how I understood you}

Some things I mentioned aren't even considered.

As far as I read the report in the op, they use an unadjusted wage gap as a measurement - though I can see several viable reasons for this.

edited 3rd Nov '11 3:28:01 PM by Uchuujinsan

Pour y voir clair, il suffit souvent de changer la direction de son regard www.xkcd.com/386/

Well, unfortunately few countries have such robust statistics agencies. Sweden is another that has good statistics, which is why I have to use these countries as a basis for most of my discussions. America hasn't even updated the way it calculates poverty since WW 2, let alone anything about gender equality :P

As for single women, I'm not sure, I'll have to read through the report more thoroughly.

For Erock,

If the concern here is custodial treatment in court, I would argue for a set of clear criteria for which we can base who is the better parent (with a bias given to the children's choice) and then whoever is the other person is then forced to pay child support. I don't think it fruitful to lament "men have it rough" as an argument.

EDIT:

Yes, I know it is 92%. But you have to consider whether it makes sense for women to be clustered in low-wage industries, to be passed over for promotions etc. So we can't take the straight average but we can't just go "well they work low wage jobs and/or hold lower positions thus it's all explained".

edited 3rd Nov '11 3:30:32 PM by breadloaf

That 8% will soon close as women raised with second wave feminism enter more top position, and hire woman of my generation.

If you don't like a single Frank Ocean song, you have no soul.

There are more single mothers than men paying for child support, especially in countries where not paying child support is not criminalized (or does not exist as a legal concept to begin with).

And better than thy stroke; why swellest thou then?

I'm not considering those countries. And I didn't say they cancelled each other out, but the single mom point comes with more then one facet.

If you don't like a single Frank Ocean song, you have no soul.

I'm not sure how that's a factor at all. Both parents, if child support is indeed being paid, are supporting the child, so the financial loser is still the one with the child and working fewer hours. It doesn't follow that the man must work more because he's obligated to pay child support.

And better than thy stroke; why swellest thou then?

It doesn't follow that the man must work more because he's obligated to pay child support

Becuase his cost of living has gone up for that man, and if he wants x amount of disposable income he has to work more. Te only time I consider this a problem was if he waived his right and obligation to the child during the time when a woman could get an abortion.

If you don't like a single Frank Ocean song, you have no soul.