I didn’t, actually. Employers really do appear to think it’s worth it to have their employees work as many hours as they can get out of them; I think that explains some of the “having a kid” penalties. That’s a starting point for what to do about it all.
Right. It’s a lifestyle choice all the way back to the paleolithic era.
That would make for a lot of boring sports.
If women are just doomed to make less due to the biology of child rearing, which is more or less what you’re saying, then society should cough up offsetting income to compensate. You can’t have it both ways.
That is perhaps the most insane thing I have ever read in this forum. And considering some of the people who post here, that’s really saying something.
Again, bullshit: there’s just no getting around the fact that the more relevant job experience you have, the more valuable you are. That isn’t some arbitrary decision by a company’s management, its, well, reality, something you are apparently unfamiliar with.
We are not living in the Paleolithic Era. I defy you to dispute one thing I said. No one living in the United States today has to have children if they don’t want to, and anyone who wants to eschew children in favor of career advancement may do so. That is undeniable. Children today are a choice.
Especially with me as quarterback.
What, the alternative is “if you want to have a decent career, you can’t have kids?” And this only applies to women? What a delightfully just and rewarding society we’d have. Mysteriously, you never hear about men’s careers suffering from having kids.
Mind you, I think the career pay cut for children is almost entirely discrimination, but if we’re using skills gap as the starting point, there you go.
Absolutely not. Women aren’t being “punished”. One of the basic tenants of economics is not everything of value is money, and somebody isn’t irrational for choosing a career that gives them less money since there are intangibles and personal preferences. For example, I don’t care how much truck drivers get paid (actually, not that much, but the points can still be made), I would loathe to spend so much time on the road and away from friends and family. So it is with many (not all) women. They are choosing to spend time with their children because they find it rewarding in a way a longer career track isn’t.
And there is also the fact that the more women there is in a field, the lesser valued it becomes.
Eh? I’m not sure where your going with this one. Are saying women aren’t valued as teachers since something like 80% of teachers are women? I don’t think so, I think employeers value skill, experience, and reliability regardless of gender in almost any occupation.
And I’d say that the expectation on women to act in the way you describe, and more importantly, for men not no do it, leads to a discriminatory practice in itself.
You are right that there is an expectation of women to be the primary care givers. However, no one forces a women to get married, or have kids, or to take a substantial break from their career to raise their kids. It is expected that should a women decide to raise kid, that those kids will be taken care of by somebody (Mr. Mom, the grandparents, paid babysiter, etc.).
Stop working for extended periods of time? How often does this happen, really? Because the housewife ideal has never been valid for the majority in any country at any time.
Beats me. It was never my purpose to say all women follow some specific mold, I was just pointing out a widespread trend that helps explain the salary discrepancy in a way that isn’t totally dependent on the Male hegemony de-valuing women. I personally love to see women doing well in the work force. They help diversify the personality types in a work space and make it a more pleasant place to work, if you follow my logic.
No, the correct formulation is “if you want to have a decent career, you need to spend a good chunk of time developing professional skils and otherwise nurturing your career,” and that formulation applies to men and to women.
It doesn’t really matter why someone decides to take time off: whether it’s to have kids, or to do a stint in the Peace Corps, or to go “find yourself” at a Tibetan monastary, or whatever. Time not spent on one’s career is time lost versus those who have.
Because men rarely put their careers on hold in favor of child-rearing. All that proves is that men and women tend to make different lifestyle choices.
Again: bullshit. Take my not-so-hypothetical female CPA: on what possible grounds can you ascribe her different wage earnings to discrimination?
I think what he’s saying is that we, as a society on the whole, need to produce kids. If you follow the logic of Damien out it should lead to the total “market-ization” of child-rearing so that it’s done by hired help as part of a business for all but the few women whose careers don’t require any sort of advancement.
Or you could just leave it to the public schools to raise them…like many parents do.
I’m a public school baby-sitter/behavior-launderer…used to be called a teacher
No, that’s not where it leads, actually.
It actually leads to saying “people should make their own choices, including inevitable trade-offs, for how they want to live their lives, and we should respect those choices.” If a career woman finds child-rearing to be more personally rewarding than pursuing her career full-tilt and is willing to make that trade-off, more power to her. Likewise for the childless woman who decides to go for the brass ring.
You are right, it is a societal/cultural expectation that the man works and the woman is the primary care giver. So what? The system is tried and true.
Mind you, I think the career pay cut for children is almost entirely discrimination, but if we’re using skills gap as the starting point, there you go.
But how can it be discrimination? Is there some suit behind a desk looking at applications and saying, “Ah, mother, lets cut here pay 15%”. Nor can you expect some super emphatic figure to say, “Ah, you spent the last 10 years contributing the social economic basis of our nation. Thats makes up for your inexperience with the newest software/equipment/government regulation/etc.”.
Here’s another way to look at it. Invitro fertilization can cost up to $20,000, and for people with complications even more expensive. Yet, people continue to pay it because having a child is aparenty worth that much. Heck, thats jus the begining. Food bills, diaper bills, clothes, college tuition-- it all adds up to an enourmous expense. I think US News and World Report ran a cover saying it was a million dollars to raise a kid. Obviously, children are worth money to the couples that have them, and not just to society at large. In that light, why should we pity the women who choose to raise children? They are clearly getting something of value out of it.
No? Laws provide a framework for social interactions, by changing laws you can adjust people’s perception of right and wrong since whats wrong tends to be equated with what’s illegal.
Case in point, Sweden made it illegal to physically discipline children in 1979, equating it with assault as a criminal charge. Polls taken in the mid 70’s passed showed 6 out of 10 swedes supported physical discipline. Polls taken in 1990 showed that 9 out of 10 Swedes oppose it.
Evidence suggests it’s more like “Ah, female, let’s offer her 5-10% less as an initial starting salary, relative to a male with similar levels of experience, training, and background.”
About two-thirds of the gender gap in pay is accounted for by differences in expertise and background between men and women (since women usually have less experience, having worked part-time while raising kids). The final third is tough to pin down, but differences in initial compensation might be relevant*. For example, employers may slightly lowball female employees, because they have an expectation they’ll take some time off for child-rearing. It makes sense that a salary lag should occur for women who do take time off, due to less experience, but there’s no justifiable reason for offering women less to begin with, because the wage differential should occur as the worker makes his or her choices, not before the fact.
Some of the libertarian posters in this thread seem to assume all members of society can freely make any economic or lifestyle choice, but I believe they are minimizing evidence that society stereotypes different people and constrains the choices they have, or makes the choice for them.
*For example: Gerhart, B. (1990). Gender differences in current and starting salaries: The role of performance, college major, and job title. Industrial and Labor Relations Review, 43, 418-433.
As the proportion of females in a given profession increases over time, the financial compensation of that profession relative to others lags, and the profession often is rated as less prestigious by others. The financial hit occurs for both male and female workers in the profession as the overall proportion of women increases.
Examples:
All I know is that Mark Foley has recently taken a sizable pay cut just for attempting to rear a teenager or two.
“if you want to have a decent career, you can’t have kids?”
Uhh, if you have to shove your tits into some whiny brats face every few hours you won’t be able to give high stress jobs (th high paying kind) the attention they need.
Unless you are a stripper.
Laws tend to be passed at the tipping point of when things fall out of favor.
It’s like suggesting banning smoking in bars has caused negative public attitudes about smoking – it puts the cart before the horse.
You know, I actually find this less likely than dinging females later in their careers, because entry-level jobs at a given employer are typically going to the same pool of candidates (recent X major graduates, recent law graduates, recent med school graduates, etc), and the fact that the employee pool is found in the same place and tend to pass information amongst each other means that salary data is pretty readily available (hell, there are entire websites devoted to comparing starting salaries at law firms for law students). It’d be pretty apparent if a female is being offered less.
I have yet to see an actual demonstration of how societal expectations actually impact individual choices. If a woman wants to be an engineer, I have yet to see the college that will prevent her from earning her engineering degree. If employers refuse to hire her because she’s a woman, she has a nice discrimination suit available to her. Ditto if they offer her less than a comparable male graduate, although as I’ve noted I think that is unlikely.
What I see in this thread are a bunch of people who are apparently disappointed that many women elect to eschew career in favor of family, who can’t handle the fact that men and women tend to make different choices, and who want to do something to “correct” this “problem.”
Pretty much, because the Equal Opportunity office sure won’t do jack shit for her. Lawsuits take money and time though, that a job hunting woman likely doesn’t have.
At pretty much every job interview I’ve done, barring those in my teenage years, I’ve had to answer the question “Do you plan on having children?”. Not soon or in the near future, at all. Which, to me, says that the answer impacts hiring.
Luckily I have no burning need for a squalling pink horror, but apparently the fact that I bear the apparatus needed to incubate one means something to the dipshits that interview me.
Let me introduce you to your new friend, the contingency fee.