Posted on 09/22/2008 7:09:33 PM PDT by Iron Munro
Men with egalitarian attitudes about the role of women in society earn significantly less on average than men who hold more traditional views about women's place in the world, according to a study being reported today.
It is the first time social scientists have produced evidence that large numbers of men might be victims of gender-related income disparities. The study raises the provocative possibility that a substantial part of the widely discussed gap in income between men and women who do the same work is really a gap between men with a traditional outlook and everyone else. The differences found in the study were substantial.
Men with traditional attitudes about gender roles earned $11,930 more a year than men with egalitarian views and $14,404 more than women with traditional attitudes. The comparisons were based on men and women working in the same kinds of jobs with the same levels of education and putting in the same number of hours per week. Although men with a traditional outlook earned the most, women with a traditional outlook earned the least.
The wage gap between working men and women with a traditional attitude was more than 10 times as large as the gap between men and women with egalitarian views. If you divide workers into four groups -- men with traditional attitudes, men with egalitarian attitudes, women with traditional attitudes and women with egalitarian attitudes -- men with traditional attitudes earn far more for the same work than those in any of the other groups. There are small disparities among the three disadvantaged groups, but the bulk of the income inequality is between the first group and the rest.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Here is her take on this:
"If you divide workers into four groups -- men with traditional attitudes, men with egalitarian attitudes, women with traditional attitudes and women with egalitarian attitudes -- men with traditional attitudes earn far more for the same work than those in any of the other groups. There are small disparities among the three disadvantaged groups, but the bulk of the income inequality is between the first group and the rest."
I don't really find that surprising - in general, which group do you suspect has the more traditional, hard work ethic?
"It could be that traditional men are hypercompetitive salary negotiators -- the Donald Trump prototype, perhaps," Judge said. "It could be on the employer side that, subconsciously, the men who are egalitarian are seen as effete."
I haven't read the study itself, but there appears to be at least one possibility the authors did not consider. (Unsurprising given that they are psychologists, who tend to believe that prejudice is The Most Important Force in the Universe, and not economists.) I would expect men with "traditional attitudes" to be more likely to marry, and to be more likely to have wives who stay home and raise the family. This allows the men to take advantage of division of labor within the home and therefore invest more in work-based human capital, and therefore earn more. (Sorry about the econ. jargon, but we can't help it. :))
The article does not indicate that the study corrected for whether the subjects were married, and if so whether their spouses stayed at home. If these things are not standardized for then the results are not informative in my view.
McCain pays his women better than Barry does. Ain’t that strange?
Men with traditional attitudes generally aren’t working only for themselves. They’re working to establish the economic security to support a wife & kids. In other words, they aren’t just working for selfish reasons. I would expect they also have more of a sense of patriotism about the nation, and want to contribute to it.
Egalitarian men essentially have nothing to inspire them to work overtime, or go the extra mile. The women in their lives are economically independent. They’re probably less likely to have kids, and if they do it’s just one or at most two. No large families to support for these guys. And they’re likely very selfish and don’t think much about helping the nation. They’ve likely got an entitlement mentality, which goes hand in hand with egalitarianism.
There are two possibilities:
1. Employers are stupid, and are paying these guys high salaries when they could get women to do the same work for less.
2. They really do more work in the same amount of time, and are therefore worth it to employers.
Given all we know about employers who are willing to outsource whole departments to Mumbai at the drop of a hat to save a few bucks, which theory is more likely to be correct?
This is the same story, new spin, on the research that says men whose wives stays at home make more money. The conclusion was that men who are able to devote their entire career to career (and not getting the dry cleaning and groceries and missing work when the kids are sick, etc.) climb faster and end up earning more. Now they’re spinning it that men who like their wife (or “women” in this case) to stay home make more for their sexist attitudes. Whateva baby.
bump
Translation: Conservative men are more productive workers.
Dr. Sowell would be proud of you.
I may be out of my league here, but my experience in industry is that each job is carefully described as to where it stands on the level of salaries within the organization. Each level includes but not limited to experience and education needed to perform, and other items such as travel required, special skills needed, etc. Eash level is assigned a salary range. A person hired is placed within the range according to his qualifications as related to the dsescription. I don’t recall any penalties for gender or race.
What did occur was that often women and minorities interviewed and hired did not have the longevity or maybe some other needed attributes to enter very high on the scale. However, they did rise as they measured up. In my day, men were just better prepared and the difference for those hired into the same job usually reflected the difference in longevity.
In union jobs, longevity did not play a role. A pipefitter was a pipefitter, was a pipefitter.
Thus completely ignoring age. Older workers are going to make more on average and have more traditional views.
If you ignore age, you could prove that taller children score better on standardized tests.
Rich, old hags (and their sugar daddies) who foment leftist hatred between the sexes are part of the effort to keep families down to prevent domestic competition. ...elitist thieves.
What a disgustinng poll...Why not break the work groups down into Terrific, good, not so good, untouchables....This speaks of blatant discrimination and it is time Congress did something about wage disparity...We don’t need any more studies, the CEO’s can stuff them where the sun doesn’t shine...I have said allong that the root cause of the mortgage crisis is that workers are not making enough even to pay the mortgage and provide for the essentials of life..It has been so for decades....decades...before the mortgage and subprime melt-downs...
Would the Pubbies vote for a wage increase ?...heck no, it would hurt their business buddies?..would the Democrats vote for an increase?...not if Uncle Ted said not yet, the Unions would get hurt of it might put too many companies out of business..Couple that with a maddening tax policy that said to the little guy- keep working, we’ll provide...
Provide what?..more grief as families split over finances, and the workers went backwards due to rising costs that the pols said didn’t exist because they used an artificial CPI...
The pols need a good old fashioned horse whipping for easing the way to underpay the workers while laying a heavytax burden on them...This is what we expect McCain/Palin to reform because this is the wallet issue, the bread and butter issue that the working guy is waiting to hear about...
We now have a minimum wage of $7.25 an hour....to be raised at certain intervals...Do you call this a civilized wage ?...Very few people can live comfortably on that wage..it is one of continual strife and hard work, and debts piled one atop another...They really need wage reform urgently...don’t talk about tax reform before you do something about the wages to help the working poor and the Middle Class in this country...
Having worked in human resources for 30 years, I find that those (of whatever gender, race) tend to advance much more quickly in their careers if they are mobile and willing to take positions in whatever city to get ahead.
This is less likely done in families where both individuals have a career in the local area and neither is willing to move to enhance the other’s career.
In more traditional families, the man is the primary breadwiner, and the woman (if she works) has jobs that can be more easily acquired in any community, (i.e., clerical, nursing, teaching) so that man is able to avail himself of greater opportunities by relocating the family.
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