Back in the Stone Age when I was an economics grad student, two of my professors studied the female wage differential in great detail. Their studies show that a major cause of the wage differential is because of womens’ loose attachment to the labor force. Back then (1960’s), many women were secondary bread winners and dropped out of the labor force to raise a family. There was also evidence that many women did not reenter the labor force once the kids got into school because the primary bread winner’s income had risen to a “comfortable level”.
The training costs for an employee have always been high...even moreso now. From the employer’s perspective, this made it more expensive to hire women for the same job. Also, the same job title does not always mean the same work. For example, female postal workers are not required to lift 75lb bags of mail, but males are. Finally, women sometimes are paid more than men. The old Westinghouse assembly plant paid on a piece-rate basis and women were faster at assembling phones than men and earned more even though the rate was the same.
It’s a complex issue and one that most TV news people don’t seem to understand.
‘It’s a complex issue and one that most TV news people don’t seem to understand.’
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Which is odd because when I went to college the journalism majors were obviously the best and brightest. /s/