Today, April 12, is Equal Pay Day. As more households rely on women as the partial or primary breadwinner, what will happen when more men start to choose a family-friendly career path?
Today, April 12, is Equal Pay Day, a day that symbolizes how much longer women would need to work to earn what men earn (two extra days per week and three extra months per year). According to the U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey, women earn, on average, just 78.2 percent of what men earn. But despite the government data, there is still much confusion around the wage gap.
You may have heard the $0.78 figure is inaccurate. That’s somewhat true. For women of color, the gap is even greater, with African American women earning approximately 67.5 percent of what men earn and Latina women earning just 57.7 percent. You may have heard the wage gap has closed and that women are actually out-earning men. Technically, it has narrowed—from 77.7 percent. That’s a whopping half a cent. And there is indeed a segment of the female population out-earning men. In some U.S. cities, single, childless women under the age of 30 earn more than men by up to 17 percent. But when those women have children, the wage gap gets complicated.
Most likely you’ve heard the wage gap has nothing to do with discrimination and everything to do with choice. Those who opposed the Paycheck Fairness Act, a bill designed to strengthen the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009 and the Equal Pay Act of 1963 and that was shot down by the Senate this past November, say women make personal choices that lead to lower pay. They tell you that women choose to take time off to have families and if they return, that they choose the mommy track at work. And then they ask you, if women aren’t working as long and hard as men, why should they get paid the same amount?
But while it may look like women are opting out of the rat race so they can take Junior to Gymboree, the reality is what might look like a choice is actually a compromise. American businesses have made it close to impossible for two working parents to balance, or even afford, work due to inadequate family-leave policies, cost-prohibitive child care, and too few sick days. And in every family, something’s got to give. Many women leave the workforce or reduce their hours because their husbands earn more than they do and it’s the only way they can manage the household.
Which leads us to the other thing you may have heard about the gender wage gap. Perhaps you’ve heard you should care about fair pay for the sake of your daughters, your nieces, your grandchildren. Because nothing motivates a man to support women like making the world fair for his darling daughter, right? That’s sweet, but you should care about fair pay because it affects you in two ways. First, two-thirds of all U.S. households rely on a woman’s salary at least partially, and in one fifth of all marriages wives out-earn their husbands. When those female breadwinners bring home 23 percent less than their fair share of pay, the entire family suffers. Expenses like health care, grocery bills, and mortgage payments don’t discriminate based on gender.
And second, as more households rely on women as the partial or primary breadwinner, what will happen when more men start to choose a family-friendly career path? Women know from experience that fighting gender discrimination of any kind in the workplace is potentially career-ending, risky business. But if men and women work together to change the policies that pit family against work, we can start to affect positive change. Both men and women have a vested interest in closing the gender-based wage gap.
This week the Paycheck Fairness Act is expected to be reintroduced in Congress by Representative Rosa DeLauro and in the Senate by Senator Barbara Mikulsi. Support it—for your family and for you.
—Photo eszter
Liz O’Donnell is the founder of Hello Ladies, named one of the top 100 websites for women by Forbes. Her byline has appeared in The Atlanta Journal Constitution, The Boston Globe Sunday Magazine, The Tampa Tribune, The Glass Hammer and Skirt!.
This website is soooooooooo offensive to me as a man. The URL and “About” suggestion (intentionally in my opinion) make it sound like it’s a place where “typical” men can come together and have their voices heard.
In reality, it’s a feminist-approved anti-male website littered with feminists and male Uncle Tom. It is the equivalent of a bunch of White Nationalists running a website called “The Good Black People Project”.
For shame.
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Uhhm – Backstabbing, poorly skilled at working in team, undermining and undercutting colleagues… all likely reasons why someone might get paid less. Taking a 2 plus year pause in your career – might slow your wage growth – Another wage growth depressor – constantly calling in sick – to deal with kid issues (cuz you divorced your husband or had a kid out of wedlock). Finding ways to create conflict with other women in the office to the point of ostracising and bullying – miiiight affect your wages. All that being said -I expect wages to even out soon because… Read more »
This is the 3rd job I have had where a woman has gone on maternity leave – used up sick time – kept her position on hold – made her entire time pick-up the slack… only to never return to the job. Perfectly acceptable in my book. But, please don’t be offended if we don’t give you the plumb projects, and the leadership opportunities… and perhaps a bit less pay. By the way — last time I checked — there was certainly no lack of female leaders in business, politics, or family life. The complaints are hollow. Women leaders are… Read more »
Don’t women make 80% of all major purchasing decisions? Don’t advertisers market to women primarily because they know that’s who spends the bucks? Look any couples closet and I ‘ll bet the woman has significantly (an order of magnitude) more clothes/shoes/accesories than the man. Maybe we should make November 15 “equal spend day for men”. this would be the day that men are finally able to spend some of their own money on themselves.
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Well probably they are “coerced” into that too. Actually I am not joking. Clothing choices are personal, but anyone who has gone through midle school knows they are not private – everyone has an opinion and they enforce them on you. In an office job there are defintied expectations on clothing, to the point of dress codes. For men those expectations are decently clear and pretty simple – black, cordovan and brown shoes; black, blue, gray suits, a variety of shirts and a greater variety of ties. For women the expectations still have not broken free of the old days… Read more »
Liz: You have some fallacies in your article. When discussing your main debate point you seem to give an implied agreement with critics of standard wage gap terminology that the wage gap is not *DIRECTLY ATTRIBUTABLE TO GENDER DISCRIMINATION*, but rather work/life choices that women make which means they earn less. Then you add in the kicker that what seems a freely given choice by women is actually coerced by society (which I accept that point, provided people start understanding that men are coerced into choices that make them earn more–I’m always surprised by how often feminists say women aren’t… Read more »
Actually I meant inconsistencies, not fallacies.
Sorry
I believe gender discrimination is a factor.
The Department of Labor’s Time Use survey shows that full-time working women spend an average of 8.01 hours per day on the job, compared to 8.75 hours for full-time working men. One would expect that someone who works 9% more would also earn more. This one fact alone accounts for more than a third of the wage gap. Choice of occupation also plays an important role in earnings. While feminists suggest that women are coerced into lower-paying job sectors, most women know that something else is often at work. Women gravitate toward jobs with fewer risks, more comfortable conditions, regular… Read more »
The pay gap is an illusion, the women that are taking taking the time off (married women) that make the gap, are actually on the family wage, which is a combined wage. So an amount has to be subtracted from the aggregate mens total and and amount has to be added to the female total to see the real gap. I don’t think that the gap in taxable income that is there can be fixed without oppressing people more, in Sweden they have one of the largest wage gaps in Europe despite all the “equality” measures. You cant legislate against… Read more »
Except that there’s one problem with that: the women doing this aren’t “taking time off”: they are moving from one paid job to another unpaid job.
How much is that “free” childcare worth, Mark? It should be worth something, in dollars and cents, because if one partner wasn’t doing it, the other would need to take “time off” from their paid job to do it or hire someone to do it.
Thaddeus, thats a false claim made in your rush.
Its not an unpaid job, they are on a combined wage, and maternity and paternity leave is paid by their work.
In Sweden they have a system where they can use each other leave, usually the mother use the fathers paternity leave as well as their own, the gender ideologues considered forcing the couples to make the “correct” decision about but decided better of it.
Plus the stay at home has more rights over the property and the child.
Combined wage? Never heard of such a thing (in Sweden or anywhere else in Scandinavia) It’s true that in Scandinavia, couples get to share parental leave. As you say most couples still let the mother take most of the leave – and when ask, a majority of couples give as a reason that the mother makes less and so less income is lost when mother takes time off (few have full compensation for the entire parental leave). In addition, men are still under pressure to not take leave in many industries. To counter that, Sweden (along with a few other… Read more »
Lars, the research here has indicated that the best way to close the gap might be to give fathers as much freedom as is given to mothers but as you say there are expectations of men in the work place and on top of that there is “mommy blocking”, mothers that don’t want to share the time off with the child. By combined wage I mean family wage, they are taxed as a unit and the female tends to have more control over the money that comes in as well as has the security of keeping the property despite the… Read more »
edit
has the security of keeping the property despite the fact that she is NOT directly engaged with wage / tax work. To not take those facts into consideration and ignore the fact that the wage/tax worker can be dismissed on a whim can paint a misleading picture.
Mark, no matter what neologism you want to place on it, having and raising a child is not “time off”: it is a job, pure and simple.
Per Thaddeus: Except that there’s one problem with that: the women doing this aren’t “taking time off”: they are moving from one paid job to another unpaid job. How much is that “free” childcare worth, Mark? It should be worth something, in dollars and cents, because if one partner wasn’t doing it, the other would need to take “time off” from their paid job to do it or hire someone to do it. ———– This is truly broken logic and BLATANTLY one sided. When this caregiving-parent needs a break and burdens a loved-one to baby-sit while she runs errands are… Read more »
“When those female breadwinners bring home 23 percent less than their fair share of pay, the entire family suffers. Expenses like health care, grocery bills, and mortgage payments don’t discriminate based on gender.”
Thank you! Employers act like female salaries are inferior to that of male salaries and think female salaries are used for frivolous things, like eating out. Well, women have families to support, too!
but female breadwinners dont take home 23% less than male breadwinners, the wage gap is made up by women that live off the family wage, which is a combined wage so there isn’t really a gap at all.
I think that we will see more workplace changes participate more with their children and are able to really weigh priorties of money/time. Men are understanding how conflicting it is to worry about the needs of a sick child and a staff meeting, a concern women have been dealing with for years. I think there will be a noticeable shift in the way we do business. I actually hope that it changes the way the economy works altogether. We can certainly find better ways to move money around than what we have going now.
I think if men and women work together on work/life issues we will see positive changes.
I saw an episode in a Japanese TV series where the main character attends a very importnat dinner with a prospective clinet, decades older than him, and when he gets an urgent call that his little brother, whom he is raising, is in the ER, he leaves the dinner suddenly. At the time it’s considered a huge misstep. Later he gets the accoutn and the old man explains that it is only because he decided to leave on a family emergency. Then old man explains he is sick of the modern obsession with work over a person’s basic humanity. Irony… Read more »
Liz, I was struck by the data in the March, 2011 report issued by the White House Council on Women and Girls, which reported that the aggregate total number of hours worked on the job and in the home by the average man now exceeds the number of hours worked on the job and in the home by the average woman. I don’t believe this has received any press. If true (and why would Valerie Jarrett issue a falsehood on this subject) men are actually now contributing more to family support and nurturing than women (not a lot by the… Read more »
FRank,
I just looked at the report again. http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/rss_viewer/Women_in_America.pdf
The difference in time is tiny. Men’s average day’s add up to 10.3 hours and women’s to 10.2, Men spend more time on labor market work, and women on home/family work.
I imagine the pay differential is a product of both systemic things and women’s choices. I’m am not about to blame it all on women for making less than men on average, but I have often wondered if anyone has compared the women who make the payroll decisions to the men who make payroll decisions. — When women have influence over what female employees make, are they more generous than male bosses? — When women are self-employed, do they charge clients/customers as much as men do? Do they aim for paying themselves as much as men do? I honestly don’t… Read more »
There is plenty of discussion about the need for women to negotiate starting wages and ask for raises. Many agree this is a factor in the wage gap. Still, there are systemic factors too.
We never take into account non taxable income streams, the combined wage, alimony and child support represent a massive male to female cash and asset transfer that wage gap analysis does include.
The refusal/failure of women to negotiate wages and raises is probably a systemic factor, if it derives from socialization. A person can decide to override his or her socialization, but it is a higher levle of difficulty form most other choices.
I don’t even necessarily think that it’s a matter of socialization (as in women are taught in an under-the-radar fashion by society that fighting for your wage is un-ladylike). I think it has more to do with most people (men too) avoid conflict unless it is necessary. Many women marry men who make more than themselves for whatever reasons. I think subconsciously if the man makes 55%, 60%, 80%, or 95% of the family wages both parties know that it is his salary that is considered the one that is indispensable. That being the case, men probably fight harder for… Read more »
Liz – all things that have costs also have benefits.
What monetary value / benefit would you place on being closer, spending more time with, watching / being, with your chidren, as they grow?
If we’re going to use a mathematical equation for comparison, we should include all the relevant costs and benefits.
Though I don’t discuss this very topic with many retired people, my hunch is that any life regrets they may have, have little to do with the amount of hours / pay they spent / received working in a cubicle.
I share your hunch – but I don’t see how this relates to the wage gap.Are you making a connection?
I would like thee to be some appreciation for the benefit of raising children, and similarly, some appreciation for the cost of being less present in that same activity. We often discuss the cost of taking time away from work to raise children, and how that impacts one’s wage and career status. We then attempt to measure that impact. Putting aside the thorny concept of how much of our life’s choices are more persuasion than coercion, or maybe flipped on instances, my question is to how do we value the pleasure we derive from a certain activity against its cost.… Read more »
I’d like to offer the fact that if the wage gap were reduced and women were able to make the same amount as men, then parents (as a whole) would be better able to spend time with their children. The wage gap and parenting go hand in hand. Many are forced to work more hours because they simply can’t afford not to. If men and women are paid on an equal scale, not only will children have more time to spend with their mother, but they’ll have more time to spend with their father, which is equally important. To say… Read more »
Just a comment: It seems you have a misunderstanding of what the wage gap is really about. This article gives a slyly implied agreement that their is no direct gender pay discrimination going on (women do not literally get paid 76cents on the dollar for each hour worked to each hour men worked). When a detailed analysis is done (by some of the largest most detailed analyses to come out recently) it shows that when factoring in women’s choices (for flex-time, working in-doors, not working on-site for several months like oil rig worker or commercial fisherman and other family-friendly choices)… Read more »
This article doesn’t agree there is no direct gender pay discrimination. It merely addresses some of the commonly-heard arguments about the gap. Gender discrimination is a factor. And penalizing women for having children is part of that.
Saying that penalizing *women* for having children is itself gender discrimination.
It is also misleading; a man who makes the same choice will be penalized the same or perhaps even worse if his employer gives him less slack than he might to a woman for making the same chices.
Hello Ladies, This study doesn’t debunk the idea of there being direct gender pay discrimination and I didn’t claim it did. However, I did make a mistake in stating the study claimed to work down the undefined (possibly due to direct gender pay discrimination) down to 2% after controlling for choices. It actually states that after controlling for choices the remaining unexplained gap is reduced to 4.8% to 7.1% Here is the headline from the study: “There are observable differences in the attributes of men and women that account for most of the wage gap. Statistical analysis that includes those… Read more »
“In many ways women are getting a deal, because in my opinion men are selling their bodies cheaply ..”
Speaking of which, it’s worth noting that prostitution isn’t included in most wage-related and work-injury related statistics.
Probably coz it’s illegal, like drug dealing related shootings are not included right?