Even though economist after economist has debunked the gender wage gap over and over again (it’s more accurately referred to as an “earnings gap”), some in the media just can’t let it go.
Enter Danielle Paquette of the Washington Post, who wrote an article on the website’s “Wonkblog” section titled “Men say they work more than women. Here’s the truth.”
Paquette attempts to explain away the fact that the Department of Labor repeatedly finds men who work both full-time and part-time are working more hours than women in the same categories. Her assertion is that the statistics only show reported hours.
“Let’s start with a few massive caveats in the Labor Department’s report. First, the researchers asked each respondent to log their own time. Nobody submitted manager-approved work hours, and research tells us one of the sexes generally tends to overestimate,” Paquette wrote. “Secondly, the survey didn’t measure productivity or efficiency. Workaholism isn’t necessarily a sign of value.”
She’s right that working longer hours isn’t necessarily a sign of value, but that’s beside the point unless she has a study to bring out demonstrating that men are systematically less productive.
Her other point about respondents logging their own time is a new angle and, as with every study, it’s an important caveat. Paquette loses some credibility on this point, however, when she later links to studies showing women spend more time doing chores at home but neglects to add the same caveat that these are also self-reported times.
Another caveat with many studies regarding household chores is that they don’t mention many chores that men typically do, like lawn maintenance and household repair.
Paquette also explains some of the other factors that contribute to lower earnings for women, such as industry and occupation choices. She attributes the rest of the wage gap to possible discrimination. This leaves out other factors like women taking time off from work to have and raise children or experience or education.
When hours and industry and other factors are accounted for, there’s about a 6-cent (or less) gap between men and women’s earnings. Yes, that’s right, women make at least 94 cents on a man’s dollar. Activists of course want that remaining gap to be explained by discrimination, but this remains unproven. And yes, of course sometimes there is workplace discrimination or sexism, but it’s not the rampant, oppressive problem gender studies professors trying to justify their ongoing employment and their media supporters would like women to believe.
Women have been decreasing the earnings gap by collectively changing the choices they make. Today, more women are graduating from college than men and they are waiting longer to get married and have children. Paquette neglects to mention a couple of studies that found young, childless, unmarried women in metropolitan areas out-earning men (though those studies suffer from similar apples-to-oranges comparisons of earnings). Of course, studies like that don’t fit the narrative so they are ignored.
It’s almost cruel for the media and activists to continue telling women that they’re going to earn less than the man working beside them because of discrimination, when so many factors (all of which are life choices men and women are free to make) explain the differences in pay.
When someone is told they’re being discriminated against for long enough, they’re going to start believing it and constantly question whether they’re being treated fairly. Who knows what kind of negative consequences that kind of thinking could cause for women in their careers?
