|
Advertisement
|
« Burning Question | Main | The Civilized Workplace: No Jerks Allowed »
June 19, 2007
The Mirage of Professional Gender Equality
The 21st century has been called the Woman's Century. Hillary Clinton is running for President, women are playing stronger roles in the workplace and the female profile is rising in many professional fields. So why does no one seem shocked that gender discrimination still lingers in the workplace today?
Without doubt, discrimination in global business today persists, whether it's based on race and ethnicity, sexual orientation, age or, of course, gender.
We've come a long way since the days when male executives expected women in the workplace to stay quiet and passive while fetching coffee. But not far enough, sadly. Although much more subtle, workforce and workplace barriers still persist.
Not only do these biases continue to fuel disparity and tension in basic human relations (and human rights), they are damaging the workforce and the workplace — and by extension, innovation and competitiveness in industry and business.
In April 2006, The San Jose Mercury News published an editorial by Belle Wei, dean of the college of engineering at San Jose State University, in which she claimed, "There's a widespread societal presumption that women have made tremendous inroads into the engineering and computing ranks starting back in the 1970s." (See: Upping the Estrogen in the Engineering Talent Pool)
In the United States alone, women received about 38 percent of the computer science bachelor's degrees awarded in 1985, the peak year. In 2003, the figure was 28 percent, according to the National Science Foundation. At universities that also offer graduate degrees in computer science, only 17 percent of the field's bachelor's degrees in the 2003-2004 academic year went to women, according to the Taulbee Survey, conducted annually by an organization for computer science research.
Yet "the choice of major is not the full story," according to American Association of University Women (AAUW) Educational Foundation President Barbara O'Connor.
Gender Pay Gap
Previous studies have found that more women than men are earning college degrees and that the salaries of college-educated women have risen much faster than those of male graduates. Yet two reports released in April 2007 should have fired up the debate over the gender pay gap and whether women still face real discrimination in the workforce or are making personal choices that lower their pay relative to men's pay.
According to the AAUW's "Behind the Pay Gap" report, the pay gap is very real and not even a degree from a top university can close it:
Just one year out of college, women working full time already earn less than their male colleagues, even when they work in the same field. Ten years after graduation, the pay gap widens.
"Women have made significant educational gains — they even tend to get better grades than men. Women are working hard to balance the roles of work and family," according to AAUW Director of Public Policy and Government Relations Lisa Maatz. "Despite all this, the gap still exists."
Analyzing U.S. Department of Education data on 19,000 men and women, the AAUW found that one year out of college, women in 1994 earned 80 percent of what their male counterparts made — "even when they work in the same field." By 2003, the comparative figure dwindled to 69 percent of men's incomes.
In Canada, women working on a full-time, full-year basis had average earnings of $36,500 in 2003 — or 71 percent what their male counterparts made. Moreover, according to the fifth edition of the compendium Women in Canada: A Gender-based Statistical Report, released in March 2006, the gap between the earnings of women and men has not changed substantially in the past decade.
As noted above, the AAUW is one of two reports that should have fired up debate. Yet, as Sue Hutchinson at The San Jose Mercury News points out, "more jolting than the statistics is that they seemed to surprise no one."
Hutchinson writes of the report:
Even when AAUW researchers allowed for factors such as lower-wage careers that women tend to choose and leaving the workforce to have children, the wage disparity persisted: Women one year out of college made 5 percent less than men and the gap more than doubles, to 12 percent, when men and women are 10 years out of college.
The study was released to coincide with this year's Equal Pay Day, which marks the number of extra days a woman must work in addition to the prior year to match what a man earned in one year.
Mother's Pay
The second recent report, from the Labor Department, shows more married women — with and without college degrees — opting out of the workforce when their children are young. According to the study, "The proportion of mothers in the labor force had been trending down since 2000, when it was 72.3 percent."
The labor force participation rate for all mothers, at 70.9 percent, was little changed in 2006; it most recently peaked at 72.3 percent in 2000. The participation rate of married mothers (68.6 percent) was also about unchanged in 2006.
No doubt balancing a career with raising kids can be quite challenging, but the good news for working mothers is that today's parents are finding it pays to ask the boss for a break in one's schedule. A survey done by the publishers of Working Mother magazine found 69 percent of working moms had asked for changes at work after having kids, and 74 percent of them got what they asked for. Moms in the survey say "flex time" and telecommuting are the benefits they value most. The survey also showed 75 percent of working moms feel their bosses are supportive of their family needs.
The gender gap will remain until more women pursue careers in science and engineering, women become tougher negotiators, and employers do more to accommodate the needs of mothers with young children, AAUW research director Catherine Hill recently told The LA Times.
In the end, though, the negative trends for workforce women in the science-focused workplace may be no different from those for men.
"Women are the canaries in the coal mine," The New York Times recently quoted Carnegie Mellon University computer scientist Lenore Blum as having told an audience at Harvard University in March, in a talk on the "crisis" in computer science.
"Factors driving women away will eventually drive men away as well," she and others say.
We open the floor to you. Weigh in with your thoughts: a major problem or an overstated issue? Should other factors be considered?
Earlier
This Woman's Work: Short Shrift?
Upping the Estrogen in Engineering Talent Pool
Resources
How Women's Talents Will Affect The Workplace
by Adrienne Selko, interview with Chin-Ning Chu (president of Asian Marketing Consultants)
IndustryWeek, May 23, 2007
Need more engineers? Recruit women
by Belle Wei
The San Jose Mercury News, April 27, 2006
The Science & Engineering Workforce: Realizing America's Potential
National Science Foundation, August 2003
Behind the Pay Gap
The American Association of University Women Educational Foundation, April 2007
Women in Canada: A Gender-based Statistical Report
Statistics Canada, March 2006
Hutchison: Rationalizing why women earn less fails to make it fair
by Sue Hutchison
The San Jose Mercury News, May 7, 2007
Employment Characteristics of Families in 2006
U.S. Dept. of Labor, May 9, 2007
What Moms Want – Survey Results
Working Mother
Science jobs urged to ease pay disparity
by Molly Selvin
The Los Angeles Times, April 23, 2007
Computer Science Takes Steps to Bring Women to the Fold
by Cornelia Dean
The New York Times, April 17, 2007
Additional
Pay Gap Between Men and Women Remains a Reality in Work Force
by Sarah E. Needleman
CareerJournal (The Wall Street Journal), April 24, 2007
Women's Pay: Lagging From the Start
by Julie Rawe
TIME, April 23, 2007
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://news.thomasnet.com/mt41/mt-tb.cgi/1095
|
Advertisement
|
Comment
9 CommentsCould a "news" story be any more bias driven than this? What was it that Mark Twain popularized about statistics? There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics. Do 5 minutes of research and the premise of the story, women are discriminated against and underpaid, comes unraveled.
In general terms it's true women earn less than men. Women by far choose to go into primary teaching at a rate that far exceeds men. This is a profession that historically pays less than other fields, so this choice made by women will skew the statistics. Why not compare apples to apples instead. For example, compare men and women that go into primary teaching fields.Compare a woman with a masters in history and 5 years on the job teaching to a man with the same credentials and you will find no difference in salary if compared within the same school district.So I could use that static and make a general statement that women earn as much as menSee how easy it is to apply statistics incorrectly.
June 19, 2007 2:26 PM"The gender gap will remain until more women pursue careers in science and engineering..." This makes no sense to me. If the AAUW's surved didn't limit the comparisons to a field by field analysis the data is worthless. It's like saying I'm underpaid because I don't make the same as Bill Gates. We all, male & female, make choices based upon personal interests, pay, and commitment required. Don't call it a 'gender gap' if those choices affect average pay.
June 19, 2007 2:40 PMThe "proof-of-the-pudding" that these statistics are wrongly interpreted or incorrect is the fact that there is not a prodigious number of very public lawsuits demanding restitution. THERE ARE well-known (and well-appled) laws that prohibit employers from paying LESS for the SAME work. In our litigous society, can anyone believe that there are large numbers of "unfairly paid" women out there?I guess the article writer(s) decided that the same old augument that the jobs women tend to prefer are unfairly paid(versus jobs men tend to prefer)wouldn't get as much sympathy!
June 19, 2007 5:54 PMIt might have been more interesting to use data from dice.com, one of the largest IT job boards, which does an annual salary survey of more than 30,000 IT workers of both genders.
The Dice data from 2005 showed something very interesting: women actually out-earned men by an average of about 5% in highly technical MANAGEMENT positions (network or MIS manager). However, their salaries lagged behind men's in nearly every other IT-related position, from multimedia designer to systems analyst, and across every sector (government, IT, retail, etc.) and every education level.
It's probably true that women in high-level technical or management positions are highly valued and more likely to be on an equal pay scale; perhaps it's their motivation to ask for what they deserve that got them there in the first place.
Unfortunately, many of the female survey respondents were not in highly technical positions: they identified themselves as technical support specialists, database administrators, web designers, or technical writers.
So, while it's too bad that women earn less than men for doing the same job, it's hardly news. What sucks is to think about all the technology being created without women's input.
June 19, 2007 11:46 PMThis comment does not offer opinion, pro or con to the premise, however, it seems predictable that a bias was left from the discussion. That bias is the quota requirements for minority employment in business and industry that is either suppliers to government or to business that has a "social corectness" policy.
In many instances we see women of all color hired as the nation's most truly discriminated group, white males, are turned away so that established goals are fullfilled. We have seen these quotas shrink in colleges and universities, but continue to be present in the workplace.
The comparisons of pay for the same job description and same work descriptions seem to not take into account length of time in service. Total pay in most jobs is determined by base pay plus increases over time, reductions in perhaps deductions for fringe benefits due to longevity. Women, rightly or wrongly seem as a group to have more breaks in service, stay for shorter periods in the same employ or have less time in service than males, but the cry is: same pay for same work, and that cry does not equate longer service as changing the "same work" criteria.
Studies are never blind and you seem never to include the purpose of the study as outlined in its premise...a statement any scholarly investigation worth presenting will include. If the premise was to investigate if women are paid less than men...it does not take great skill to exclude factors, twist statistics that do not match the premise and direct research to areas that will likely be supportive to your premise.
It almost begs the question:"Have you stopped beating your wife"? Figures don't lie, but liars will figure!
The American Association of University Women, mentioned in the article, is one of the most unethical and fraudulent of all the women's "rights" groups. This has been well-documented in the book "Legalizing Misandry" by Nathanson and Young.
Why are fewer women enrolled in Computer Science and Engineering? Because they know hard work awaits them when they graduate, in those fields. It's easier to major in Art History, work in a museum for a few years, then ensnare a doctor or engineer so as to get married, have children, and retire from the workforce for good (not that that is the goal of all women, but feminists have convinced us to pretend that it never happens that way. Isn't it fun to make believe?).
What about the unemployment gap? In western countries, the unemployment rate of men is double that of women. But feminists never want to mention that gap.
June 27, 2007 4:23 AMThe thrust of the measure of gender-gap in this article turns a blind eye to very important measures that go into the determination of value (pay) for an employee. In nearly every job there is an initial time period when a new hire is not a value added contributor to the company.
That time may vary, job to job and person to person, but it is part of the cost to hire and must be amortized over the estimated time of employ. Women tend to spent less time in a given job than males, therefore that cost is higher.
Compensated time off is another concern in the cost to hire and maintain an employee...women, particularly married women, tend to be absent more frequently than males, due in part to the traditional roles women play in married society.
Wheather those roles are right or wrong it not
pertinent, they are there and have an effect on the cost to hire and maintain. Law requires unpaid family leave time, and because it is unpaid does not mean, for the employer, it is without cost. Statistics will bear out that it is requested more by women than it is by males.
All the "whys" of thoses decisions by family groups is again not pertinent, it is what experience shows. On the opposite side of the coin, health insurance enrollement in companies plans by married women is not as frequent as for males...why, chances are good that, one, the male may have already have been employed and enrolled in his workplace or two, the plan has superior benefits. For women this results in lower expected costs. Conversly insurance census taken by underwriters for group plans weighs a vast number of issues, but given equal health, age and other factors, women of childbearing years will be more heavily weighted than the same male due to the likelyhood of a claim. The cost to hire and maintain employees is totally ovelooked throughout both the article and most of the comments. The likelyhood of legal entanglement is more prevelant with female employees than with males. This does not mean that the look to remedy for injury and injustice in the workplace is wrong and should be overlooked by women but it is a cost to be added to the cost to hire and maintain. To state flatly that same pay for same work is the only factor to be examined is just part of the story.
One must look at the cost probability to secure that work at required acceptable levels. The weekly rate of pay is just a part of the cost
to a business for work performed.
After reading this article I couldn't help but throw in my own two cents. I am a female tool and die maker. Gender minority? Most definitely. I have been in this career area for 11 years now. I have one year of college and a two-year diploma from an area tech school.
Regarding pay, I believe I am being fairly compensated as far as tool makers in our area are concerned. I have recently done research on this locally and through payscale.com and have no complaints there.
However, tool and die maker is my official title. Unofficially I am also the plant maintenance coordinator, prototype machinist, shop manager,tooling designer, maintenance mechanic for both production and shop equipment, and handyman. This is where I have issues with my compensation:
Last year when I asked for a more than the standard cost of living raise, I was told that my wages were in line with similar companies in the area and that once my overtime (not a guaranteed thing) and potential bonus was figured in, I was actually at the top of their little chart. I plan to plead my case again this year.
Over the years, I have found little discrimination when dealing with men face to face. Most men find it very interesting that I do what I do and know what I know. Phone conversations can be a whole different experience. Where I have noticed judgement the most is among women. Thankfully I work in a big enough town where most people don't care. But more than once I have had a female sales clerk or receptionist stare down their nose at me because I come into a place from work dressed in jeans, t-shirt and steel toe work boots more often than not a little dirty.
I think it is a loss that more women don't look into mechanical type careers. Not all of these jobs are headed overseas or are full of grease. Whether it is engineering, machining or drafting, these fields offer a lot of opportunity for creativity and advancment. They are far from boring, and it would be kind of nice to sit down with a girlfriend once in a while and talk shop. And last time I checked dirt washes off.
July 6, 2007 1:54 PM
