Does the wage gap exist?
Since the early 2000s, Social Justice Warriors (SJW), people who express or promote “socially progressive” views have claimed that there is a gender-based wage gap between men and women. Since then, liberal Democrats have joined sides with the Social Justice Warriors and have kept pushing the claim that a gender-based wage gap does exist. Now it is time for me throw my 2 cents into this heated debate - the gender-based wage gap may be caused by women’s choice. The liberals, Feminists, and SJWs have received media attention about their claim, but that doesn't necessarily mean it is true.
The 82 cents to the dollar statistic (from numerous media outlets) was calculated by simply taking all the wages of men and women and doing some simple division. It did not take into account the hundreds, if not thousands, of variables that can influence the amount a person makes per year. A major variable (according to the U.S Bureau of Labor Statistics), is that men choose careers that are far more dangerous than the jobs women choose. So as a result, the men in the United States tend to earn more money because dangerous jobs naturally pay more than safer jobs. Another variable is the fact that men work longer hours than women. (According to the U.S Bureau of Labor Statistics), men work 8.4 hours, compared with 7.8 hours that women work, averaging about 56 minutes more than women per day. That doesn't sound like a lot, but overtime it considerably adds up.
The 3rd-wave (modern) feminist/SJW side says, “There is no proof that being a mother makes a woman less productive on the job.” (From IWPR). This tactic is described by psychologists as the “Burden of Proof”. It attempts to devalue an argument by suggesting since there is no extensive research to be found on that exact claim, it is automatically false; however, using common sense you can clearly tell that being a mother has its toll on work. This explains why little research has been done on it, because it so obvious that it’d be a complete waste of time and resources to actually conduct a study to confirm it. As of right now there just isn’t enough research to support either side.
Let me continue my argument to this question, with a question. If women are paid less, why don’t businesses only hire women? Wages are the biggest expense for most businesses, so hiring only women would reduce costs by almost 20%. Wouldn’t that be profitable? A company’s primary motivator most, if not all, of the time is to make as much money as possible. That means reducing costs in every sector as much as possible.
There are so many variables not taken into account by the media, liberals, feminists, and SJWs about what drives wages between men and women such as occupation, education, position, or hours worked per week. Even a study done by the AAUW (American Association of University Women), a feminist organization, shows that the ‘actual’ wage gap shrinks to about only 6.6 cents when you factor in basic choice variables, such as hours worked and occupation, (it still does not take into account the vast amount of other variables). he key word is choice. Other variables were not included in the AAUW study which is why they ended at 6.6%. In 2009 the U.S Bureau of Labor Statistics released a paper that analyzed over 50 peer-reviewed studies and concluded that the often cited 23 cent wage gap may be almost entirely by individual choices that both male and female workers make. It concluded that the wage gap is really at about 4.8 and 7%, almost identical to the 6.6% from the AAUW. Again, the numbers they found, such as 6.6% and 4.8% are the numbers after taking into account lots, but not all variables that drive wages between men and women.
As both the AAUW and the U.S Bureau of Labor Statistics agree, there are so many variables that drive wages that no single study can cover them all. It means that the amount of variables that drive choices and the choices women make are so plentiful that there are too much to take into account in a single study. According to the current available research, women’s choices, which they have a lot of, explains most, if not all, of the gender wage gap. It has nothing to do with employers paying women less. Why don’t the feminists, liberals, and SJWs instead acknowledge that women have achieved so much since the 1920’s. Some could even argue that women more and more nowadays are gaining more and more rights than men.
Feel free to respond or add on at fhsknightvision@gmail.com (reference the editor of the opinion articles)
Max Yeremuk, September 18th, 2017.
Resources: https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/rss_viewer/Women_in_America.pdf https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/atus.pdf https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/cfoi.pdf
https://www.bls.gov/iif/dangerous-jobs.htm https://www.bls.gov/iif/oshwc/cfar0020.pdf
