A War On Women...?

When examining this idea of a war on women, I repeatedly came across the same statistic: that women earn 77 cents for every dollar that men make. After giving this statistic, many of these sources that I looked at came to the conclusion that there must be gender discrimination, and that there really is a war on women. However, I am not convinced.

This statistic fails to take into account the number of hours worked, the amount of training/experience that workers have, and what type of work these laborers do. If all these things were constant between men and women and there was still a pay gap, then I would definitely argue that there is a war on women, but this is not the case. This statistic ultimately compares work that is not comparable, because these factors are so different.

In an article from the Heritage Foundation, I learned that there is, in fact, a great difference between the type of work that women and men do. For example, women make up only 17 percent of all engineers and 75 percent of all social workers. On average, engineers earn $117,849 while social workers make $79,569. Because so many more women choose to work in the fields that traditionally earn less (childcare, nursing, etc.),  of course there is going to be a pay gap.

In fact, when the Heritage Foundation analyzed federal workers, there was virtually no pay difference among those in the same profession. Female engineers, for example, earned 95 percent as much as male engineers while female social workers made 97 percent as much as their male counterparts. These statistics don't even take into account differences in experience, hours worked (including overtime pay), or other wage-affecting factors. So when men and women who work in the same field are compared with one another, this pay gap decreases significantly.

In general, there is also a large difference in the amount of hours worked between men and the women. In his article Statistical Frauds, economist Thomas Sowell wrote that he discovered, in his research, that the average female doctor works 500 hours less per year than the average male doctor. So when studies claim that women are paid so much less than men, we must read the fine print and determine whether or not the work is comparable. In addition, Sowell points out that women often take time off from their careers, or choose a job with more flexible hours at the expense of their careers, in order to make more time for family.

Women should be applauded for putting family first in many cases, and often at the expense of career. Families with young children especially, need at least one parent to have reasonable working hours and flexibility in schedule. At least one parent needs to be home enough to provide the support and guidance that kids need growing up. Someone has to find the time to do all the things that keep a household running—shopping, cooking, cleaning, laundry, etc. In our society that role has traditionally fallen on women. Often, women make the choice to take on this role and sacrifice their careers. While personal sacrifice to do what is best for the family is selfless and admirable, it is also a partial explanation for pay inequality between men and women. Women who make the choice to have a family and fill the primary caretaker role cannot fairly demand to be paid the same as their counterparts who have focused more on their careers. 

On the other hand, we cannot dismiss the fact that among some companies and careers, there likely is a bias against women. The term “old boys network” probably has some truth to it in certain male dominated fields where women have been traditionally excluded.  Fortunately this seems to be changing. In an article from Forbes, I learned that the CEOs of GM, Hewlett Packard, IBM, and Pepsico are all women. Granted, women CEOs make up only 4% of the CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, but it does show a gradual acceptance of women as leaders in business that is beginning to take place.