Posted on 04/23/2007 6:58:28 AM PDT by presidio9
A dramatic pay gap emerges between women and men in America the year after they graduate from college and widens over the ensuing decade, according to research released on Monday.
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One year out of college, women working full time earn 80 percent of what men earn, according to the study by the American Association of University Women Educational Foundation, based in Washington D.C.
Ten years later, women earn 69 percent as much as men earn, it said.
Even as the study accounted for such factors as the number of hours worked, occupations or parenthood, the gap persisted, researchers said.
"If a woman and a man make the same choices, will they receive the same pay?" the study asked. "The answer is no.
"These unexplained gaps are evidence of discrimination, which remains a serious problem for women in the work force," it said.
Specifically, about one-quarter of the pay gap is attributable to gender -- 5 percent one year after graduation and 12 percent 10 years after graduation, it said.
One year out of college, men and women should arguably be the least likely to show a gender pay gap, the study said, since neither tend to be parents yet and they enter the work force without significant experience.
"It surprised me that it was already apparent one year out of college, and that it widens over the first 10 years," Catherine Hill, AAUW director of research, told Reuters.
Among factors found to make a difference in pay, the choice of fields of concentration in college were significant, the study found. Female students tended to study areas with lower pay, such as education, health and psychology, while male students dominated higher-paying fields such as engineering, mathematics and physical sciences, it said.
Even so, one year after graduation, a pay gap turned up between women and men who studied the same fields.
In education, women earn 95 percent as much as their male colleagues earn, while in math, women earn 76 percent as much as men earn, the study showed.
While in college, the study showed, women outperformed men academically, and their grade point averages were higher in every college major.
Parenthood affected men and women in vividly different ways. The study showed mothers more likely than fathers, or other women, to work part time or take leaves.
Among women who graduated from college in 1992-93, more than one-fifth of mothers were out of the work force a decade later, and another 17 percent were working part time, it said.
In the same class, less than 2 percent of fathers were out of the work force in 2003, and less than 2 percent were working part time, it said.
The study, entitled "Behind the Pay Gap," used data from the U.S. Department of Education. It analyzed some 9,000 college graduates from 1992-93 and more than 10,000 from 1999-2000.
I don't think GPA'S are all that significant...and getting a good job does take more than just academic smarts...
but it is laughable that some freepers are so insecure that they have to attack this study....
b.s.
warren farrell in “the myth of male power” demonstrated years ago that
men generally work MORE hours,
thus, getting the higher paid jobs.
women generally take jobs close to home and school,
and women work FEWER hours,
thereby lowering their pay.
farrell was v.p. of n.o.w. until he published a book showing up their lies.
also, see: warren farrell “why men earn more, father and child reunion ...”
I dont understand why you would characterize that book as an "endless male cry session." Its author is female and its contents are fact-based.
If you can be more specific as to what you find fictional, I might be able to give a more substantive response.
We've been seeing these studies for decades. When all the variables that might matter--hours worked, experience, job description, etc--are accounted for, there is very little difference between the sexes. How this group came to such a different result is truly curious.
If it were so easy to pay women less for the same work, employers would have a huge incentive to favor women, thereby making more profit than if they hired men for the same jobs.
Agreed. I mentioned this inconvenient truth (a real one) to two of my sisters one time. They both vehemently disagreed (naturally) and insisted that male managers would rather run their businesses into the ground than promote and pay equal rates to equally competent women. I scoffed knowing that both sisters make considerably more than me. They simply don't want to accept the fact that by nature men are for more likely to accept unpleasant tasks and take more risks to make money. Plus men have ON AVERAGE an aptitude for certain lucrative professions that most women don't have. That's human nature, and it can't be changed by government edicts.
If this is the case, then all companies would be staffed completely by women at the upper ranks, because all of the male-run companies would be out of business.
Now...100 years ago this would not have been the case, but there are enough female-run companies, and they've been in business long enough, for the Darwinistic laws of Capitalism to take over. For instance, when you go to WalMart and buy something, do you know whether or not the thing was made by a male-run, or a female-run company? Generally, I would think not. And WalMart doesn't care, they only want to get you that thing for the lowest price and highest markup possible.
In this real-world scenario, poorly run businesses fail quickly.
Feminists with no understanding of economics irritate the heck out of me. :-)
“Women’s pay” is a statistic, it is averages, statistical averages that do not consider choices that women make - field of study choices, job choices, career choices and family choices.
The people that love their own negative view of these statistics will never be satisfied until:
(1) there are no more families,
(2) the state takes care of all children,
(3) everyone is single and responsible for themselves,
(4) 50% of every profession and every kind of job is held by men and 50% by women,
(6) all salaries are set by law,
(5) and everyone is restricted in their education, job and reproductive choices so that society does not lose that wonderful “equality”.
When I proposed that economic reality to my very liberal sister (who makes eight times as much as I do), she sneered. She just didn't want to believe it. She's a director at a major corporation with no college degree, yet she makes a ton of money. And she thinks women are being discriminated against. I should add that she's very intelligent, and deserves what she makes. But women like my sister want to believe that they're victims. They want to believe in the patriarchy and that there's some sort of male prejudice that holds them down. Even when they've become, like my two sisters, filthy rich working in a supposedly anti-female environment.
It has come to my knowledge that after close to sixty years on this planet that we will never be rid of liberals. For this reason: there are two types of people, ones who look at a glass and see it half full (that would be conservatives) and those who look at a glass and see it half empty (that would be liberals).
Liberals are NEVER! happy. Never satisfied. Never. There is always some injustice something that the forces that be who are always plotting against the "oppressed" and the "unfortunate" and "it's just not fair". I've come to that conclusion in part from discussing life with my three liberal sisters. Who all have far more money than me, but who are forever complaining about the unfairness OF EVERYTHING! And naturally they're all strong liberal Democrats.
If you have been on this forum for a period of time, you should know that any studies supposedly revealing "discrimination" will be attacked. And should be. Like this study. Every study should be critiqued. And if it can't stand up to criticism, it should never have been made in the first place. Nobody, including me, is denying that a certain amount of prejudice exists against women in the marketplace. But there are now countless female millionaires and even a few billionaires. What all the female whiners should do is then start their own companies and see how things shake out. See if they can fix this terrible discrimination problem. (smirk)
According to the language in this article, it doesn't say they compared pay for men and women head to head in the same jobs, it doesn't even say they compared those with the same level of education.
It just says they compared men and women who studied in the same fields.
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