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I think you are overlooking looking a few things – your analogy is way too simplistic.

Say for instance you have a company and you have 10 identical positions for electrical engineers, they are all Engineer I positions, meaning they are at the lowest level of electrical engineers (what might be considered entry level) based on their degree, what school they graduated from, their certifications and years of experience and with all other factors such as performance all being equal. But let’s say 5 of these engineers are men and 5 are women and they are all equally qualified and at the same level of job performance. Let’s also suppose you pay the 5 men 10% more than the women.

There might be several factors why this might happen.

First of all you might be a jerk who thinks that men just deserve to make more because they are men. (And let’s hope your company doesn’t have federal contracts or is otherwise subject to EEOC rules.) But most of all you might be in jeopardy of losing some very good workers.

But for another thing, as to why women sometimes tend to be paid less than their male counterparts, women tend not to be as good as men when it comes to negotiating salary and benefits. Men are more assertive when it comes to negotiating. That’s not to say all women aren’t, I’ve certainly seen some who are very tough negotiators, but there is that tendency. I’ve seen it in myself.

I was hired as a payroll/HRIS manager on the very same day another woman, a benefits manager. Even though both our positions were in the same salary grade, and I actually had more experience in my position, she started out making slightly more than me and she also negotiated an additional week of vacation were as I didn’t negotiate at all and took the first offer the company made. Then again, I was very happy with the offer as it was for a job I really wanted and for a lot more money than I was making at the time in a job I hated but took three years earlier in desperation after having been out of work for over a year. My co-worker is also married and her husband makes a very good salary where as I am single and didn’t have a “fall back”. If I don’t work - I don’t have a place to live or food to eat. But when I found out she negotiated the additional vacation time, I thought to myself, “Damn! Why didn’t I ask for that?” and I probably would have gotten it too. Lesson learned.

But another reason for the wage disparity between men and women is child bearing and child care. Were I work, our controller had two babies in three years. Women certainly have job protection in larger companies, they are able to take their maternity leave and come back to work as our controller did. But then she is a high performer, very qualified and experienced and very driven, so our company was happy to have her back. (She even worked at lot from home while on leave, even though under out STD plan and company policies, she wasn’t supposed to). But that is not always the case. Often when women have children, in addition to the maternity leave, they tend to take more time off due to child illness or child care issues, school closures, etc. They also tend to want more flexibility in work hours or the ability to work from home if that is an option. But the time missed and this flexibility often comes with trade off in salary and tends to stifle their opportunities for advancement.

Add to that that women in general are more likely to have gaps in their employment history because some of these women tend to leave the workforce after giving birth and re-enter the workforce after the kids are in school full time. But depending on the type of position, career path (and I’m talking here about professionals), a 5-6 year gap in employment could mean a gap in keeping up with the latest advancements or a failure to maintain certifications.

But getting back to your comment; “If a man is to be paid the same as a woman, And a woman is to be paid the same as a man, Then what incentive is there to work better and smarter?”

If the man and the woman are both truly interested in advancement, they are both going to work hard to earn it. The only difference might be the amount of the salary increase that comes with that advancement/promotion, presuming that the man and woman are equally qualified and equal as far as performance. But if the woman is starting out making less than the man, she will still want to make more than she is currently making and ditto for the man.

I would add that salary information is supposed to be confidential but I will admit that employees sometimes talk about how much they are making to other employees, which whether that is on the high or low scale, is always a very bad idea. Don’t do it. EVAR!

However, especially for professional positions, it is not difficult, especially with the internet or if one belongs to a professional org. to do a little research and find out what the market salary for any given position is worth in the job market.

If I find that in my position, I am way underpaid based on the market for my job descriptions and level of experience, I’m either going to negotiate for a bigger increase or apply internally for another position or a promotion and if I don’t get it, I’m probably going to hunt for a new job. Whether I am male or female, if I am a valued employee, a high performer, if a company isn’t paying me what I am worth regardless of my gender (or race, etc.) and they lose me and my skills to a competitor, they, the company is losing. That’s a big part of why I changed jobs. A new company valued my skills and experience more that my previous company did and in addition to a much higher salary and a job more suited to my skills, they also offered better benefits and better working conditions and more opportunities for advancement.

My last company had a ridiculous turnover rate that was pretty equally spread between men and women. And one of their problems was IMO that they promoted based not on skills or performance but on whom you were related to; a large percentage of the people working there, both male and female were blood related or related through marriage to either the owners or one of the higher ups in the company. I saw a lot of promotions that made no sense, workers who were complete dregs who kept their jobs or got promotions, while good workers like me and others were treated like crap because we weren’t related or weren’t BFF’s with the right people. I would add FWIW, that this was a husband and wife owned company. But shortly after I left they were bleeding money and on the verge of shutting their doors. Where I currently work, we have several women in top positions but they earned it from working hard, often from the bottom up, and we promote and pay based on skill and performance and based on job grade and the market salary grade for our industry and not based on gender and yet we are highly profitable and expanding our manufacturing operations.

A company is stupid for not compensating their workers based on their actual performance and what they are worth in the market. And any man who thinks he doesn’t have to work as hard or try for that promotion because of some real or perceived gender wage equality, is probably not worth keeping.

If Joe is making the same as Jeff or if Joe is making the exact same salary as Jane, “then what incentive is there to work better and smarter”. Hum…say wanting to advance? If Joe doesn’t think he has to work as hard as either Jane or Jeff just because Jane and Jeff are currently making as much as his is for the same exact job, then Joe is a fool and if Jane works much harder and proves herself to be more competent and driven than both Joe and Jeff, she will end up being their boss. And that is how it should be. OTOH, if Jane is a marginal performer and not nearly as qualified or experienced as either Joe or Jeff and she is promoted based solely on the company’s desire to promote women and minorities to fill quotas, she will eventually fail and the company will either fail with her or will replace her with someone more qualified regardless of gender or minority status. And if Joe and Jeff don’t give up and keep working hard, they may still yet get their shot.