Misengendering the pay divide
More misrepresentation of the gender pay gap, this time from the Fawcett Society and Unison.
In a report issued for Equal Pay Day, (October 30) they repeat the claim that women are paid 23 per cent less than men, though they don’t seem very sure. They also quote figures of 21.2 per cent, 17.1 per cent, and 36.6 per cent.
The best figure, as the UK Statistics Authority never tires of saying, is 12.8 per cent – the difference between the median hourly pay of men and women in full-time employment, excluding overtime.
The 17.1 per cent figure is the differences between the mean full-time rates, but the median is a better measure, because earnings are heavily skewed by a few very high earners. The 23 per cent figure (22.6 per cent, according to the latest ONS Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings) is the result of combining full and part-time working.
More women than men work part-time (41 per cent versus 10 per cent) and they are actually paid more per hour for doing so. The gap in part-time earnings is 3.4 per cent in favour of women. But because part-time hourly earnings are lower than full-time, including them increases the apparent gap between men and women.
The Fawcett Society press release is full of half-truths and misrepresentations. It employed Ipsos MORI to ask people loaded questions such as: “Women are paid on average 23 per cent less than men. Do you think it is important to eliminate the gender gap?” Naturally, 94 per cent agreed.
Probably a very similar proportion would have agreed if they had used the right figure, 12.8 per cent. There’s no excuse for paying women and men differently for the same work: but there’s equally no excuse for trying to level up pay rates by misrepresenting them.
Robert Whiston (not verified) wrote,
Sun, 22/11/2009 - 00:31
A good friend and polymath, Ivor Catt, and I looked into this topic some years ago. The investigation we undertook in 1999 threw up two candidates from opposing camps.
First, there was the American George Gilder who's books "Sexual Suicide" and "Men and Marriage" of the 1970s and 1980s pinpointed the instant at which the fudging begins.
Then we found the then Labour Minister, Patrica Hewitt, writing for the left wing think tank IPPR in 1993.
Gilder's analysis is clear and sharp. Comparing women with men is fallacious. It is comparable to comparing chalk and cheese. What has to be compared is not exclusively gender but marital status.
Briefly put, comparing single men with single women even before the various equal pay legislation (US and UK) revealed single women as more likely than not to be earning the same if not more than single men.
Where the main difference occurred was in the married man. He out-performed both single women and single men and married women.
The married man is the true 'engine of wealth generation' in any economy (advocates of cohabitation please take note).
"… married mothers earn, on average, only 60% of the pay of married fathers" concluded P Hewitt & Penelope Leach (Social Justice, Children and Families, IPPR page v).
Some would argue there is nothing much anyone can do about that unless women themselves decide to change their patterns of work and social/biological values.
Hewitt & Penelope Leach did not realise (or their research did not range far enough) that their figures were almost the reciprocal of George Gilder's - and for the same reason.
See < www.electromagnetism.demon.co.uk/04074 >.
In the summer of 2001, 'The Journal of the Independent Women's Forum' (No. 28) commented that ". . . feminist organisations like to claim that the wage gap is much wider, painting a bleak picture of the status of women." IWF argued that 'the pay gap between men and women disappears when other variables are taken into account.'
It found that, "....when choices and other factors are included, women earn 98 cents on a man's dollar." p25
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