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From: charlie@cca.UUCP (Charlie Kaufman)
Newsgroups: net.women
Subject: 59 cents
Message-ID: <5757@cca.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 23-Sep-83 18:32:16 EDT
Article-I.D.: cca.5757
Posted: Fri Sep 23 18:32:16 1983
Date-Received: Sun, 25-Sep-83 12:55:53 EDT
Lines: 73

>>	The statistic is very clear.  On average, women doing the same
>>	work as men earn $0.59 for every $1.00 men earn.  This is not
>>	"essentially similar" work, but the *same* work, by proportion
>>	of time spent at various tasks.  If you don't believe the
>>	statistic, then you are probably as shocked about it as I was
>>	when I first heard it.  It is, however, a valid statistic.
>>
>>	There are whole bunches of people in his world who do the same
>>	work.  Salespersons, clerks, garbage collectors, even
>>	programmers.

I guess I just don't believe it.

I'm not questioning whether you heard it somewhere.  I'm questioning the
techniques used by the statistics gatherers.  I see two problems in
gathering such statistics accurately:

1) There are considerable variations in the type and quality of work
done by salespersons, clerks, garbage collectors, programmers, and
widget frobbers.  Further, there are intangibles in job performance,
such as whether the employee adds to or detracts from the morale of the
workplace, which are difficult for a good manager to detect, much less a
statistician.  By choosing how to observe or fail to observe these
variables, "good" statisticians could cook the results to reflect their
biases.  I do not know how one would begin to collect "unbiased"
statistics.

2) If a company had a policy of separate salary structures for the same
job for men and women, they would be in violation of federal law.  That
is not to say that would stop them, but very likely they would be
prudent enough to try to hide the discrimination from nosy statistics
gatherers by creating separate job titles and parallel career paths for
essentially the same job.  I claim that no statistician could break
through such subterfuge *on a national basis* without also ignoring
differences in jobs which are of true economic significance.  In a
recent posting, which included statistics by "profession", the largest
discrepancies were:
	computer specialists (20% women)     $.72 for a man's $1
	insurance, real estate, stock
	   agents & brokers (26% women)	     $.49 for a man's $1
	retail trade, self employed (22%)    $.50 for a man's $1
The range of jobs I have personally observed under the title "computer
specialists" is staggering - ranging from key punch operators (almost
entirely women) to VP/Data Processing (almost entirely men).  The
"self-employed" category defies explanation by charging discrimination
by employers, and the second category, which usually operates on a
commission basis, has similar problems.

I do not doubt that discrimination against women exists.  Indeed, I have
seen direct evidence of it:  in my experience, the women I have
worked with have, on average, been more competent at their jobs than the
men I have worked with; i.e. they seem to be less likely to be promoted
to their level of incompetence.  My experience may not be typical,
my judgement may be biased, and my sample is small, but it is enough to
convince me.

What I question is the mechanism and the effects of that discrimination.
I don't know anyone who would pay a 69% salary premium to hire a man for
a given position if he or she believed a woman could do as good a job.
While I don't doubt such people exist, I don't believe companies that
employed many of them could stay in business in even a slightly
competitive market place.  Yet the 59% statistic implies that the 69%
salary premium is the *average* over all of business.

I find it easier to believe that the problem is a matter of women
employed in jobs beneath their level of competence.  This is the problem
to attack.  It results not in a transfer of wealth from women to men, as
salary discrimination would, but in loss of the wealth that could be
generated if people were "fully employed".

                          --Charlie Kaufman
                            charlie@cca
                            ...decvax!cca!charlie