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From: jeff@rtech.ARPA (Jeff Lichtman)
Newsgroups: net.women
Subject: Re: Equal pay for comparable worth
Message-ID: <170@rtech.ARPA>
Date: Thu, 21-Feb-85 18:28:03 EST
Article-I.D.: rtech.170
Posted: Thu Feb 21 18:28:03 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 27-Feb-85 09:18:06 EST
References: <239@mhuxr.UUCP> <648@unmvax.UUCP> <2306@randvax.UUCP> <4732@mit-vax.UUCP>
Organization: Relational Technology, Berkeley CA
Lines: 27

> 
> In article <2306@randvax.UUCP> edhall@randvax.UUCP (Ed Hall) writes:
>     	Women's wages are lower because of social institutions, not because
>     	of supply and demand.  How else do you explain the fact that a
>     	female-dominated occupation such as nursing, ...  is paid so much
>     	less than a male-dominated occupation such as truck-driving?
> 
> Without contesting the injustice of such a system, consider economic
> multipliers.  A nurse can make incremental improvements in a small number
> of patients' lives, and under less favorable conditions may simply
> maintain the status quo.  But the truck-driver determines whether the
> factories get their materials and keep on producing.  Certainly a more
> direct payoff.
> 
> Also, nurses usually don't work for 72 hours at a stretch, nor sleep in
> their rigs with pistols in hand, waiting for someone to steal the truck.
> Nor does a nurse's 2-second lapse of attention wipe out a busload of
> schoolchildren.
> 

I know of a good way to determine the importance of a nurse's performance
versus that of a truck driver.  Just have each group do the other's jobs for
one month.  The bread will still get to the grocery store, but a whole lot
of people will die in the hospital.    0.5 * :-)
-- 
Jeff Lichtman at rtech (Relational Technology, Inc.)
aka Swazoo Koolak