A little while ago, I saw a picture someone had posted on social media and it said: Amount a man makes (it was a dollar bill) and then it said amount a woman makes (it was a bunch of change that when added up equaled a dollar). I shook my head and removed myself from the internet for awhile. When I came back, I saw a woman had posted a response about the meme not being funny – I was exuberant. Then the man responded: educate yourself followed by a WSJ (Wall Street Journal) opinion piece on why the difference in the wages existed; the piece was the classic argument: women take jobs in sectors that don’t pay as much. So, when I decided I would jump into the public forum, I knew I needed something that was from a source that would be reputable (and luckily I had a subscription to the WSJ, so I knew they had many non-opinion based pieces on the wage gap). I came across my weapon: an infographic built on census backed data which controlled for career path. By choosing a visualization based on census data, I removed the classic argument about choosing positions that pay less. (Check the infographic here: http://graphics.wsj.com/gender-pay-gap/ or click [Read More] for my analysis).
Out of 446 major U.S. Occupations, 439 have men being payed more than women. Below are the 7 positions where women make more then men:
- Wood sawing machine setters and operators – women make 102% when compared to their male counterparts
- (Women: $27,399 | Men: $26,878)
- Meter readers, utilities – women make 106% when compared to their male counterparts
- (Women: $40,115 | Men: $37,961)
- Highway maintenance workers – women make 101% when compared to their male counterparts
- (Women: $38,813 | Men: $38,479)
- Dietitians and nutritionists – women make 101% when compared to their male counterparts
- (Women: $50,142 | Men: $49,536)
- Telecommunications line installers and repairers – Women make 101% when compared to their male counterparts
- (Women: $51,311 | Men: $50,645)
- Crane and tower operators – Women make 104% when compared to their male counterparts
- (Women: $54,710 | Men: $52,461)
- Transportation, storage, and distribution managers – Women make 102% when compared to their male counterparts
- (Women: $54,117 | Men: $52,848)
And here are 3 positions from the spread (one on the low end, one from the middle, and one from the high end (randomly selected)) where men make more than women:
- Childcare workers – Women make 79% when compared to their male counterparts
- (Women: $19,774 | Men: $25,037)
- Designers – Women make 79% when compared to their male counterparts
- (Women: $43,845 | Men: $55,835)
- Economists – Women make 76% when compared to their male counterparts
- (Women: $90,699 | Men: $120,108)
Now, when I questioned the person who made the original post (they had responded to my visualization of the wage gap and said it didn’t matter), I was curious about his outlook on this matter (cause what I see is something horrendous and can’t comprehend how someone couldn’t see this as an issue). This need to understand this person brought us into a conversation of merit. Which prompted a small question from me: If you are saying that people make less because of merit, and that’s why there is a gap, how come women make less in almost all situations? It was a loaded question, I had thrown down the gauntlet knowing he was researching for an answer. There is no reason that women make less in almost every occupation. Furthermore, that the spread between a man and women is significantly larger when the man has the larger salary, while when flipped, and women are the ones who are making more than men, it only comes to a couple of thousand dollars. Even as childcare workers, women make ~5,000 dollars less then men. While, the largest spread for a woman making more than a man is ~2,000 dollars.
In the end, I never received an answer to my question on merit. Rather, I received a highly heated post telling me that the world was broken, that an idiot can make the same as him without being smart enough to do that role, and he didn’t think it was acceptable. All I know is I’ve depressed myself again reviewing the data. It’s fucking plain as day… there is no argument. Women make less than men and that’s not right. Cut and dry, there is no ethical quandary here, its fucking wrong.
Now, I need to roll this into a minor analysis even though I am mentally exhausted and sad. One argument would be that women take time off work to raise children and that time away keeps them from climbing the promotion ladder as fast as men. This could be a valid argument, but I’ve never seen this problem analyzed with data showing those with children, those without, and adjusted for age. Also, every woman I’ve ever worked with, who has kids, still puts in the time and works late. I would like to see an entry level salary gap between men and women to see the different in wages right out of college/high school. Another argument that could be used would be that men are more aggressive in pursuing promotions and pay raises. Once again, there is a lack of data and I think it is a fallacy to assume that women aren’t aggressive – I’ve worked with the most aggressive women in the world. I’ve also grew up in a family structure with a matriarch (thank you my Italian heritage – if you think the men run the show in Italy, you aren’t paying attention).
In the end, it is a problem, and it needs to be fixed. Companies know their spread, and if they analyze against their own population and see the wage gap trend while controlling for experience, then all they need to do is adjust for it in some way. I will probably do some more research on some of the other arguments and slowly destroy them in later posts… if my stomach can handle it.
Note at time of posting this piece: I pulled the raw data from the Census Bureau and I’ve been going through it. My goal is to develop a massive spreadsheet that is color coded, controls for gender, race, and can be mapped as a trend line. Expect to see more posts like this one. I also will be providing my spreadsheet once I finish building it. In the end, my goal is to provide a spreadsheet based on only census data, so anyone can open it and point to a spread and say: “Yeah… then explain this data.”