8 ms·

Why women earn less: Just two factors explain post-PhD pay gap

46 points by chriskanan 10y ago

knorker 10y ago
Sometimes I think that this issue will get a news report similar to the one flash-forward from The Simpsons: "[year 40 years from now] 40 year study concludes: diet and exercise leads to weight loss". Except it'll be: "40 year study concludes: choosing a less lucrative field, and putting more time into family leads to lower salary at work". We can have all the equality possible. That doesn't change the fact that nobody can have it all. You can't be a primary caregiver and also have an equal career to someone who isn't (statistically, obviously). Traditionally it's been the father who has (for lack of a better word) neglected the children. If you want an equally successful career you need to choose to (again, bad word here) neglect the children. There are only 24 hours in the day.
- progval 10y ago
  > If you want an equally successful career you need to choose to (again, bad word here) neglect the children. Or make the other parent not neglect them
  - ps4fanboy 10y ago
    What a disgusting supposition
- ps4fanboy 10y ago
  People on this site will argue that you dont have to "neglect" your children and have a career but that is only because they have money to out source their parental duties to other more poorer families who care for their own kids and yours.
  - bubuga 10y ago
    > only because they have money to out source their parental duties Holy jumping to assumptions, batman.
    - ps4fanboy 10y ago
      Assumptions? it is just simple math, if your not working your not earning, so you have a choice, make less money and look after your kids or pay someone else too.
      - bubuga 10y ago
        > Assumptions? it is just simple math No, it's a baseless assumption. You're somehow assuming that the only reason someone may even argue that you dont have to "neglect" your children and have a career is "only because they have money to out source their parental duties". That's a blatant baseless assumption. You may feel that, considering your career and the way you've been managing it, the only reason why someone may succeed in not neglecting their kids is if they pay someone else to do their job, but that obviously doesn't mean that your baseless assumption has any truth to it. Simple math isn't worth anything if you get the facts all wrong.
        ps4fanboy 10y ago
        It is really simple, can you explain to me how you can have a career, not outsource your parental duties and maintain the same income level as someone who outsourced (or had a spouse) looking after their children. You cannot do it, and will not.
        bubuga 10y ago
        I see you magically added the "maintain the same income level" gem to try to move your goalpost. But even considering your goalpost-moving argument, why do you assume that preserving a high income level is a priority over not neglecting your children? If you and people like you constantly prioritize maximizing your personal income level over not neglecting your own children, it is rather obvious that you will end up neglecting your children to pursuit a larger paycheck. But that doesn't mean your job demands it. It's you that is demanding it. You neglect your children because you opt to pursuit a higher paycheck. But that doesn't mean anyone is forced to neglect their children just to keep a well-paying job. That's only your own personal choice, and you don't justify your personal life choices by throwing blanket accusations and baseless assumptions like you've been doing in this thread.
  - Chris2048 10y ago
    What about, e.g. boarding schools?
- littletimmy 10y ago
  I wouldn't say "neglect". Working hard to provide for your family is the very opposite of neglect.
  - TempestSA 10y ago
    Neglect is a loaded word. Children don't need hard working parents who earn lots of money though. What children need is your love and your time, along with support, security, food etc. It's all about having a work life balance, usually working hard comes at the expense of your family.
    - saiya-jin 10y ago
      this. many people work hard to provide for their families, end up in a bad spiral of more-work-for-more-money and what they fail to see is child's view - they want their daddy and mommy to be with them as much as possible, talk to them, tech them, spend their time together. In this case it's not just quality, quantity matters too. this helps kid on so many levels that money just cannot buy, and forms their personality in one way or the other. will kids survive neglect? of course they will. but if your idea of a good parent is that your kids just survive, think again. this world has already plenty of human beings ridden with all kinds of inner issues stemming from childhood
  - knorker 10y ago
    I repeatedly admitted it was not the best word.
    - littletimmy 10y ago
      What I was trying to get at is that neglect is not even a crude approximation of reality in this case. This tendency to see the family as a collection of individuals is a rather new way of thinking. So when we say "the father as an individual" is "neglecting" the "child as an individual", we misrepresent reality. What used to be the way to think about this was that the family is the fundamental unit, and the persons are components of this machine. So the father doesn't take action (in this case work outside the home) of his own accord, but (ideally speaking), plays his role as is in the interests of the family. Similarly, the mother does not stay at home out of some oppression, but plays her role as what is in the best interests of the family. It is modern feminism that has eroded this idea of the family as a unit, and replaced it with the idea of the family as a collection of individuals.
- inopinatus 10y ago
  You've jumped to a conclusion the study does not appear to draw. It does not state that being a married primary caregiver correlates with a lower expected salary. It says that being a married woman with offspring correlates with a lower expected salary. In other words that there is systematic bias against married women with children, not against all married caregivers with children. The idea that men can be a primary caregiver still blows minds. edit: s/leads to/correlates with/ which I agree is an important nuance but doesn't change my point.
  - ps4fanboy 10y ago
    Until 50% of the female marrying population want to marry a man who is willing to be the primary caregiver, this is unlikely to change, we are the product of expectations of men to women and women to men.
  - avar 10y ago
    Let's not assume that correlation is causation here. One explanation is that female primary caregivers face systematic discrimination their male peers don't face. Another is that female primary caregivers, more so than their male counterparts, lose interest in focusing on work after they have a child, and thus fall into the rut of a lower performing employee that inevitably gets paid less. I don't know which it is. Are their studies that try to find out?
    - tzs 10y ago
      > Another is that female primary caregivers, more so than their male counterparts, lose interest in focusing on work after they have a child, and thus fall into the rut of a lower performing employee that inevitably gets paid less. This study was looking at pay one year after receipt of PhD. I'd expect that it would usually take longer for people to start being separated by performance in the types of jobs that PhDs typically get.
  - bubuga 10y ago
    > It says that being a married woman with offspring leads to a lower expected salary. No, it doesn't. It says that there is a correlation between being a married woman with offspring and a lower expected salary. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correlation_does_not_imply_causation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correlation_does_not_imply_cau... Furthermore, if you even had read the article you would've noticed the bit where it says "Weinberg says that the data cannot identify or tease apart factors that might explain why married women with children earn less — among the possibilities"
- toddkazakov 10y ago
  What a surprise!
- llamaz 10y ago
  On the other side of things --- the social standing of men is determined heavily by how competent you are and if you are in a position of leadership.
venomsnake 10y ago
Taking 2,4,6 years off from making a career leads to lower pay and earning potential. Good to know. Sadly this is very hard to be countered even with affirmative action, because a person taking a break (for whatever reason, health issues, a single guy on a two year sabbatical will be hit too, maternity leave) is objectively weaker hire than a person that has built name and contacts in the same period. Edit: Clarified lower pay
- abalone 10y ago
  The study doesn't say anything about taking time off.
  - cperciva 10y ago
    No, but it does say something about "women who have children", and there's plenty of evidence that maternity leave gets taken in much larger quantities than paternity leave.
    - ps4fanboy 10y ago
      Maternity leave is also much larger than paternity leave in terms of benefits in western countries.
- lostlogin 10y ago
  The article says pay is lower for women than men in the first year post PhD. It would seem safe to presume that the men and women were both working and neither group were at home with kids At the time point being measured.
  - cperciva 10y ago
    I think venomsnake's point is that taking time away from a career for child-rearing has a long-term impact on earnings, not just that it affects the amount earned in the years spent on child-rearing.
- deleted 10y ago
abalone 10y ago
To be clear: both factors may well be related to sexism. "The findings support earlier research that suggests that parental and household responsibilities often affect women disproportionately, particularly in environments without adequate work–life and family policies" I would also question why women "choose" less lucrative fields of study. Perhaps various forms of sexism make the higher paying male dominated fields a harder choice.
- cperciva 10y ago
  I would also question why women "choose" less lucrative fields of study. Perhaps various forms of sexism makes the higher paying male dominated fields a harder choice. It could also be the other way around: Social expectations concerning men as primary income-earners makes it a hard choice for men to pursue less lucrative fields of study.
  - abalone 10y ago
    Putting aside the sheer absurdity of that argument -- women pursue biology PhDs because they expect to be supported by a man? -- it still wouldn't explain why women are under represented in higher paying fields.
    - bluecalm 10y ago
      Maybe they are more competitive and significant percentage of women might not want enter competitive field because they plan to have families and know they will not be able to devote as much time to the rat race as men would.
    - RyanZAG 10y ago
      How is there any absurdity? If a person is expected to only choose a high paying field, but has two options open: 1. High paying field they don't really like. 2. Low paying field they'd love to do. Then if there are social expectations that someone must make a lot of money, they will generally be forced to choose option 1. The argument that men are forced by social expectations to choose option 1, and women are more freely able to choose option 2 is not 'absurd'. It may be correct or incorrect and would need some evidence to back it up, but please don't go around labeling positions you don't like as 'absurd'.
bluecalm 10y ago
>>An unmarried, childless woman earned — on average — the same annual salary after receiving her doctorate as a man with a PhD in the same field, the researchers found. This suggest that there is no sexism when it comes to compensation for your work, at least among PhDs. >>That difference, they say, was explained entirely by the finding that married women with children earned less than men. Married men with children, on the other hand, saw no disadvantage in earnings. Isn't it obvious? Women spend more time away from work raising children. I am ok with the world working that way. Women are better equipped to take care of a child in its first years and taking time to do that will naturally lead to making less money at work (because you spend less time there/learn less/have less experience). It makes sense to split roles in a family: a better equipped partner takes care of children and the other spends more time providing. That's efficient use of combined family human resources. I see no reasons to fight it. Life is about choices if you want children you will not get as far in your career as people who prioritize career over everything else. It would be unfair to force the latter group to subsidize your lifestyle choices.
- foobar2020 10y ago
  I believe somewhere at the core of the issue lies inadequate recognition of the critical importance and difficulty of parenthood. It's crazy expensive, eats up half of your life, and sometimes gets very unrewarding. But it's so obvious that being a parent is crucial to the society! A civilization that sacrifices reproduction over GDP is bound to disappear. Contrast with f. eg. the Muslim culture, where children are the main source of pride of the mother. At the risk of sounding condescending (I'm not) let's thank our mothers for bringing us into this world. Well done job moms, you really are the best.
  - bluecalm 10y ago
    >>I believe somewhere at the core of the issue lies inadequate recognition of the critical importance and difficulty of parenthood. I am not sure that's a problem. I've chosen to remain childless because of it and I've never ever met a person who would downplay how hard it is to raise children and not make their (and your) life miserable in the process. >>But it's so obvious that being a parent is crucial to the society! Well, my view is that we have way too many people. We have already taken all the land, we are polluting, cutting down forests and there are so many of us we even make the world a worse place to live for ourselves (let alone other species). >>A civilization that sacrifices reproduction over GDP is bound to disappear. There is a middle ground between disappearing and having way less people. Machines are coming, we don't need that many to sustain the civilization. >>Muslim culture, where children are the main source of pride of the mother. Yeah, and Muslim countries are overcrowded, poor and unstable (at least vast majority of them). >>At the risk of sounding condescending (I'm not) let's thank our mothers for bringing us into this world. Well done job moms, you really are the best. At the risk of sounding nihilist: I am not thankful and I will not bring children myself. Too much risk of them being unhappy, breathing polluted air and getting cancer. They would also use a lot of resources, produce a lot of trash and compete over ever decreasing land to build houses on. I support people who are fit to have children (which includes resources, a good mate, mental health and ability to make them happy) but I don't think we should incentivize it today environment.
ps4fanboy 10y ago
http://www.who.int/topics/breastfeeding/en/ http://www.who.int/topics/breastfeeding/en/ Because of biology its very hard for the father to be the primary carer to children after being born. Until men and women share equal parts of child rearing on average you wont see equal averages in other parts of society like income by age and career choices. Women have shown a tendency to favor work life balance over income on average which means if you want to increase female mobility in male dominated jobs you need to increase working conditions for men, like equal entitlements for paternity and maternity leave. Birth rates in western countries are already falling below 2.0 which is a reduction in population. While some would argue this is a good thing for the environment, the west does not have the majority of the world population and a reduction in population could lead to geo political instability. The majority of the worlds population does not live under democratic rule, a reduction in population in democratic countries only is a troubling trend.
- wow_hn 10y ago
  > Because of biology its very hard for the father to be the primary carer to children after being born. That's not true. Fortunately, we have in our society the technology (breast pumps) that allow women to save their breast milk for anyone capable of caring for the child to use at a later time: fathers, grandparents, and even the mothers themselves. They're not the most pleasant contraptions in the world to use (so I'm told), but I wouldn't characterize their use as "very hard". My wife was the primary caregiver for our children the first 2-3 months, and then she went back to work and I raised them as the primary caregiver. For me to provide them breastmilk after was a bit inconvenient at times, but never "very hard" (they continued to be exclusively breastfeed until ~6 months, and breastfeed in combination with other foods until ~1 year).
  - ps4fanboy 10y ago
    Unless the mother continuously pumps her milk during the day her production will prematurely stop. Additionally the world health organisation recommends breast feeding for two years.
    - 10y ago
benbenolson 10y ago
The sky is blue, web developers use Javascript sometimes, and Apple is a profitable company.
littletimmy 10y ago
I'm disturbed by this recent development that your career is considered more important than your family. Somehow, that your family is "holding you back", and the underlying message being that the career should be the focus of your life. The family is the cornerstone of civilization! What's wrong with the traditional system where the mother and father work together to provide for a family? It makes a lot of sense to me that the father and mother specialize in different areas (fathers in workplace, women in childrearing) and that way kids both the material wellbeing and the emotional wellbeing to become well-adjusted people. With all due respect, if the system has worked well for so long, why change it?
- 7952 10y ago
  > I'm disturbed by this recent development that your career is considered more important than your family. Somehow, that your family is "holding you back", and the underlying message being that the career should be the focus of your life. Yes children may hold back your career. Why is is wrong to regret that fact? It does not mean that someone considers their career more important than family. In fact it suggests the exact opposite. > he family is the cornerstone of civilization! What's wrong with the traditional system where the mother and father work together to provide for a family? Civilisation sometimes exhibits negative behaviour, just like a family. It is so overwhelming common that it becomes an almost meaningless description. It could be loving and nurturing or abusive and hateful. You are really talking about the "traditional nuclear family" which could be just like Finland or a bit like North Korea. Without knowing which it is a meaningless discussion.
  - littletimmy 10y ago
    > You are really talking about the "traditional nuclear family" which could be just like Finland or a bit like North Korea. Without knowing which it is a meaningless discussion. When we talk about the traditional nuclear family in the USA we normally refer to as the 1950s family unit.
bluejeans 10y ago
Everytime an article like that is posted on Reddit or HN, comments point out that basically, women don't put up as much work as men, which explains their lower salaries. Case closed, not my problem, next thread. The article gives two factor to explain lower salaries among women. The first one is that they chose less lucrative academic fields. The second one happens when the woman is a mother. Despite the speculation in this thread that it's because the woman spends much time raising her child, the article isn't positive about that, and even suggests another possibility (employers assign different responsibilities and salaries to these women). Anyway, those are just intermediate explanations. The next step is understanding why women make such choices. While I understand that it's tempting to just imagine that it comes from "natural" differences (whatever that would mean) between men and women on which we have no control, another possibility is sexism in the way we raise boys and girls differently. Let's not close the case until we've ruled out this hypothesis, or solved it if it happens to be true.
- usrusr 10y ago
  > why women make such choices One key reason might simply be because they can. When a woman priorizes life over work, she sacrifices money, but the general perception of "success in life" will just shift from one well accepted metric to another. When a man does the same, he only has himself to cheer for him. Cultural expectations like this are much more difficult to change than plain monetary compensation. Edit: this post may sound a bit more "aww, poor men" than I like, but I really can't see anything wrong with inverting the question from "why do women" to "why don't men"
- emsy 10y ago
  The problem is the lack of nuance in this debate. It's either "natural differences" or as you said > another possibility is sexism in the way we raise boys and girls differently. Making this a binary choice is unnecessary, dangerous and in no way better than the "conservative" notion that women belong to the kitchen. Let's assume everything is solely based on social factors, adult women in this generation still won't have control over the way they were raised. It's unlikely that they will suddenly drop the behaviour they accquired over decades. And even if they could, why should they? If they're happy with their choices let them be. Instead we should work to value caregivers more, regardless of gender.
danieltillett 10y ago
The most interesting aspect about all these articles is it appears the market is efficient. If there was a true gap in pay and productivity for women then it would make sense for companies to favor women over men when hiring. That there does not appear to be any gap is both reason for celebration (if an employee) and dispair (if an employer).
ooopsnevermind 10y ago
It's not fair to conclude that women just pick less lucrative fields; other studies have shown that as women enter a field, they are paid less than male colleagues, even for the same work, therefore dragging down the overall average compensation for the field. http://m.sf.oxfordjournals.org/content/88/2/865.short http://m.sf.oxfordjournals.org/content/88/2/865.short So no matter what women do, whatever field they choose to enter will become less lucrative, not due to their choice but because of inherent gender bias in pay. Another factor that is not addressed in this study is the fact that even apart from societal expectations, the inequality of maternity and paternity leave policies don't fairly give moms and dads the chance to be equally involved in childcare from the very beginning even if they wanted to. http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---dgreports/---dcomm/---publ/documents/publication/wcms_242615.pdf http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---dgreports/---dcom... I don't see why we should be satisfied with the current situation for men, either. Why wouldn't we want a society that gives moms AND dads the option to be involved and present in their kids' lives without branding them as insufficiently dedicated to their work? I think it's totally unfair when I hear about friends who are dads who are met with skepticism when they want leave from work for their kids. There's no shortage of research showing that parental involvement, from both sides, from an early age is good for our kids.
dzink 10y ago
To see where the problems are: If you are a married woman and you earn more than your husband, you still end up with more childcare responsibilities and less money than your peers. If you are in a field that is dominated by women, your compensation becomes progressively less than pay in other fields. If you are great or even best at what you do and chose to not have kids to remain paid well, you remove yourself from the human gene-pool, which is not favorable for humanity in the long run. Because of norms and cultural understanding you are essentially throttling 50% of humanity's evolutionary and talent potential on the basis of a random assignment at conception. A different study proves than economically developed countries with more conservative cultural norms regarding gender have substantially lower birth rates (Japan, Bulgaria), well below turnover rates for a healthy society (turnover rate: 2.1 children per family). The more shared parental responsibility an educated society has, the higher its growth. So are cultural norms mortgaging the future of developed economies? How can this problem be fixed? Now if you look outside of the US and in different social experiments here is how the problem has been solved before: 1. Families live in the same area reducing economic mobility and slowing down overall econlnomy, but retired grandparents take over care for little ones. 2. Providing universal childcare with high standards of care and education (partial example: Israel, Eastern Europe, Northern Europe etc). After some iteration society ensures that every child gets an equally productive start. Parents male or female are serving society with their best skill set. Population growth in an economically advanced society that leads to economic and scientific development as well.

46 points by chriskanan 10y ago

Sometimes I think that this issue will get a news report similar to the one flash-forward from The Simpsons: "[year 40 years from now] 40 year study concludes: diet and exercise leads to weight loss". Except it'll be: "40 year study concludes: choosing a less lucrative field, and putting more time into family leads to lower salary at work". We can have all the equality possible. That doesn't change the fact that nobody can have it all. You can't be a primary caregiver and also have an equal career to someone who isn't (statistically, obviously). Traditionally it's been the father who has (for lack of a better word) neglected the children. If you want an equally successful career you need to choose to (again, bad word here) neglect the children. There are only 24 hours in the day.

progval 10y ago
> If you want an equally successful career you need to choose to (again, bad word here) neglect the children. Or make the other parent not neglect them
- ps4fanboy 10y ago
  What a disgusting supposition
ps4fanboy 10y ago
People on this site will argue that you dont have to "neglect" your children and have a career but that is only because they have money to out source their parental duties to other more poorer families who care for their own kids and yours.
- bubuga 10y ago
  > only because they have money to out source their parental duties Holy jumping to assumptions, batman.
  - ps4fanboy 10y ago
    Assumptions? it is just simple math, if your not working your not earning, so you have a choice, make less money and look after your kids or pay someone else too.
    - bubuga 10y ago
      > Assumptions? it is just simple math No, it's a baseless assumption. You're somehow assuming that the only reason someone may even argue that you dont have to "neglect" your children and have a career is "only because they have money to out source their parental duties". That's a blatant baseless assumption. You may feel that, considering your career and the way you've been managing it, the only reason why someone may succeed in not neglecting their kids is if they pay someone else to do their job, but that obviously doesn't mean that your baseless assumption has any truth to it. Simple math isn't worth anything if you get the facts all wrong.
      - ps4fanboy 10y ago
        It is really simple, can you explain to me how you can have a career, not outsource your parental duties and maintain the same income level as someone who outsourced (or had a spouse) looking after their children. You cannot do it, and will not.
        bubuga 10y ago
        I see you magically added the "maintain the same income level" gem to try to move your goalpost. But even considering your goalpost-moving argument, why do you assume that preserving a high income level is a priority over not neglecting your children? If you and people like you constantly prioritize maximizing your personal income level over not neglecting your own children, it is rather obvious that you will end up neglecting your children to pursuit a larger paycheck. But that doesn't mean your job demands it. It's you that is demanding it. You neglect your children because you opt to pursuit a higher paycheck. But that doesn't mean anyone is forced to neglect their children just to keep a well-paying job. That's only your own personal choice, and you don't justify your personal life choices by throwing blanket accusations and baseless assumptions like you've been doing in this thread.
- Chris2048 10y ago
  What about, e.g. boarding schools?
littletimmy 10y ago
I wouldn't say "neglect". Working hard to provide for your family is the very opposite of neglect.
- TempestSA 10y ago
  Neglect is a loaded word. Children don't need hard working parents who earn lots of money though. What children need is your love and your time, along with support, security, food etc. It's all about having a work life balance, usually working hard comes at the expense of your family.
  - saiya-jin 10y ago
    this. many people work hard to provide for their families, end up in a bad spiral of more-work-for-more-money and what they fail to see is child's view - they want their daddy and mommy to be with them as much as possible, talk to them, tech them, spend their time together. In this case it's not just quality, quantity matters too. this helps kid on so many levels that money just cannot buy, and forms their personality in one way or the other. will kids survive neglect? of course they will. but if your idea of a good parent is that your kids just survive, think again. this world has already plenty of human beings ridden with all kinds of inner issues stemming from childhood
- knorker 10y ago
  I repeatedly admitted it was not the best word.
  - littletimmy 10y ago
    What I was trying to get at is that neglect is not even a crude approximation of reality in this case. This tendency to see the family as a collection of individuals is a rather new way of thinking. So when we say "the father as an individual" is "neglecting" the "child as an individual", we misrepresent reality. What used to be the way to think about this was that the family is the fundamental unit, and the persons are components of this machine. So the father doesn't take action (in this case work outside the home) of his own accord, but (ideally speaking), plays his role as is in the interests of the family. Similarly, the mother does not stay at home out of some oppression, but plays her role as what is in the best interests of the family. It is modern feminism that has eroded this idea of the family as a unit, and replaced it with the idea of the family as a collection of individuals.
inopinatus 10y ago
You've jumped to a conclusion the study does not appear to draw. It does not state that being a married primary caregiver correlates with a lower expected salary. It says that being a married woman with offspring correlates with a lower expected salary. In other words that there is systematic bias against married women with children, not against all married caregivers with children. The idea that men can be a primary caregiver still blows minds. edit: s/leads to/correlates with/ which I agree is an important nuance but doesn't change my point.
- ps4fanboy 10y ago
  Until 50% of the female marrying population want to marry a man who is willing to be the primary caregiver, this is unlikely to change, we are the product of expectations of men to women and women to men.
- avar 10y ago
  Let's not assume that correlation is causation here. One explanation is that female primary caregivers face systematic discrimination their male peers don't face. Another is that female primary caregivers, more so than their male counterparts, lose interest in focusing on work after they have a child, and thus fall into the rut of a lower performing employee that inevitably gets paid less. I don't know which it is. Are their studies that try to find out?
  - tzs 10y ago
    > Another is that female primary caregivers, more so than their male counterparts, lose interest in focusing on work after they have a child, and thus fall into the rut of a lower performing employee that inevitably gets paid less. This study was looking at pay one year after receipt of PhD. I'd expect that it would usually take longer for people to start being separated by performance in the types of jobs that PhDs typically get.
- bubuga 10y ago
  > It says that being a married woman with offspring leads to a lower expected salary. No, it doesn't. It says that there is a correlation between being a married woman with offspring and a lower expected salary. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correlation_does_not_imply_causation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correlation_does_not_imply_cau... Furthermore, if you even had read the article you would've noticed the bit where it says "Weinberg says that the data cannot identify or tease apart factors that might explain why married women with children earn less — among the possibilities"
toddkazakov 10y ago
What a surprise!
llamaz 10y ago
On the other side of things --- the social standing of men is determined heavily by how competent you are and if you are in a position of leadership.

venomsnake 10y ago

Taking 2,4,6 years off from making a career leads to lower pay and earning potential. Good to know. Sadly this is very hard to be countered even with affirmative action, because a person taking a break (for whatever reason, health issues, a single guy on a two year sabbatical will be hit too, maternity leave) is objectively weaker hire than a person that has built name and contacts in the same period. Edit: Clarified lower pay

abalone 10y ago
The study doesn't say anything about taking time off.
- cperciva 10y ago
  No, but it does say something about "women who have children", and there's plenty of evidence that maternity leave gets taken in much larger quantities than paternity leave.
  - ps4fanboy 10y ago
    Maternity leave is also much larger than paternity leave in terms of benefits in western countries.
lostlogin 10y ago
The article says pay is lower for women than men in the first year post PhD. It would seem safe to presume that the men and women were both working and neither group were at home with kids At the time point being measured.
- cperciva 10y ago
  I think venomsnake's point is that taking time away from a career for child-rearing has a long-term impact on earnings, not just that it affects the amount earned in the years spent on child-rearing.
deleted 10y ago

abalone 10y ago

To be clear: both factors may well be related to sexism. "The findings support earlier research that suggests that parental and household responsibilities often affect women disproportionately, particularly in environments without adequate work–life and family policies" I would also question why women "choose" less lucrative fields of study. Perhaps various forms of sexism make the higher paying male dominated fields a harder choice.

cperciva 10y ago
I would also question why women "choose" less lucrative fields of study. Perhaps various forms of sexism makes the higher paying male dominated fields a harder choice. It could also be the other way around: Social expectations concerning men as primary income-earners makes it a hard choice for men to pursue less lucrative fields of study.
- abalone 10y ago
  Putting aside the sheer absurdity of that argument -- women pursue biology PhDs because they expect to be supported by a man? -- it still wouldn't explain why women are under represented in higher paying fields.
  - bluecalm 10y ago
    Maybe they are more competitive and significant percentage of women might not want enter competitive field because they plan to have families and know they will not be able to devote as much time to the rat race as men would.
  - RyanZAG 10y ago
    How is there any absurdity? If a person is expected to only choose a high paying field, but has two options open: 1. High paying field they don't really like. 2. Low paying field they'd love to do. Then if there are social expectations that someone must make a lot of money, they will generally be forced to choose option 1. The argument that men are forced by social expectations to choose option 1, and women are more freely able to choose option 2 is not 'absurd'. It may be correct or incorrect and would need some evidence to back it up, but please don't go around labeling positions you don't like as 'absurd'.

bluecalm 10y ago

>>An unmarried, childless woman earned — on average — the same annual salary after receiving her doctorate as a man with a PhD in the same field, the researchers found. This suggest that there is no sexism when it comes to compensation for your work, at least among PhDs. >>That difference, they say, was explained entirely by the finding that married women with children earned less than men. Married men with children, on the other hand, saw no disadvantage in earnings. Isn't it obvious? Women spend more time away from work raising children. I am ok with the world working that way. Women are better equipped to take care of a child in its first years and taking time to do that will naturally lead to making less money at work (because you spend less time there/learn less/have less experience). It makes sense to split roles in a family: a better equipped partner takes care of children and the other spends more time providing. That's efficient use of combined family human resources. I see no reasons to fight it. Life is about choices if you want children you will not get as far in your career as people who prioritize career over everything else. It would be unfair to force the latter group to subsidize your lifestyle choices.

foobar2020 10y ago
I believe somewhere at the core of the issue lies inadequate recognition of the critical importance and difficulty of parenthood. It's crazy expensive, eats up half of your life, and sometimes gets very unrewarding. But it's so obvious that being a parent is crucial to the society! A civilization that sacrifices reproduction over GDP is bound to disappear. Contrast with f. eg. the Muslim culture, where children are the main source of pride of the mother. At the risk of sounding condescending (I'm not) let's thank our mothers for bringing us into this world. Well done job moms, you really are the best.
- bluecalm 10y ago
  >>I believe somewhere at the core of the issue lies inadequate recognition of the critical importance and difficulty of parenthood. I am not sure that's a problem. I've chosen to remain childless because of it and I've never ever met a person who would downplay how hard it is to raise children and not make their (and your) life miserable in the process. >>But it's so obvious that being a parent is crucial to the society! Well, my view is that we have way too many people. We have already taken all the land, we are polluting, cutting down forests and there are so many of us we even make the world a worse place to live for ourselves (let alone other species). >>A civilization that sacrifices reproduction over GDP is bound to disappear. There is a middle ground between disappearing and having way less people. Machines are coming, we don't need that many to sustain the civilization. >>Muslim culture, where children are the main source of pride of the mother. Yeah, and Muslim countries are overcrowded, poor and unstable (at least vast majority of them). >>At the risk of sounding condescending (I'm not) let's thank our mothers for bringing us into this world. Well done job moms, you really are the best. At the risk of sounding nihilist: I am not thankful and I will not bring children myself. Too much risk of them being unhappy, breathing polluted air and getting cancer. They would also use a lot of resources, produce a lot of trash and compete over ever decreasing land to build houses on. I support people who are fit to have children (which includes resources, a good mate, mental health and ability to make them happy) but I don't think we should incentivize it today environment.

ps4fanboy 10y ago

http://www.who.int/topics/breastfeeding/en/ http://www.who.int/topics/breastfeeding/en/ Because of biology its very hard for the father to be the primary carer to children after being born. Until men and women share equal parts of child rearing on average you wont see equal averages in other parts of society like income by age and career choices. Women have shown a tendency to favor work life balance over income on average which means if you want to increase female mobility in male dominated jobs you need to increase working conditions for men, like equal entitlements for paternity and maternity leave. Birth rates in western countries are already falling below 2.0 which is a reduction in population. While some would argue this is a good thing for the environment, the west does not have the majority of the world population and a reduction in population could lead to geo political instability. The majority of the worlds population does not live under democratic rule, a reduction in population in democratic countries only is a troubling trend.

wow_hn 10y ago
> Because of biology its very hard for the father to be the primary carer to children after being born. That's not true. Fortunately, we have in our society the technology (breast pumps) that allow women to save their breast milk for anyone capable of caring for the child to use at a later time: fathers, grandparents, and even the mothers themselves. They're not the most pleasant contraptions in the world to use (so I'm told), but I wouldn't characterize their use as "very hard". My wife was the primary caregiver for our children the first 2-3 months, and then she went back to work and I raised them as the primary caregiver. For me to provide them breastmilk after was a bit inconvenient at times, but never "very hard" (they continued to be exclusively breastfeed until ~6 months, and breastfeed in combination with other foods until ~1 year).
- ps4fanboy 10y ago
  Unless the mother continuously pumps her milk during the day her production will prematurely stop. Additionally the world health organisation recommends breast feeding for two years.
  - 10y ago

benbenolson 10y ago

The sky is blue, web developers use Javascript sometimes, and Apple is a profitable company.

littletimmy 10y ago

I'm disturbed by this recent development that your career is considered more important than your family. Somehow, that your family is "holding you back", and the underlying message being that the career should be the focus of your life. The family is the cornerstone of civilization! What's wrong with the traditional system where the mother and father work together to provide for a family? It makes a lot of sense to me that the father and mother specialize in different areas (fathers in workplace, women in childrearing) and that way kids both the material wellbeing and the emotional wellbeing to become well-adjusted people. With all due respect, if the system has worked well for so long, why change it?

7952 10y ago
> I'm disturbed by this recent development that your career is considered more important than your family. Somehow, that your family is "holding you back", and the underlying message being that the career should be the focus of your life. Yes children may hold back your career. Why is is wrong to regret that fact? It does not mean that someone considers their career more important than family. In fact it suggests the exact opposite. > he family is the cornerstone of civilization! What's wrong with the traditional system where the mother and father work together to provide for a family? Civilisation sometimes exhibits negative behaviour, just like a family. It is so overwhelming common that it becomes an almost meaningless description. It could be loving and nurturing or abusive and hateful. You are really talking about the "traditional nuclear family" which could be just like Finland or a bit like North Korea. Without knowing which it is a meaningless discussion.
- littletimmy 10y ago
  > You are really talking about the "traditional nuclear family" which could be just like Finland or a bit like North Korea. Without knowing which it is a meaningless discussion. When we talk about the traditional nuclear family in the USA we normally refer to as the 1950s family unit.

bluejeans 10y ago

Everytime an article like that is posted on Reddit or HN, comments point out that basically, women don't put up as much work as men, which explains their lower salaries. Case closed, not my problem, next thread. The article gives two factor to explain lower salaries among women. The first one is that they chose less lucrative academic fields. The second one happens when the woman is a mother. Despite the speculation in this thread that it's because the woman spends much time raising her child, the article isn't positive about that, and even suggests another possibility (employers assign different responsibilities and salaries to these women). Anyway, those are just intermediate explanations. The next step is understanding why women make such choices. While I understand that it's tempting to just imagine that it comes from "natural" differences (whatever that would mean) between men and women on which we have no control, another possibility is sexism in the way we raise boys and girls differently. Let's not close the case until we've ruled out this hypothesis, or solved it if it happens to be true.

usrusr 10y ago
> why women make such choices One key reason might simply be because they can. When a woman priorizes life over work, she sacrifices money, but the general perception of "success in life" will just shift from one well accepted metric to another. When a man does the same, he only has himself to cheer for him. Cultural expectations like this are much more difficult to change than plain monetary compensation. Edit: this post may sound a bit more "aww, poor men" than I like, but I really can't see anything wrong with inverting the question from "why do women" to "why don't men"
emsy 10y ago
The problem is the lack of nuance in this debate. It's either "natural differences" or as you said > another possibility is sexism in the way we raise boys and girls differently. Making this a binary choice is unnecessary, dangerous and in no way better than the "conservative" notion that women belong to the kitchen. Let's assume everything is solely based on social factors, adult women in this generation still won't have control over the way they were raised. It's unlikely that they will suddenly drop the behaviour they accquired over decades. And even if they could, why should they? If they're happy with their choices let them be. Instead we should work to value caregivers more, regardless of gender.

danieltillett 10y ago

The most interesting aspect about all these articles is it appears the market is efficient. If there was a true gap in pay and productivity for women then it would make sense for companies to favor women over men when hiring. That there does not appear to be any gap is both reason for celebration (if an employee) and dispair (if an employer).

ooopsnevermind 10y ago

It's not fair to conclude that women just pick less lucrative fields; other studies have shown that as women enter a field, they are paid less than male colleagues, even for the same work, therefore dragging down the overall average compensation for the field. http://m.sf.oxfordjournals.org/content/88/2/865.short http://m.sf.oxfordjournals.org/content/88/2/865.short So no matter what women do, whatever field they choose to enter will become less lucrative, not due to their choice but because of inherent gender bias in pay. Another factor that is not addressed in this study is the fact that even apart from societal expectations, the inequality of maternity and paternity leave policies don't fairly give moms and dads the chance to be equally involved in childcare from the very beginning even if they wanted to. http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---dgreports/---dcomm/---publ/documents/publication/wcms_242615.pdf http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---dgreports/---dcom... I don't see why we should be satisfied with the current situation for men, either. Why wouldn't we want a society that gives moms AND dads the option to be involved and present in their kids' lives without branding them as insufficiently dedicated to their work? I think it's totally unfair when I hear about friends who are dads who are met with skepticism when they want leave from work for their kids. There's no shortage of research showing that parental involvement, from both sides, from an early age is good for our kids.

dzink 10y ago

To see where the problems are: If you are a married woman and you earn more than your husband, you still end up with more childcare responsibilities and less money than your peers. If you are in a field that is dominated by women, your compensation becomes progressively less than pay in other fields. If you are great or even best at what you do and chose to not have kids to remain paid well, you remove yourself from the human gene-pool, which is not favorable for humanity in the long run. Because of norms and cultural understanding you are essentially throttling 50% of humanity's evolutionary and talent potential on the basis of a random assignment at conception. A different study proves than economically developed countries with more conservative cultural norms regarding gender have substantially lower birth rates (Japan, Bulgaria), well below turnover rates for a healthy society (turnover rate: 2.1 children per family). The more shared parental responsibility an educated society has, the higher its growth. So are cultural norms mortgaging the future of developed economies? How can this problem be fixed? Now if you look outside of the US and in different social experiments here is how the problem has been solved before: 1. Families live in the same area reducing economic mobility and slowing down overall econlnomy, but retired grandparents take over care for little ones. 2. Providing universal childcare with high standards of care and education (partial example: Israel, Eastern Europe, Northern Europe etc). After some iteration society ensures that every child gets an equally productive start. Parents male or female are serving society with their best skill set. Population growth in an economically advanced society that leads to economic and scientific development as well.