7 ms·

Seventy-Seven Cents on the Thaler? Women’s Wages in the Middle Ages (2016)

13 points by benbreen 5y ago

colpabar 5y ago
The article links to several sites that all make the same claim that "women only earn X cents for every dollar a man earns." My understanding is that this statistic is calculated by looking at all full-time working men and women across all jobs, and I just keep wondering why they never do any comparisons of men/women who do the same job? How is that a meaningful statistic? I think the people who wrote freakonomics did adjust for gender pay gaps between men/women who have the same job and found that the gap is much smaller[0], and I understand how that is a problem if a man gets paid more than a woman for doing the same job. But I do not get why we all pretend that it makes any sense at all to claim that women are "losing wages" because women as a whole make less than men as a whole, because men and women tend to work different jobs. What kind of legislation can we possibly write that addresses the issue that men tend to pursue higher paying jobs than women? I say this as a male software developer who makes good money and is dating a female social worker who does not. Is she "losing wages" because she doesn't make as much as I do? [0]: https://freakonomics.com/podcast/the-true-story-of-the-gender-pay-gap-a-new-freakonomics-radio-podcast/ https://freakonomics.com/podcast/the-true-story-of-the-gende...
- throwaway894345 5y ago
  > I think the people who wrote freakonomics did adjust for gender pay gaps between men/women who have the same job and found that the gap is much smaller[0], and I understand how that is a problem if a man gets paid more than a woman for doing the same job. Even here, "women make less than men within a given field, ergo discrimination" is the wrong takeaway. It's very likely that just like Goldin observed that different fields make different tradeoffs between flexibility and pay, so do different job postings within a field (however, her study isn't equipped to measure this). This means that within, say, software engineering, there are some postings that pay very well but require long, inflexible hours while others pay less well but are more accommodating. In all likelihood, women disproportionately self-select into these more accommodating jobs within the field, just like women disproportionately self-select into the more accommodating fields.
- mcguire 5y ago
  Is she as smart as you are? Does her job require similar levels of knowledge and skill to yours? (One, possible) short answer seems to be that when women move into male-dominated sectors, the pay falls. "Occupations with a greater share of females pay less than those with a lower share, controlling for education and skill. This association is explained by two dominant views: devaluation and queuing. The [former] argues that the proportion of females in an occupation affects pay, owing to devaluation of work done by women. The [latter] views the pay offered in an occupation to affect its female proportion, due to employers’ preference for men–a gendered labor queue. Only a few past studies used longitudinal data, which is needed to test the theories. We use fixed-effects models, thus controlling for stable characteristics of occupations, and U.S. Census data from 1950 through 2000. We find substantial evidence for the devaluation view, but only scant evidence for the queuing view. ... "The devaluation view does, however, posit a type of employer discrimination that occurs after jobs have a particular sex composition. The claim is that decisions of employers about the relative pay of “male” and “female” occupations are affected by gender bias. Employers ascribe a lower value for the work done in occupations with a high share of females and consequently set lower wage levels. ... "To be sure, there is substantial inertia in both wage rates and sex composition as seen by the strong inter-period correlations (tables 1-3). Yet, using a longer time frame and decade-long lag, we have found substantial support for the view that increased feminization of oc-cupations diminishes their relative pay." "Occupational Feminization and Pay: Assessing Causal Dynamics Using 1950-2000 U.S. Census Data " (https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Paul-Allison-4/publication/236750401_Occupational_Feminization_and_Pay_Assessing_Causal_Dynamics_Using_1950-2000_US_Census_Data/links/5469e96c0cf20dedafd21e7b/Occupational-Feminization-and-Pay-Assessing-Causal-Dynamics-Using-1950-2000-US-Census-Data.pdf https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Paul-Allison-4/publicat...) "...the negative association between female percentage in occupations and their pay levels declines over time. However, when intervening variables are controlled for, the trend is reversed; the negative net effect of female percentage on occupational pay intensifies over time. This is true in the static analysis, when levels of education and work experience are controlled for at the individual and occupational levels, and also in the dynamic analysis, which uses a lagged dependent variable model to further reduce the risk of omitted variable bias. These two opposite processes [the entry of women into occupations requiring higher education, and the growing return to education and to occupations with higher educational requirements] reflect the upward occupational mobility of women, on the one hand, and its gendered consequences, on the other hand." "A Second Look at the Process of Occupational Feminization and Pay Reduction in Occupations" (https://people.socsci.tau.ac.il/mu/hadasm/files/2019/03/Mandel-2018-A-Second-Look-At-The-Process-Of-Occupational-feminization-AAM.pdf https://people.socsci.tau.ac.il/mu/hadasm/files/2019/03/Mand...) Bonus: "Females earn less than males. The reasons are not understood. This paper explores the theory that women ‘don’t ask’ and that they fail to ask out of concern for their personal relationships at work. Such an account is hard to test with standard labor-economics data sets. The paper therefore uses matched employer-employee data in which workers are directly questioned about their asking behaviour. It is unable to reject the hypotheses that males and females ask equally often for promotions and raises, and that men and women are equally concerned about relationships. Instead, the analysis documents evidence that women ‘don’t get’." "DO WOMEN ASK?" (http://www.amandagoodall.com/artz29Dec2016ArtzetalGenderWomenAsk.pdf http://www.amandagoodall.com/artz29Dec2016ArtzetalGenderWome...)
throwaway894345 5y ago
> But while the nature, significance and causes of the gender pay gap are often debated, that it exists is well-attested Whites are killed by police more than blacks--we could talk breathlessly about the "racial police killing gap", but it's utterly meaningless without accounting for other things (differences in number of people, crime rates, etc between the black and white populations). We could say the gap is "well-attested" but that confers an air of credibility that's undeserved. Similarly, saying that the "wage gap is well-attested" is silly because the gap itself is meaningless. It's far more clear and less controversial to say "men and women are drawn toward different fields which pay differently" (especially considering men work longer, less-flexible hours). When you account for this and a couple of other obvious factors, the gender pay gap disappears into the error margins. Maybe this is tangential ideological pedantry, but it seems worth clarifying to me.
- Chris2048 5y ago
  Or you could talk of the gap purely as a phenomenon, rather as an implication of injustice.
  - throwaway894345 5y ago
    What could one even say about this "gap" as a phenomenon, except that it's the wrong metric to use for just about any analysis? The only remarkable thing about it is the extent to which it has been (often deliberately) misused in propaganda and rhetoric.

13 points by benbreen 5y ago

The article links to several sites that all make the same claim that "women only earn X cents for every dollar a man earns." My understanding is that this statistic is calculated by looking at all full-time working men and women across all jobs, and I just keep wondering why they never do any comparisons of men/women who do the same job? How is that a meaningful statistic? I think the people who wrote freakonomics did adjust for gender pay gaps between men/women who have the same job and found that the gap is much smaller[0], and I understand how that is a problem if a man gets paid more than a woman for doing the same job. But I do not get why we all pretend that it makes any sense at all to claim that women are "losing wages" because women as a whole make less than men as a whole, because men and women tend to work different jobs. What kind of legislation can we possibly write that addresses the issue that men tend to pursue higher paying jobs than women? I say this as a male software developer who makes good money and is dating a female social worker who does not. Is she "losing wages" because she doesn't make as much as I do? [0]: https://freakonomics.com/podcast/the-true-story-of-the-gender-pay-gap-a-new-freakonomics-radio-podcast/ https://freakonomics.com/podcast/the-true-story-of-the-gende...

throwaway894345 5y ago
> I think the people who wrote freakonomics did adjust for gender pay gaps between men/women who have the same job and found that the gap is much smaller[0], and I understand how that is a problem if a man gets paid more than a woman for doing the same job. Even here, "women make less than men within a given field, ergo discrimination" is the wrong takeaway. It's very likely that just like Goldin observed that different fields make different tradeoffs between flexibility and pay, so do different job postings within a field (however, her study isn't equipped to measure this). This means that within, say, software engineering, there are some postings that pay very well but require long, inflexible hours while others pay less well but are more accommodating. In all likelihood, women disproportionately self-select into these more accommodating jobs within the field, just like women disproportionately self-select into the more accommodating fields.
mcguire 5y ago
Is she as smart as you are? Does her job require similar levels of knowledge and skill to yours? (One, possible) short answer seems to be that when women move into male-dominated sectors, the pay falls. "Occupations with a greater share of females pay less than those with a lower share, controlling for education and skill. This association is explained by two dominant views: devaluation and queuing. The [former] argues that the proportion of females in an occupation affects pay, owing to devaluation of work done by women. The [latter] views the pay offered in an occupation to affect its female proportion, due to employers’ preference for men–a gendered labor queue. Only a few past studies used longitudinal data, which is needed to test the theories. We use fixed-effects models, thus controlling for stable characteristics of occupations, and U.S. Census data from 1950 through 2000. We find substantial evidence for the devaluation view, but only scant evidence for the queuing view. ... "The devaluation view does, however, posit a type of employer discrimination that occurs after jobs have a particular sex composition. The claim is that decisions of employers about the relative pay of “male” and “female” occupations are affected by gender bias. Employers ascribe a lower value for the work done in occupations with a high share of females and consequently set lower wage levels. ... "To be sure, there is substantial inertia in both wage rates and sex composition as seen by the strong inter-period correlations (tables 1-3). Yet, using a longer time frame and decade-long lag, we have found substantial support for the view that increased feminization of oc-cupations diminishes their relative pay." "Occupational Feminization and Pay: Assessing Causal Dynamics Using 1950-2000 U.S. Census Data " (https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Paul-Allison-4/publication/236750401_Occupational_Feminization_and_Pay_Assessing_Causal_Dynamics_Using_1950-2000_US_Census_Data/links/5469e96c0cf20dedafd21e7b/Occupational-Feminization-and-Pay-Assessing-Causal-Dynamics-Using-1950-2000-US-Census-Data.pdf https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Paul-Allison-4/publicat...) "...the negative association between female percentage in occupations and their pay levels declines over time. However, when intervening variables are controlled for, the trend is reversed; the negative net effect of female percentage on occupational pay intensifies over time. This is true in the static analysis, when levels of education and work experience are controlled for at the individual and occupational levels, and also in the dynamic analysis, which uses a lagged dependent variable model to further reduce the risk of omitted variable bias. These two opposite processes [the entry of women into occupations requiring higher education, and the growing return to education and to occupations with higher educational requirements] reflect the upward occupational mobility of women, on the one hand, and its gendered consequences, on the other hand." "A Second Look at the Process of Occupational Feminization and Pay Reduction in Occupations" (https://people.socsci.tau.ac.il/mu/hadasm/files/2019/03/Mandel-2018-A-Second-Look-At-The-Process-Of-Occupational-feminization-AAM.pdf https://people.socsci.tau.ac.il/mu/hadasm/files/2019/03/Mand...) Bonus: "Females earn less than males. The reasons are not understood. This paper explores the theory that women ‘don’t ask’ and that they fail to ask out of concern for their personal relationships at work. Such an account is hard to test with standard labor-economics data sets. The paper therefore uses matched employer-employee data in which workers are directly questioned about their asking behaviour. It is unable to reject the hypotheses that males and females ask equally often for promotions and raises, and that men and women are equally concerned about relationships. Instead, the analysis documents evidence that women ‘don’t get’." "DO WOMEN ASK?" (http://www.amandagoodall.com/artz29Dec2016ArtzetalGenderWomenAsk.pdf http://www.amandagoodall.com/artz29Dec2016ArtzetalGenderWome...)

throwaway894345 5y ago

> But while the nature, significance and causes of the gender pay gap are often debated, that it exists is well-attested Whites are killed by police more than blacks--we could talk breathlessly about the "racial police killing gap", but it's utterly meaningless without accounting for other things (differences in number of people, crime rates, etc between the black and white populations). We could say the gap is "well-attested" but that confers an air of credibility that's undeserved. Similarly, saying that the "wage gap is well-attested" is silly because the gap itself is meaningless. It's far more clear and less controversial to say "men and women are drawn toward different fields which pay differently" (especially considering men work longer, less-flexible hours). When you account for this and a couple of other obvious factors, the gender pay gap disappears into the error margins. Maybe this is tangential ideological pedantry, but it seems worth clarifying to me.

Chris2048 5y ago
Or you could talk of the gap purely as a phenomenon, rather as an implication of injustice.
- throwaway894345 5y ago
  What could one even say about this "gap" as a phenomenon, except that it's the wrong metric to use for just about any analysis? The only remarkable thing about it is the extent to which it has been (often deliberately) misused in propaganda and rhetoric.