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One obvious reason is that Millennial women (especially professionals) have not had babies yet. The effect of taking time of work for children is not immediate
by discodave 13y ago
One obvious reason is that Millennial women (especially professionals) have not had babies yet.
The effect of taking time of work for children is not immediate, it creates a pay gap for the rest of somebody's career.
If we imagine somebody's pay over their career as an upward sloping line eg.
year 1 40k
year 2 42k
year 3 44k
etc...
When a woman takes 6-24 months of work to have a kid or two then that pauses their pay increases for that time and they are 1-4k worse off than somebody who didn't take time off at all when they get back. Add to that that women do more of the school runs and other caring when they DO return to work...
- nightski 13y agoWho really sticks to a linear pay schedule like that their entire career though? Honestly you would have be rather unmotivated.
- trentmb 13y ago> Who really sticks to a linear pay schedule like that their entire career though? People with passions that don't pay well (or at all), so they keep a steady job and pursue said passion outside of work.
- pdog 13y agoIf your passions don't pay well, you're probably not making something people want.
- adamnemecek 13y agoThis is possibly the most misguided comment I've read on HN.
- nightski 13y agoWhat are some passions that people have, which other people greatly desire, that are not paid well? I am genuinely curious.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- adamnemecek 13y agoIf nothing else, he kind of slipped in the 'people desire'. Why is that a requirement for a passion? As in, why is the requirement that one should be making it for other people? E.g. what if you are really into scuba diving?
- nightski 13y agoBecause that is the premise in pdog's comment which you were refuting as misguided. You are free to do whatever you want (and not what other people desire) if you are self sufficient enough to not need anything from others (highly unlikely).
- tedunangst 13y agoSo if I like to go scuba diving, which doesn't pay me well at all, I must therefore not be making something people want?
- collyw 13y agoProbably not while you are scuba diving. Unless you are an instructor and someone wants lessons from you.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- graue 13y agoMusic. You can have hundreds of thousands of fans and still not be able to quit your day job.
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- rcthompson 13y agoThe linear pay schedule is just an example. The point is that whatever pay schedule you happen to be on, you have to put it on hold to take care of a newborn child, so you will fall behind what you could have had. In economic terms, the opportunity cost of having a child is compounded over the rest of your wage-earning career.
- rayiner 13y agoYea, that's the major factor. Staying home to take care of babies not only holds up your pay scale, but takes you off the track for more competitive positions very quickly. Women find it very difficult to jump back in on their previous career trajectory when they do return. It's to be avoided at all costs if you're an ambitious women. Ideally, people having kids wouldn't cause the wage gap to grow. But the push for women to downshift is really brutal, and most of it comes from other women (mother in laws and sanctimommies).
- sliverstorm 13y agoIdeally, people having kids wouldn't cause the wage gap to grow. But the push for women to downshift is really brutal I'm not particularly inclined to believe that neglecting your kids for the sake of your career is the answer.
- azar1 13y agoYou can tell the same thing to the fathers, then.
- sliverstorm 13y agoI'm with you there. Although it does play out a tad differently, considering only one parent actually carries the child.
- EpicEng 13y agoDo you have children? The relationship between a mother and young child is different than that of the child's relationship with their father.
- rayiner 13y agoPeople have their priorities, but what's often missing from modern parenting is any semblance of cost benefit analysis. A key example is breastfeeding. The long-term medical benefits of breastfeeding, unless you're in the third world and lack access to clean water, are quite tenuous. But the practical benefit of bottle feeding is real: feeding can be totally delegated to the father. For my wife and I, this has been a huge boon to equitable division of child care between the two of us. I'm the nighttime parent, the "I'm hungry" parent, the "I need comfort" parent. My wife is the "roughhouse with the kid after work" parent. If I were totally dependent on my wife to pump, and if she had breastfed, I doubt I could have established that told with our daughter. Yet, my wife gets a lot of snide comments from other women in her mommy circles who have their kid strapped to themselves 24/7. Women are pressured with these parenting fads, but taking them on basically concedes to taking on the role of primary caregiver.
- ceol 13y agoWage gap, not total pay gap. The article is talking about what women make per hour versus men. This means that a woman starting off in her 20s, without a child, would (on average) earn 93 cents for every dollar a man makes.
- joelle 13y agoTrue - but that doesn't take into account that the starting line is not the same... But it's getting closer.