Saturday, December 1, 2018

No, the ‘Real Gender Wage Gap’ Isn’t 51 Percent

No, the ‘Real Gender Wage Gap’ Isn’t 51 Percent
Excerpt: For decades, the term “gender wage gap” has referred to the difference in median earnings between full-time working women and full-time working men. Often — erroneously — this statistical difference has been promoted as evidence that women are being paid less than men for doing the same work. In recent years, especially as evidence emerged of “wage gaps” in the Obama White House and Clinton Foundation offices, many have come to understand that it’s an error to use wage-gap data as a proxy for discrimination, since there are many reasons why men end up earning more than women on average. Full-time working women tend to work fewer hours, to choose different industries and specialties, and to opt for better hours over more compensation, for example. Unfortunately, the term is becoming confused again, thanks to a headline-making report released by the Institute for Women’s Policy Research. The study claims that the wage gap has been woefully understated, and that in reality women “earn just 49 cents to the typical men’s dollar, much less than the 80 cents usually reported.” How did they come to this jaw-dropping conclusion Simple. They have redefined the “gender wage gap.”

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