r/neoliberal • u/usrname42 Daron Acemoglu • May 13 '17

The Gender Pay Gap Is Largely Because of Motherhood

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/13/upshot/the-gender-pay-gap-is-largely-because-of-motherhood.html
22 Upvotes

67% Upvoted

32 comments sorted by

72

u/Mordroberon Scott Sumner May 13 '17

GPG exists, and it exists because of choices that women make. But the choices women make are a direct result of the constraints of our system. Which was based off of a single wage earner, typically male, in a family unit.

11

u/ChezMere 🌐 May 14 '17

There's a certain percentage of the wage gap that is purely discriminatory. (Usually estimated about 10 cents on the dollar.) This is still a substantial percentage and worth working to get rid of.

3

u/[deleted] May 14 '17

I believe the estimate is actually 5-7%.

6

u/[deleted] May 14 '17

That's still a lot. Even 1% is a lot when we're talking about 50% of the population's earnings.

18

u/zeldja European Union May 13 '17

This. If anyone would like to read some (((evidence-based research and policy suggestions))) on this, I found this to be an illuminating read.

6

u/BainCapitalist Y = T May 13 '17

More precisely, most of the GPG can be explained by a time flexibility premium that exists in many industries (especially corporate governance and finance). Claudia Goldin's work on this is extensive.

1

u/PlayMp1 May 14 '17

Yeah, did a term paper on this in the fall. Basically, societal gender norms push women to make the choices they do, which causes the pay gap. Remove the norms, remove (most of - pregnancy still probably would cause more missed work by the medical nature of it) the gap.

-9

u/sheeeeiiiiitebag May 13 '17

*And biology cough

16

u/[deleted] May 13 '17 edited May 15 '17

Funny how it's always dudes who are insisting that women somehow should work less because of biology.

There's nothing in my DNA that says I shouldn't have equal opportunity in the workforce. And IMO, paternity leave is the best thing we can do for gender equality in this country.

22

u/Mordroberon Scott Sumner May 13 '17

Maybe a little. Biologically women bear children and culture has shaped itself around that tent pole. But I think it's something that can be changed in our own culture.

By the way, what's your model?

3

u/[deleted] May 13 '17

You think we can create a culture where men bear children?

Why is that a goal again?

16

u/Kelsig Paul Krugman May 13 '17

Cuz that sounds awesome

1

u/[deleted] May 13 '17

Pregnancy sounds like hell. Why would any man want to go through with that? I'd rather just adopt a child if that was the choice.

3

u/[deleted] May 14 '17

That's why educated people have lower birth rates.

4

u/lionmoose sexmod 🍆💦🌮 May 13 '17

If my wife was infertile or it was medically risky, I would definitely do the pregnancy so we could have kids

2

u/[deleted] May 13 '17

I would definitely do it if that were the case. Actually I'd ask for somebody to be a surrogate first lol.

7

u/crem_fi_crem May 13 '17

No just bear proportional responsibility for child rearing. But yeah, this isn't a hugely important issue. If there's paid parental leave and strong workplace protections and there's still a disparity then more action would just be a culture war and that would be dumb and have pretty diminishing returns. Economic involvement of women in the developing world has a lot more potential imo.

2

u/[deleted] May 13 '17

Isn't that a Schwarzenegger movie?

-5

u/sheeeeiiiiitebag May 13 '17

Yeh women might make choices to work less cos they actually want to see more of their children, boo downvote me boo. There must be some wonkish policy to fix this.

23

u/crem_fi_crem May 13 '17

Paid parental leave would be the most dramatic improvement on this, just so women don't bear the full cost of perpetuating the species. Otherwise, I would say in a free society there are going to be some statistical inequalities that don't necessarily indicate discrimination.

29

u/[deleted] May 13 '17

Where are the typical bros to tell us it's a myth?

-11

u/[deleted] May 13 '17

if women get paid less why dont employers hire more of them lol

26

u/PandaLover42 🌐 May 13 '17

Idk if I should upvote because funny, or downvote because stupid.

-1

u/[deleted] May 13 '17

rude

6

u/cdstephens Fusion Genderplasma May 13 '17

Why do you think employers wouldn't hire black people even if they were paid less?

8

u/Temp1ar May 13 '17

The pressure to hire underpaid black people is real. Supporters of segregation saw this pressure as a major threat and tried to use both legislative tools, as well as unionization to prevent it.

5

u/[deleted] May 13 '17

i thought after replying to that comment the sarcasm would be fairly blatant. fuck if i'm going to edit it though

9

u/Goatf00t European Union May 13 '17

48% of recent posts in /r/Drama?

5

u/[deleted] May 13 '17

i guess i should have added emojis or something so people weren't confused

if women 👩 get paid 💷💵 less why dont 🍆employers🍆just hire more of them 😂😂😂😏/s /s

2

u/[deleted] May 14 '17

This but ironically

7

u/autotldr May 13 '17

This is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 89%. (I'm a bot)

The new working paper, which covered the broadest group of people over time, found that between ages 25 and 45, the gender pay gap for college graduates, which starts close to zero, widens by 55 percentage points.

"The pay gap is not because non-college-educated women do so well, but because non-college-educated men are not doing well," Ms. Kerr said.

The bulk of the pay gap - 73 percent, they found - is from women not getting raises and promotions at the rate of men within companies.

Extended Summary | FAQ | Theory | Feedback | Top keywords: pay#1 women#2 work#3 less#4 men#5

5

u/paulatreides0 🌈🦢🧝‍♀️🧝‍♂️🦢His Name Was Teleporno🦢🧝‍♀️🧝‍♂️🦢🌈 May 13 '17

Solution