How To Close the Gender Pay Gap By 2044 (fastcompany.com)

An anonymous reader shares an article on FastCompany: The wage gap in developing countries could be reduced by 35% by 2030 and eliminated by 2044, according to a new report from consultancy Accenture. But in order achieve pay parity, women need to be more involved in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics fields, the report notes. But, workplaces will have to change too. One of the biggest barriers to women attaining equal pay is that many women don't work full-time. They take part-time jobs in order to balance responsibilities at home or within a family -- work that is generally unpaid. If workplaces provide more flexible schedules, allowing women to work 40 hours outside of a typical 9-5 schema, more women would be able to work full-time.

Comments

Get rid of it by tomorrow.

[Anonymous Coward]

By all realistic studies it doesn't exist.
Studies showing the pay gap don't account for reduced hours, child birth, different professions, different career path, etc.

Re:Get rid of it by tomorrow.

[MerlynEmrys67]

So, I have a customer facing business that is open from 8AM to 5PM. How do I provide a flexible work schedule as an accommodation?

Re:Get rid of it by tomorrow.

[Anonymous Coward]

That's implied in "being a woman".

Re:Get rid of it by tomorrow.

[TooManyNames]

The summary title is certainly inviting of knee-jerk retorts of the gender wage gap -- retorts that exist for good reason -- but the summary itself is actually a fairly reasonable assessment of the wage gap, noting things like:

in order achieve pay parity, women need to be more involved in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics fields

and

One of the biggest barriers to women attaining equal pay is that many women don't work full-time

Both of these statements are true, and represent a departure from the typical "OMG!! PATRIARCHYYYY!!" bullshit. Moreover, the central contention is, I think, fair and warranted:

If workplaces provide more flexible schedules, allowing women to work 40 hours outside of a typical 9-5 schema, more women would be able to work full-time.

Think about your own job... How much of it truly requires a physical presence at an office at a set time of day? If you're like me, the actual work requires almost no physical office presence, and certainly doesn't require a set time frame (I'm working with India half the time anyway), yet the company I work for still mandates a work-at-the-office policy. Why? There's really no good reason for it aside from that it makes the CEO feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

Now thing of all the penalties associated with requiring work at the office. Aside from inflexible scheduling that arbitrarily penalizes mothers (or stay-at-home dads), it also requires unnecessary transportation (costing gasoline and emitting CO2 -- if that matters to you), unnecessary heating/cooling/maintenance (for office infrastructure), wasted time spent commuting, etc.

Requiring work at a specific work-site and time makes sense if you're doing some sort of manufacturing/construction/physical maintenance/etc., but for straight office work, it's pretty unreasonably pointless. It's pointless, and it imposes completely unnecessary and arbitrary costs. Rather than reject the article because it's attached to some (mildly) feminist rhetoric, maybe consider that there may actually be a good point underlying it -- a point which applies to, and would benefit, more than just women.

Re:Get rid of it by tomorrow.

[gweihir]

That is not a "pay gap". That is a skill, and time and effort invested in education and work gap. It seems to indicate that women have it easier to be lazy in the workplace. (No difference in laziness in men and women in general, but whether you actually can be lazy if you want to be depends on opportunities.)

Re:Get rid of it by tomorrow.

[meburke]

The poster is correct: A pay gap does not exist if men and women are receiving equal pay for similar work. Studies starting as early as 1973 show that women without children, continuously employed for 17 or more years, in the USA, actually made MORE than men with the same criteria.

What creates the gap in income is that women make choices about taking time off for their kids, having children, spending more family time, and preferring less stressful or demanding jobs. Women seem to respond to quality-of-life enhancement over income enhancement.

Pay is generally given (in the jobs market) based on the perceived contribution. A woman who has been out of her field for 4 or 5 years cannot usually contribute as much as another employee (man or woman) who has been continuously engaged and is up-to-date. That woman will re-enter the job market at a lower rate, which then becomes the new starting point for future increased pay.

OK, one of the criteria is "in the USA". Conditions are different outside the USA, and the report may be correct for those countries.

And remember: "Women" don't earn income; "individual women" earn income. Statistics based on averages can be skewed in many different ways, and maany of these create useless results.

Re:Get rid of it by tomorrow.

[mattwarden]

Yesterday, I quit my job. This has caused an employment gap when compared with my neighbor. We must fight this injustice.

The point is, once we all agree that the outcome difference is almost entirely explained by people making choices with their lives, we need to stop calling it any name that implies injustice or even unnatural outcome.

Re:Get rid of it by tomorrow.

[AmiMoJo]

What creates the gap in income is that women make choices

Are they really free choices though? Given the opportunity a lot of women would like to work more if flexible hours were available. If both the mother and father had flexible working hours they could likely both do 40 hours a week and still look after the kids. Affordable childcare also helps a lot.

If we broke the rigid 9-5 business hours when everyone is expected to be working we could also fix a lot of the traffic congestion problems and improve general health levels.

Frist pocporn psot

[Hognoxious]

Time to get the popcorn, methinks.

bah

[ruir]

Men should be more involved in nursing, hospitals and schools. Women should to be more involved as "garbage technician" and mechanic...

non-issue then

[iggymanz]

if the main reason is women not working full time 40 hours but that's what employers want, the discussion is over and nothing need be done. Cue the twitter SJW and their neckbeard manlette supporters, I've written something offensive.

Re:non-issue then

[david_thornley]

Not offensive, but short-sighted. If I found stupid and short-sighted comments offensive, I couldn't stand Slashdot.

If the main reason is women raising kids, we've got a problem and the discussion is not over. That work is vital for the future of society, and should not come with a big financial penalty.

Re:non-issue then

[ewibble]

What are you talking about raising kids IS a huge financial penalty, you have to cloth feed, provide accommodation ...

You choose to raise children you should have to bare some of burden yourself. We do not have as shortage of people.

If you are raising children in a couple then it all evens out since your income are combined. If you are single then isn't that what child support is for? Or at least should be.

I do not see how somebodies children should be the responsibility the employer. We all make choices in our lives some will effect how much we earn, what is wrong with allowing people to make those choices and live with the consequences.

I think too many these studies take a dollar amount and say look life is unfair, but really money is only a tool to maximize happiness. If someone decides to take a lower paying job that maximizes there happiness what is wrong with that? Why as a society do we need to "correct" the problem.

A much more accurate measure would who is more happy. Given the men commit suicide 3 times more than women in the US, I would say that they are not living it up on their charmed life as a man.

Re:non-issue then

[iggymanz]

Hmmm, maybe that woman should partner with someone to share the bills and burden, like say the man that made her pregnant, what a novel thought.

What does the market say?

[Spy Handler]

If women are really being paid less than men for the same work, wouldn't it make sense financially to hire women only? Even a small company of 50 employees can save a million dollars a year just by hiring women instead of men. As the owner it would go directly into my pocket. Who doesn't like to make an extra million dollars a year?

Employers will go to great lengths to hire the cheapest labor for any given task. They will even violate labor laws and risk prison by hiring illegal aliens, that's how much business owners love to save money (admittedly the risk of prison for hiring illegals was very small in the past, prior to Trump). Therefore if the gender gap is as real as the feminists claim, every CEO should be scouring the earth for all the women they could hire.

Re:Or...

[pushing-robot]

And how dare you give me a ticket for speeding when there are murderers to catch!

gender wage gap does not exist

[Anonymous Coward]

Imagine what one could accomplish if there was a gender wage gap.

If there really was a gender wage gap, anyone would be free to open a business, hire only female employees, pay them less due to the gender wage gap, use this competitive advantage to grow the business, capture market share, profit.

Same thing applies to the premise that diversity makes us better. If this was true, one could just have a super diverse group of employees, and one would then out compete other less diverse groups/businesses etc.

None of this happens in the real world.
prsdntl

Re:Education gap still WIDE OPEN

[Anonymous Coward]

AC here, I have no mod points to give and I know this is a lousy discussion forum, but we are leading ourselves into a huge tragedy by ignoring boys in schools. From what I can see, it is now starting around ages 8-9, the years when the curriculum starts to include more science and social studies, the years when boys develop a lifelong interest in the world around them, including computers. The years where we now start to encourage girls to get into math and technology. The boys get left to themselves, so they get interested in sports and video games instead of science - hobbies where they can compete and get recognition from their peers since the teachers aren't paying attention. There is no harm in getting girls into STEM, but if boys are going to be discouraged from STEM in the process then the whole field is going to stagnate, young men will only be interested in football. The bet is that young women will be able to advance science on their own, which is betting that when they try to reinvent the wheel they won't get bogged down deciding what color it should be.

Re:Or...

[lgw]

That's only because many women lack basic rights in the first world too.

How many girls in the first world cannot legally attend school? Or cannot attend for fear of a militia group assaulting the school, overwhelming the police, and kidnapping all the girls into a life of slavery?

How many women in the first world are forbidden from legally driving? How many women in the first world face the threat of vigilante attack and mutilation by the religious police for not being sufficiently conservative in dress or appearance?

How many women in the first world have no say in who they marry?

I could go on and on, but we both know you're full of shit. Women in the first world face such terrors as being criticized on social media, or being paid in a way that still puts them in the top 1% of income worldwide.

Re:Sorry, the business world runs 9-5

[geekmux]

If you want to be part of it, then choose to be part of it like the rest of us business world men and women do. You aren't so special that the whole world is gonna rearrange itself for your schedule.

What utter bullshit.

I'll believe the business world runs "9-5" when you shut down your corporate website promptly at 5PM local time every weekday, and keep it shut down all weekend.

From the creation of an entire digital world to 24-hour Walmarts, along with helping resolve the issues related to "business hours" traffic congestion, this world needs to fucking learn to adapt and operate to accommodate all.

Re:Most pay inequality can be fixed a lot sooner t

[Pfhorrest]

Publishing everyone's pay doesn't mean dictating a single pay for every job. It means you can see the distribution of pay for each job. If you're being paid less than average, you can then take those statistics to your boss and say "hey, why am I being paid less than average", and he can say "because you perform below average". I guess the obvious next step in negotiations there is to find some kind of performance metrics to compare to.

FWIW you can actually find average pay statistics for all kinds of jobs at the Bureau of Labor Statistics website (bls.gov), and I've used that extensively in pay negotiations in recent years to great effect. When the boss is always saying "you're the best person in this position we've ever had" and then you can show him government stats saying average people in this position get paid more than you, that really does something for negotiations.