Palkkakuilu miesten ja naisten välillä

Suosikkiaihe palkkaeroista sukupuolten välillä on noustanut päätään kommenttiosastolla. Kokoomuksen sivulla asiaa kommentoidaan seuraavasti:

Sama palkka samasta tai samanarvoisesta työstä ei ole toteutunut tasa-arvolaista ja kansainvälisistä sopimuksista huolimatta. Kaikista palkansaajista miesten ja naisten palkkaero on edelleen noin 20 ja akateemisilla melkein 30 prosenttia miesten hyväksi. Suurimmat syyt palkkaeroihin ovat eri työalojen välinen eriarvoisuus ja toisaalta erilainen työn arvostus. Naisista melkein puolet työskentelee julkisella sektorilla, jonka työn tuottavuus on rahallisilla mittareilla mitattuna teollisuutta vähemmän. Ei voi olla oikein, että yhä edelleen koneen hoitamista arvostetaan selvästi enemmän kuin ihmisen.

Tunnetusti naiset valitsevat mieluummin mukavan, mutta pienipalkkaisen kuin epämukavan, mutta suurempipalkkaisen työn. Minäkin menisin mieluummin esim. sosiaalityöhön kuin raksalle töihin, vaikka raksalla maksettaisiin 20-30% suurempaa palkkaa. Ja sehän on ihan järkevä valinta varsinkin naisille, koska palkka ei näyttele heidän markkina-arvossaan kovin suurta roolia.

Eräs hyvä tapa saada miehet valitsemaan mukavia mutta pienipalkkaisia töitä olisi se, että naiset alkaisivat arvostamaan köyhiä miehiä siinä missä rikkaitakin miehiä parinvalinnassa. Silloin miehillä ei olisi pakkoa haalia itselleeen hyväpalkkaisia töitä ja naiset pääsisivät nauttimaan yhä useammin perheen elättäjän roolista. Hyväpalkkaisten miesten pitäminen pakkoselibaatissa on itseasiassa lähes 100% varma tapa naisille haalia itselleen palkkaylivoima helposti ja hauskasti.

Hyvä tiivistys palkkaerojen syistä ja viittauksia artikkeleihin löytyy International Men's Networkin sivulta:

- If you don't want to bother reading on, here's a summary of this material: When maternal leave, education, job choice and experience are accounted for, there is no wage gap to be found. When the often cited "75 cents on the dollar" and similar numbers are calculated, they are typically a ratio of the average wages of women divided by the average wages of men. They do not focus on comparing wages in specific work environments, and therefore the concept of "equal pay for equal work" plays no part in creating these numbers. None. None at all.

- Women are now graduating from college in greater numbers than men, but they're still not choosing to go into fields that are abstractly challenging and pay the most.

- There is also the fact that men simply work more hours than women do, and most men don't take 'maternity leave', giving them an earned advantage in getting promotions and raises.

- Sex roles have a lot to do with the pay gap, in more ways that you might think. Despite all of the advances that women have made in the workplace, society hasn't lessened the male role to be a financial provider and breadwinner for his family. Thus many men simply take jobs they like less (or are more dangerous) because they pay more, due to this social pressure. Women entered the workforce as an additional choice they had (the other being to stay at home), and in doing so they were more free to choose the less demanding or dangerous jobs because they don't have this traditional social pressure.

- If men didn't have this continual pressure to make money and support their families, or if men didn't need money to attract the attention of women, the average amount that men make would certainly decrease. But instead we have a social system that tells men to practically kill themselves to try and make as much money as possible, and feminists to complain as if men made this money on the basis of discrimination. This is not what is really going on. If anything, the fact that men make more than women on average is because men basically don't have the choice not to.

Deborah Walker kirjoittaa:

Some feminists also claim that many women should not be subject to changes in market supply and demand. The EEOC report explains that "while the opportunity to move out of segregated job categories may be welcome to many women, many others, who have invested considerable time in training for their jobs, demand wage adjustment in 'women's jobs' rather than opportunities to work in other jobs." In other words, many women feel employers should be forced to demand whatever skills, experience, or abilities these women may already have.

Pay Equity in Sports:

"...Female athletes do not really want equal pay for equal work. They want equal pay for inferior work. There is a practical reason why Sampras, for example, makes a lot more money than Hingis. He is much, much better than she is. If I were Sampras, the next time I heard the ladies whining about being paid less, I would say: "Martina, the day you can get my serve back is the day you should get paid what I do."

The Sunday Times

Women choose jobs that pay less because they want more flexible and socially useful careers. Part of the gap is explained by different attitudes. Just over half the women stressed the importance of a socially useful job, but only 32% of men
thought that important. Salary is also a bigger issue for male graduates: 25% said financial rewards were "very important" compared with 14% of women.

Vicky Lovell, Institute for Women's Policy Research:

Men can choose to have children and choose to be admitted to the work force because they've already established that women will be doing the caring work, relieving them of the work-family conflict. Society has narrowed women's choices in a way that it hasn't narrowed men's choices."

Mistähän päivästä lähtien miehet ovat voineet valita lastensaannin, kun monet miehet eivät onnistu saamaan itselleen edes naista?

The Wage Gap Myth:

- Women often place more importance on their relationships - caring for children, parents, spouses, etc. - than on their careers. A study by the Center for Policy Alternatives and Lifetime television found that 71 percent of women prefer jobs with more flexibility and benefits than jobs with higher wages, and nearly 85 percent of women offered flexible work arrangements by their employers have taken advantage of this opportunity.

- Rather than being "funneled" into low-wage, low-prestige and part-time positions, women often choose these occupations because of the flexibility they offer. After adjusting for these factors, scholars find that the difference between men's and women's earnings is very narrow. Those who still cite women's 76 cents for every male dollar as evidence of sexism fail to take into account the underlying role of personal choice. The "wage gap" is not so much about employers discriminating against women as about women making discriminating choices in the labor market.

Eli yhteenvetona: Jos naiset valitsisivat itselleen epämukavia, mutta hyvinpalkattuja töitä sekä suosisivat parinvalinnoissaan köyhiä miehiä, naiset saisivat helposti parempaa palkkaa kuin miehet. Jostain ihmeen syystä naiset eivät kuitenkaan tee niin.