Palkkatasa-arvo

Ylen A-plus-ohjelma. (Järkyttävää katsottavaa, Tuula Haatainen)

1. Choose careers that pay more. Because of supply and demand, you'll earn more by choosing a job that:

* is in an unpleasant environment (prison vs. childcare facility);

* requires harder-to-attain skills (hard science vs. liberal arts);

* requires longer work hours (executive vs. administrative assistant);

* is unrewarding to most people (tax accountant vs. artist);

* demands financial risk (commission-based sales vs. government job);

* is inconvenient (traveling salesperson vs. teacher);

* is hazardous (police officer vs. librarian).

Many more men than women are willing to accept such jobs, even when women are paid more. For example, women sales engineers earn 143 percent of their male counterparts' salaries, yet less than 20 percent of sales engineers are women.

2. Put in more hours. That's obvious, but key. For example, Farrell cites research that "Fortune 1000 CEOs typically paid their dues with 60- to 90-hour workweeks for about 20 years. Yet women are less than half as likely as men to work more than 50 hours a week. And women are less likely to agree, every few years, to uproot themselves and their families to far-flung places to get the necessary promotions."

Why? Because women, on average, are more involved in childrearing and other domestic activities. So, if a woman (or man) expects to rise to high-paying jobs, she may need to push harder to get hubby more involved in those activities, pay for childcare and domestic services, or decide not to have children.

I asked Farrell, "But shouldn't workplaces not expect a woman (or a man) to work so many hours that family life is undercut?" He responded, "Yes, absolutely, but we must be gender-fair. If a male corporate manager chose to take care of his children, we'd applaud him but not expect the workplace to promote him as quickly. Yet when women do the same, women's advocacy organizations often expect just that. Both men and women must accept the consequences of their choices."

3. Be more productive in the hours you do work. If women produce as much as men, the good news is they will likely be rewarded. For example, women's advocacy organizations complain that female professors earn less than male professors, but Farrell cites research that among professors who produce an equal number of journal articles, "men were likely to be paid the same or just slightly less than women."