The whole maternity leave thing screws their value all up.

A woman goes to college, gets a degree, gets a job and becomes successful then she decides to get married.  After she is married she wants children so she gets pregnant (with out having to consult with her company) and then she goes to her company and informs them that she will be taking six months off  for maternity leave.  She is sick for 3 months before she takes the six off so there is no guarantee she will even be in to work or on time.  After having the baby she goes back to work only to discover that she want to be home with her baby and now she quits her job leaving the company high and dry.

All the women that do not fall into this scenario are punished because of the ones that do.  Life is tough it is even tougher when you make bad decisions.

I have never understood the whole $100,000 college degree then get married, get pregnant and then become a stay at home mom thing.  What a waste of time and cash.

Right - but I hate how some people misunderstand the whole point.

There absolutely is a "wage differential" between men and women for the same job class/type - precisely because of the reasons you are mentioning.

What drives me insane is when people(sometimes well-intentioned) misunderstand that, and think it means that an individual women, doing the exact same job as a man, gets paid less.  

The "wage gap" or whatever is mostly an aggregate phenomenon, and not reflected in individual salaries.




All that said - let's not forget to acknowledge that there still ARE some jobs and industries where there still is some subtle discrimination against women (that does occasionally result in fewer promotions and less pay).  Investment banks would be a good example.  It's genreally not common, and often limited to some industries, but it still does exist.

Don't forget PMS!

Quoted: That is exactly right.  1000 men and 1000 women doing the same job at the same level of expertise will NOT have the same productivity in the end.  Because the SOME of the women will take maternity leave.  It can be shown the difference in salaries is directly releated to this difference in productivity when looked at over the whole industry.  Thus there is very little discrimination based on gender.    I love economics.

And MoRE of the women will be too busy gossiping and backstabbing each other to do real work.

Labor is THE major expense for several (if not most) industries.  If you believe equally qualified women are paid only 80% or so as much as their male counterparts for the same work, I encourage you to start a labor intensive business and hire only women.  You'll have such a economic advantage over your unenlightened competitors, you'll drive them all out of business in short order.  Then with your monopoly on the industry you can raise your women's pay to 110% of market

Then some crafy economist will figure out he can hire "undocumented workers" who are pleased to make 40% as much-- and their undocumented status leaves them powerless to complain about any abuse you might want to heap on them, such as ignoring those expensive-to-comply-with safety and welfare laws. (Social security/medicare tax, OHSA required safety equipment, porta-poties, minimum age/wage requirements, etc.)  Thereby driving the enlightened women-only company out of business.  Good thing those Huge Government Fines to Companies who flaunt Immigration Law make this second scenario too expensive to be practical.  

I have to go now so someone please insert a crass comment about the Internet and offshoring labor intensive jobs that require no physical presence within our borders.

every woman we employ has issues and always comes in late, leaves early, takes off, especially when kids are sick so it is like they have 3 times the vacation....and then top it all off with lack of intelligence....

Quoted: Don't forget PMS!

how could we?

Its not their fault, they didn't choose to be born without a penis.

As my married buddy says...they ain't real people.

Quoted: Right - but I hate how some people misunderstand the whole point. There absolutely is a "wage differential" between men and women for the same job class/type - precisely because of the reasons you are mentioning. What drives me insane is when people(sometimes well-intentioned) misunderstand that, and think it means that an individual women, doing the exact same job as a man, gets paid less.   The "wage gap" or whatever is mostly an aggregate phenomenon, and not reflected in individual salaries. All that said - let's not forget to acknowledge that there still ARE some jobs and industries where there still is some subtle discrimination against women (that does occasionally result in fewer promotions and less pay).  Investment banks would be a good example.  It's genreally not common, and often limited to some industries, but it still does exist.

And then the economist weighs in.