Chart shows cause of the gender wage gap

https://www.vox.com/2018/2/19/17018380/gender-wage-gap-childcare-penalty

by iron0013 • 7 years ago

24 18 7 years ago

eigenspace• 7 years ago

Nice article, the title is a bit clickbaity though.

Ideally it should contain the thesis since it's pretty succinct. Something like "The gender wage gap is mostly a child care gap"

soared• 7 years ago

Interesting that men who eventually will have kids earn less than men who eventually won't have kids (4 years prior to the first child birth, fathers-to-be still earn less). That is not the case for women.

Difficult to tell how pronounced that is without the raw data though.

pergadad2• 7 years ago

Well spotted, although it seems to be a rather mild effect?

randyrand• 7 years ago

It's an interesting observation.

Maybe "~all" women expect to have kids?

treis2• 7 years ago

Saw chart. Not stunned.

hn_throwaway_993• 7 years ago

So, the subtitle of this article is "The gender wage gap is really a child care penalty." But why is it seemed a "penalty"? People choose to do different things, and it seems quite normal to me that people who choose to take focus off of their work to focus on their family would end up in lower positions than people who stayed focused on their careers.

Cenk• 7 years ago

Yes — but as you can very clearly see from the chart, only women’s earning drop significantly after a child. Men’s do not.

treis2• 7 years ago

Only women, generally, go through pregnancy and take significant time off of work to raise children.

hn_throwaway_993• 7 years ago

Yes, I understand that, but I think a reasonable interpretation of that is "The person who provides the bulk of the childcare (i.e. the person who switches focus most from work to family) is the person whose income potential takes the hit."

Now, I think it is a very reasonable and worthwhile discussion to have about whether women are unfairly expected to be the primary child caregivers in a relationship (though I still would worry that any natural tendencies that women may have a stronger desire to raise children than men would instantly be derided as some sort of societal bias in today's climate), but it still means that's the thing you should focus on, instead of the unrealistic expectation that focusing on your family instead of your career somehow means your wages should be the same as someone only focused on their career.

michelledepeil• 7 years ago

Yes, but there is an implied preference by companies to have more focus on work and less on private life, which is why it's also an implied penalty for the inverse (= having kids as a woman).

And the unfairness here is that only women are physically capable of putting children on the earth, so the penalty is applied to only women, even though both men and women are parents.

hn_throwaway_993• 7 years ago

so the penalty is applied to only women

I don't think the data necessarily shows that. I would hypothesize that the penalty is applied to the person in the relationship who most switches focus to raising their children, which is currently most often the woman.

And the unfairness here is that only women are physically capable of putting children on the earth

Well, yes, that is unfair, but blame God (or evolution) then?

deogeo• 7 years ago

Because work is being sold as something you get to do, while raising children as something you have to do.

ramphastidae• 7 years ago

Is it really? From my perspective it's easily the other way around. Having a job is a necessity while having a child is a luxury.

sleighboy• 7 years ago

From the methodology of the cited Danish study where the data comes from it includes those who left work outright and this represents a wage of 0. That is going to be quite the reduction in wages no matter where you start, to drop to 0. The charts don't seem so dramatic considering that. And the conclusion is no surprise either if you factor that in, of course wages drop when you are not working. No mention of that in the article though, doesn't fit the narrative I guess.

pergadad2• 7 years ago

You're only reading at surface level. It's described in the text, but for a quick sense of it look at the graphs on page 39 and the footnote - for earnings the participation is not considered but for hours worked and wages it only considers those in the labour force. You can see that the effect is less pronounced but it's still there. If I read this right women earn 10-15% less after having at least one child. Noticeably the dip in year 1 is much weaker, so in the overall earnings graph this dip might be due to women not working (much) in the first year and then going back to work - but on average with a comparably lower salary.

What you should also consider here is that this article is not looking at wage comparison within one company. It's looking at overall earnings in the population with a very thorough and deep analysis. It's an analysis for policy making, not for grandstanding. And for this whether women continue to work is also relevant - as the authors note this is quite a significant consideration even for labour force planning/statistics. Moreover thinking of e.g. pensions this is a very important point - as women will have lower pensions due to lower lifetime earnings.

Please do look at the whole picture, rather than just try to validate your viewpoint. There are many interesting tidbits here, for example that earnings fall 10% for each following child. The graph on p42 comparing childless women and mothers is also particularly impressive.

DoreenMichele• 7 years ago

He finds that women start to gravitate toward different jobs after the birth of a child, ones with fewer hours and lower wages.

The concepts of "the second shift" and "pink collar ghettos" are related to this. Women need to be able to give time and energy to the child when they are at home. They can't afford to work so hard that they are too exhausted to wake up if a child comes into their room in the middle of the night.

Men with well-paid jobs tend to be exhausted after work, too exhausted to do things like that. If both parents get that exhausted, then no one is able to provided the care the child needs.

Even if you are a heartless monster, society puts pressure on parents to actually take care of their own kids. Someone has to do it.

For various reasons, this tends to fall more to the mother than the father.

I'm actually kind of weirded out seeing this piece. I thought this was incredibly well established and fairly obvious on the face of it to boot.

I will add that all the reading I have done over the years suggests that countries that primarily address the gender gap by trying to lighten the child-bearing and child-rearing burden for women are the ones that have generally been more successful in reducing the gap. Simply decrying the gap as sexism or whatever tends to not be particularly helpful.

This can be addressed in part via cultural practices. It isn't just about laws or official policies. From what I have read, a lower divorce rate and a general expectation that the extended family helps out with the kids tends to be helpful. When a woman stays married and her mother or aunt is the primary babysitter while she is at work, you see women do better at advancing their careers.

powerslacker• 7 years ago

The gender wage gap is mostly a penalty for bearing children.
Men also worked, on average, a few more weekly hours and had a bit more prior experience as they entered the workforce.
Childless women have earnings that are quite similar to men’s salaries, while mothers experience a significant wage gap.

Hard-hitting stuff Vox. I've got some ideas for the next article in this series, feel free to use any of them:

- Shocking study shows micro-transactions prey on children

- Groundbreaking research shows businesses don't trust ex-convicts

- Scientists prove that Captain Crunch damages the roof of your mouth

Chart shows cause of the gender wage gap

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