Think The Gender Wage Gap Is Closing? (highest, jobs, career)
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Could that be because some female doctors don't tend to stick around long-term? I was reading that in the UK there is a big problem of female doctors "up and leaving" halfway thru their careers (to start families, stay-at-home-mom, career change, etc)..... effectively wasting much of the grants, programs, medical school scholarships, etc that they used to get there in the first place. There is a similar trend over here in USA. Male doctors tend to stick around and serve their community for decades, even *moreso* after they get married and have kids.
Obviously, if you "up and leave" halfway into your career you are going to make "less" overall than a male doctor who sticks to his job long-term. That's just basic logic.
As for the "wage gap", there again..... most women tend to work (and prefer) easier, cushier, air conditioned in-door jobs than men, thus they tend to make less overall. Men on the other hand tend to have no problems taking on dirty, dangerous, hazardous, even potentially deadly jobs (assuming the pay is acceptable of course). Men also do not mind working long hours and take less time off compared to women.
I don't hear of many female plumbers, electricians, oil workers, construction workers, hard laborers, etc.... even though there is nothing "stopping" women from participating in these dirty/dangerous jobs. It's all an issue of choice.... just like how Mexican male immigrants do not "mind" working in the hot sun picking strawberries for $5/hour, but an American male will typically not sign up for such a raw deal unless VERY desperate.
The recent North Dakota oil boom is a good example of this, thousands of men from around the country LITERALLY packed up their things and drove/flocked up to North Dakota to get high-paying oil-related jobs (often with 60-80 hours/week schedules to boot). Again, women could have done the same but chose not to.
As others have already pointed out, if "wage gap" was true all these big corp 1%er companies would hire nothing but women. Greed does not "discriminate" at all.... it doesn't care about your race, gender, religion, etc so long as you are "cheaper" in terms of the bottom-line (it's 110% about money and NOTHING else when greed is involved). Big corps hiring $10/hour Indian engineers over American engineers, big factories moving to China where wages are like $2/day, local farmers hiring $5/hour Mexicans over their fellow Americans, are all examples of greed "overriding" race/nationality/gender/religion/etc.
Edit: saw they "adjusted" for specialty... But wonder how they did that
All that means is that statistically speaking, they "controlled for" variables that would make a difference in pay -- e.g., specialty, years of experience, etc. So they compare doctors with the SAME backgrounds and see if sex (or race, or whatever) makes a difference. For example, they wouldn't compare a female pediatrician with 5 years of experience to a male urologist with 10 years of experience; of course that would be silly and any pay discrepancies would be completely expected and therefore meaningless. Instead, they would compare, say, pediatricians with 5 years of experience and see if males in that category are paid more than females. In other words, they try to "control for" -- i.e., ADJUST -- all the factors that can that they think could make a difference.
What this study found is that even AFTER they controlled for factors that could reasonably make a difference, they STILL found pay discrepancies. It's not a "garbage study" at all; the findings are interesting, although I too would like to know exactly which variables they used AND especially how they measured each of them.
And to those of you who say that things like the woman taking time off etc. could make a difference: absolutely, it could, but in this particular study, it's probably not likely, because they looked at ACADEMIC physicians -- i.e., doctors who teach at medical schools. Academic careers are relatively stable, once the employee has tenure. So when they find that female FULL PROFESSORS make the same as male ASSOCIATE PROFESSORS (that's a lower rank), what they are saying is that controlling for all their other factors, they STILL found a big difference in pay.
(Incidentally, I HATE those "gender wage gap" numbers that you sometimes see in the news that simply say "Females make only 70 cents to a male's dollar." They are meant to be dramatic, and they are, but unless they tell you EXACTLY what they measured and HOW, they are meaningless.)
And to those saying that companies should just hire all women if "pay gaps" are real: that is just silly, and in the real world you would never see it. It's like saying that if it were true that black people tend ON AVERAGE to get paid less, companies would just be hiring all black people. Um, no, not in the real world. Sorry, guys, but that's just a silly argument.
Women aren't actually flat out paid less than men are for the same work. What happens is the combination of a few things:
etc, etc
Good talk, but it has little to nothing to do with the original post and is directly contradicted by the linked articles. The original post is about doctor's pay, and in that particular case you're wrong.
All that means is that statistically speaking, they "controlled for" variables that would make a difference in pay -- e.g., specialty, years of experience, etc. So they compare doctors with the SAME backgrounds and see if sex (or race, or whatever) makes a difference. For example, they wouldn't compare a female pediatrician with 5 years of experience to a male urologist with 10 years of experience; of course that would be silly and any pay discrepancies would be completely expected and therefore meaningless. Instead, they would compare, say, pediatricians with 5 years of experience and see if males in that category are paid more than females. In other words, they try to "control for" -- i.e., ADJUST -- all the factors that can that they think could make a difference.
What this study found is that even AFTER they controlled for factors that could reasonably make a difference, they STILL found pay discrepancies. It's not a "garbage study" at all; the findings are interesting, although I too would like to know exactly which variables they used AND especially how they measured each of them.
And to those of you who say that things like the woman taking time off etc. could make a difference: absolutely, it could, but in this particular study, it's probably not likely, because they looked at ACADEMIC physicians -- i.e., doctors who teach at medical schools. Academic careers are relatively stable, once the employee has tenure. So when they find that female FULL PROFESSORS make the same as male ASSOCIATE PROFESSORS (that's a lower rank), what they are saying is that controlling for all their other factors, they STILL found a big difference in pay.
(Incidentally, I HATE those "gender wage gap" numbers that you sometimes see in the news that simply say "Females make only 70 cents to a male's dollar." They are meant to be dramatic, and they are, but unless they tell you EXACTLY what they measured and HOW, they are meaningless.)
And to those saying that companies should just hire all women if "pay gaps" are real: that is just silly, and in the real world you would never see it. It's like saying that if it were true that black people tend ON AVERAGE to get paid less, companies would just be hiring all black people. Um, no, not in the real world. Sorry, guys, but that's just a silly argument.
no i get the control part, i meant since the field was heavily men, did they account for how many men didnt get there?
if 10 men out of 100 were successful in getting to a certain level, and they only looked at those ten, they have a survivorship bias. if 8 out of 20 women get to same level, then they didnt have to compete against each other as hard. they would have fewer opportunities to buffer their wages on the way up.
we know the outcome, they get paid less... the why is different. if a male doctor had to go through more positions to get to the top, he will negioatate more frequently at each stop. if a women doctor shot to the top, she only had to do it once or twice. in the end they may have the same experience but one has been adding to salary along the way
mostly, the study does not "control" for survivorship
It's not that simple, if everyone were paid equally eventually some people will come out ahead if they have special talent or higher productivity that made them more attractive to other companies seeking to get an advantage. Then you'll see those individuals, primarily men get elevated.
Professional baseball is a good example, if both men and women played in MLB. Which sex will hit the most HRs and make the most money?
You cannot pay people equally unless there's parity in skills between the sexes.
no i get the control part, i meant since the field was heavily men, did they account for how many men didnt get there?
if 10 men out of 100 were successful in getting to a certain level, and they only looked at those ten, they have a survivorship bias. if 8 out of 20 women get to same level, then they didnt have to compete against each other as hard. they would have fewer opportunities to buffer their wages on the way up.
we know the outcome, they get paid less... the why is different. if a male doctor had to go through more positions to get to the top, he will negioatate more frequently at each stop. if a women doctor shot to the top, she only had to do it once or twice. in the end they may have the same experience but one has been adding to salary along the way
mostly, the study does not "control" for survivorship
Ah, now I understand what you meant, but of course the study authors can only use the variables they have access to. I don't know how they could get the data they would need to even LOOK at "survivorship bias" (which, honestly, I have never seen used as a variable in these types of studies). OTOH, it's highly UNLIKELY that the survivorship "numbers" would be anything like what you wrote -- i.e., that only 10% of men would have been promoted while 40% of women would (unless you speculate that some kind of gender-based affirmative action would make THAT big a difference?). (Incidentally, one of the things the study says is that women now outnumber men in medical school -- so it will be interesting to see if the gender pay gap still exists in 20-30 years.)
Anyway, you raise an interesting question, but again I'm not sure how your variable is relevant -- or could even be used at all -- in a study like this one. (At least you engaged with the question of the study, instead of saying something really useful like "cry us a river!" How profound. )
Quote:
Originally Posted by vision33r
It's not that simple, if everyone were paid equally eventually some people will come out ahead if they have special talent or higher productivity that made them more attractive to other companies seeking to get an advantage. Then you'll see those individuals, primarily men get elevated.
Professional baseball is a good example, if both men and women played in MLB. Which sex will hit the most HRs and make the most money?
You cannot pay people equally unless there's parity in skills between the sexes.
<sigh> Did you even read the study? They CONTROLLED FOR the variables that could make a difference -- they are NOT saying "everyone should be paid equally regardless of specialty or years of experience or whatever."
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