What We’re Watching in the Gender Wage Gap

This month we’re looking at a few perspectives on the differential between men’s and women’s pay. Everyone knows there’s a gap, but not everyone is bothered by it—and young women entering the workforce seem oblivious to what’s about to hit them. Paid Less and Rewarded Less In the UK, female executives tend not to reap the rewards of strong corporate performance. That is in addition to the sizable gender gap in wages in the C-suite. Data show that women’s bonuses stay flat regardless of how well the company is doing—in stark contrast to men’s. The term “performance-based pay” is a misnomer when it comes to female leaders, say Clara Kulich of the University of Exeter and four others who studied UK firms from 1998 to 2004. The fact that women’s bonuses are unaffected by company performance indicates “organizational apathy towards women,” they say. Making Less and Happy A Swiss study finds that women’s satisfaction with life and work reflects not the size of the wage gap between men and women but, rather, whether the women’s community values equal pay as a worthy goal. Rafael Lalive of the University of Lausanne and Alois Stutzer of the University of Basel discovered that employed women in communities with traditional gender views but high wage gaps were more satisfied with life and work than women in areas with a smaller wage gap but greater community emphasis on the concept of equal pay. Fewer Routine Tasks in Women’s Work The gender wage gap has narrowed in recent decades, and one reason may be a marked decline in the amount of routine work in women’s jobs. That’s according to Sandra E. Black of the University of Texas and Alexandra Spitz-Oener of Humboldt University. With the introduction of computers in 1979, routine tasks such as operating machinery and calculating were dramatically reduced. Women, who disproportionately held such low-skilled jobs, moved into more analytic jobs, which tended to be higher paid. Click here for a larger image of the graphic. The Rewards—and Penalties—of Parenthood Having children tends to result in higher wages for men, whether they’re straight or gay, married or partnered. Women are not so fortunate: Most mothers make less than childless women, according to Amanda K. Baumle of the University of Houston, who analyzed 2000 U.S. Census data. Only lesbians get a salary bump from having kids; in fact, gay women’s earnings advantage from parenthood is even greater than men’s. Baumle’s theory: In employers’ stereotypical view, lesbians maintain a work trajectory after having children that is more like that of a childless woman or a man. Meanwhile, employers’ perception of straight women’s competence drops when they have children, Baumle says. Naive Graduates College students’ perceptions of the gender discrimination they’ll face—or take advantage of—when they graduate are out of step with the reality that researchers have found in the workplace. The vast majority of about 1,300 U.S. students surveyed in 2006 predicted that gender wouldn’t affect their pay or promotions, according to a study led by Stephanie Sipe of Georgia Southern University. Its findings dovetail with those of other studies in which women report that their education left them unprepared for the discrimination they faced in their professional lives.

What We’re Watching in the Gender Wage Gap

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