Salaries by Gender and Education
James Salsman
This table is adapted from page five of the July 1993 issue of
_The_Written_Word_, a literacy-education publication that draws
statistics from the U.S. Department of Education's National Center
for Education Statistics.
Median annual income of: Male, Female: difference; Delta
(US$) (US$) (%) (%)
High school dropouts 20,902 14,429 69.0 N/A
High school graduates 26,653 18,318 68.7 -0.3
College dropouts 31,734 22,227 70.0 1.3
College graduates 39,238 28,017 71.4 1.4
College postgraduates 49,304 33,750 68.5 -2.9
I find the negative figures very disturbing.
:James Salsman
::Bovik Research
Dr. Kenneth Bradford
However, it's a rather oddly entitled table, specifically
column three: it is *about* "difference," but the figures
given are not a "difference," but rather women's pay as a percent
of men's pay.
---
Kenneth Bradford
<kbra...@vdoe386.vak12ed.edu>
"If we want to do new things,
we may have to go by unknown ways."
Raymond Dwayne Smith
Yet some people will stare these figures right in the face and
say, "Well, that doesn't mean anything." Hmph. The average
female graduating GPA is a whole tenth of a point higher than
the average male's, yet women still make so much less. It's
disgusting.
--
rd...@virginia.edu (Ray Smith)
"Antifeminist refers to the woman who claims that the only
place for a woman is in the home and who comes out of the home
to prove it."
Radford Neal
>bo...@eecs.nwu.edu writes:
>>
>> This table is adapted from page five of the July 1993 issue of
>> _The_Written_Word_, a literacy-education publication that draws
>> statistics from the U.S. Department of Education's National Center
>> for Education Statistics.
>>
>> Median annual income of: Male, Female: difference; Delta
>> (US$) (US$) (%) (%)
>> High school dropouts 20,902 14,429 69.0 N/A
>> High school graduates 26,653 18,318 68.7 -0.3
>> College dropouts 31,734 22,227 70.0 1.3
>> College graduates 39,238 28,017 71.4 1.4
>> College postgraduates 49,304 33,750 68.5 -2.9
>>
>> I find the negative figures very disturbing.
>
>Yet some people will stare these figures right in the face and
>say, "Well, that doesn't mean anything." Hmph. The average
>female graduating GPA is a whole tenth of a point higher than
>the average male's, yet women still make so much less. It's
>disgusting.
Taking the risk that the above is meant to be tongue-in-cheek...
Considering the likely sources of error figures such as the above, they
probably do mean nothing. Or rather, they mean "as far as we can tell,
the ratio of male to female incomes is independent of education level".
This is quite interesting, actually, but not in the way implied above.
Even if there was a difference, its interpretation would be difficult.
Are the more highly educated people earning more because they are more
highly educated, or are they earning more because they are more intelligent,
which also helped them to succeed in school? If the later, might the
exact relationship be different for men and women? Even if there is a
significant causal relationship, it would not follow that the small
difference seen is due to small differences in this relationship - it
might be due to large differences in the remaining non-causal aspects.
(It is entirely plausible that the latter might vary more with sex than
would the causal effects.)
The significance of an 0.1 difference in GPA seems equally dubious.
Radford Neal
TED LOUIS GLENN
who became pregnant would take time off to take care of the baby
resulting in a loss of seniority and ultimately lower earnings.
As more women entered the workplace, the pay gap began to decrease.
This, however, doesn't fully explain the pay gap. But, I still think
that the figures should be adjusted for seniority.
Followups to soc.women.
--
Ted L. Glenn "Don't worry, be happy!" <--Ack! Pffffhhht!
HI! I'm a .sig disinfectant. Please remove all viruses from your .signature.
"tlglenn%cs.arizona.edu"@ARIZVMS.BITNET {noao,allegra,uunet}!arizona!tlglenn
Dawn Boneham
I would like to know if I understand this correctly...I am not an economist nor
do I read these kinds of charts for a living:
the statisticss state that women on average earn approximately
68.5 to 71.4 percent of what men earn. women earn a higher percentage
of what men earn as the education level increases except at two levels
where the level of comparative compensation decreases:
from high school dropout to high school graduate
and
from college graduate to college postgraduate
looking a little further, the level of increases are as follows:
Male Female
(US$) (%) (US$) (%)
high school dropout to graduate.............: 5,751 27.5 3,889 27.0
high school graduate to college dropout.....: 5,081 19.1 3,909 21.3
college dropout to college graduate.........: 7,504 23.7 5,790 26.0
college graduate to college postgraduate....: 10,066 25.7 5,733 20.5
Okay, assuming I am correct so far, I am going to make two observations.
The annual % raises are relatively close or higher for women except at the
last level. These statistics are averages and do not state anywhere the actual
number of people moving from one level to the next.
My conclusion: as a whole, women start at approximately 70% of what men make and
are rewarded at a comparable or better percentage of salary each year until
they reach postgraduate level. We have no idea if the number of males versus
females moving to each level is equal.
Question: did you find the "negative figures very disturbing" because postgraduate
women **appear to** rewarded less than men for their added effort?
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dawn Boneham - In the information quest, I speak only for myself
David Garrod
Posting these numbers in this form in very misleading.
The clear implication is that women are more poorly for a
given level of employment than men, but this implication is not
proven by the above data.
The correct way to present meaningful data is to:
a. eliminate any non-full-time employed people.
b. divide the sub-groups according to age.
For example, if the college postgraduate group showed that the average
age of men in the group was 48, but the average age for women in the
group was 35, (this numbers are false...for the purpose of making a point)
would anyone really be surprised that 48 year old men were paid
$15-16k more than 35 year old women?
Just for the record, these data do not agree with other published data.
George Horwath
>Yet some people will stare these figures right in the face and
>say, "Well, that doesn't mean anything." Hmph. The average
>female graduating GPA is a whole tenth of a point higher than
>the average male's, yet women still make so much less. It's
>disgusting.
Certainly others will post the numbers indicating that the average
male has more experience and works longer hours than the average
female. No doubt you will stare those figures right in the
face and say "Well, that doesn't mean anything." So "Hmph" to
you.
I don't know how you earn your livelihood (not wanting to assume
anything about that ".edu" extension) but GPA means very little
when I interview a college grad, let alone a tenth of a point
in either direction.
-gh
Herman Rubin
As given here, these are crude numbers, signifying NOTHING.
Statistics requires the use of assumptions to arrive at conclusions.
If you assume that everyone is of equal ability, you will get one
conclusion. GIGO.
--
Herman Rubin, Dept. of Statistics, Purdue Univ., West Lafayette IN47907-1399
Phone: (317)494-6054
hru...@snap.stat.purdue.edu (Internet, bitnet)
{purdue,pur-ee}!snap.stat!hrubin(UUCP)
Susan Garvin
Mark Evans <eva...@mb48026.aston.ac.uk> wrote:
#Median is a very poor average when wide disparity exists between the
#highest and lowest.
When there are a few very high and very low observations, the
median is the preferred average.
#It is calculated by taking the value in between the highest and lowest
#readings.
The median is the value such that half the observations are greater
and half are less. (That's not the same thing.)
#Mostlikely what you are showing half the annual income of the highest
#earner in each catagory.
Without more evidence, there's little reason to believe that.
#I suspect that either mode or arithmetic mean would be better averages.
Argue with the statisticians at the Census Bureau. I doubt that
they'll be any more impressed with your reasoning than I am,
though.
#With something which follow a complex distribution histograms are of
#much more use than any average figures.
You don't know much about statistics, do you?
Susan
Joe Barber
Much of the discussion has been centered around the effects of missing
variables used to calculate these relationships. The perspective I bring
to this is that it is "only" income these tables discuss.
These figures show that people are not maximizing income. If they were,
then everyone would be in the postgraduate group. People maximize utility
(read "satisfaction with life" for you non-economists). They choose
options other than slaving away at a job for 16 hours a day, 365 days a year.
If a woman chooses to tend children rather than gain seniority, she is
still choosing what is best for her given the alternatives.
(Economists tend to view income as a proxy for utility because it is
easy to measure.)
The real question that is being asked is: "Is the difference in income
due to a difference in opportunity set"? or "Would the most painful part
of a sex change operation really be a 30% drop in salary"?
Clearly, these values are overstated. In our society, women still have
different priorities than men probably mostly due to the fact that they bear
children while men cannot. This is not to say that discrimination doesn't
occur among employers. I'm sure that in some instances it does. But I
think that discrimination is not global. Therefore, solutions to discrim-
ination should rely, not on blanket laws like affirmative action, but on
fines and other litigation on individual companies that are found to discrim-
inate.
Joe
--
papa...@econ.sas.upenn.edu Joe Barber
Department of Economics
University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, PA 19104
Ken Arromdee
David Garrod <gar...@dynamo.ecn.purdue.edu> wrote:
>Posting these numbers in this form in very misleading.
>The clear implication is that women are more poorly for a
>given level of employment than men, but this implication is not
>proven by the above data.
>The correct way to present meaningful data is to:
>a. eliminate any non-full-time employed people.
>b. divide the sub-groups according to age.
They need to be divided, not by age, but by number of years of experience and
by job classification. If women have less experience, on the average, or if
women disproportionately work in lower-paying jobs, the figures would be
skewed. (Of course, age does have a bearing on years of experience).
--
Ken Arromdee (email: arro...@jyusenkyou.cs.jhu.edu)
ObYouKnowWho Bait: Stuffed Turkey with Gravy and Mashed Potatoes
"There are no good or evil plants. There are only... plants." --Ficus (Quark)
Brian K. Yoder
>bo...@eecs.nwu.edu writes:
>> Median annual income of: Male, Female: difference; Delta
>> (US$) (US$) (%) (%)
>> High school dropouts 20,902 14,429 69.0 N/A
>> High school graduates 26,653 18,318 68.7 -0.3
>> College dropouts 31,734 22,227 70.0 1.3
>> College graduates 39,238 28,017 71.4 1.4
>> College postgraduates 49,304 33,750 68.5 -2.9
>> I find the negative figures very disturbing.
>Yet some people will stare these figures right in the face and
>say, "Well, that doesn't mean anything." Hmph. The average
>female graduating GPA is a whole tenth of a point higher than
>the average male's, yet women still make so much less. It's
>disgusting.
Even more disgusting is people like you who look at meaningless statistics
and because you want to believe that women are treated unfairly, you
ignore the fact that they are meaningless.
Unless you correct for age, education level, seniority, etc. those stats
don't mean a thing. Please note that I'm not saying anything about what
the actual state of affairs are here. My point is that you can't draw
ANY conclusions from the above data.
--Brian
--
+------------------+-----------------------------------------------------------+
| Brian K. Yoder | "The children who know how to think for themselves, spoil |
| byo...@netcom.com| the harmony of the collective society that is coming, |
| US Networx, Inc. | where everyone (would be) interdependent" --John Dewey |
+------------------+-----------------------------------------------------------+
James Salsman
In article <CKJtu...@murdoch.acc.virginia.edu>,
Raymond Dwayne Smith <rd...@curry.edschool.Virginia.EDU> wrote:
> bo...@eecs.nwu.edu writes:
> >
> > Median annual income of: Male, Female: difference; Delta
> > (US$) (US$) (%) (%)
> > High school dropouts 20,902 14,429 69.0 N/A
> > High school graduates 26,653 18,318 68.7 -0.3
> > College dropouts 31,734 22,227 70.0 1.3
> > College graduates 39,238 28,017 71.4 1.4
> > College postgraduates 49,304 33,750 68.5 -2.9
>
> the average male's, yet women still make so much less.
According to the January 31, 1994 issue of _BusinessWeek_, white males
make up 47% of the U.S. total labor force, but they hold 88.1% of the
seats on U.S. corporations' boards of directors, and 91.7% of the
corporate officer positions. Those kinds of jobs are usually at
six-figure and sometimes seven-figure salaries, plus huge stock-option
and benefit packages.
The directors are elected by shareholders, so I don't see any clear
discrimination there. I am concerned that institutional investors
such as mutual funds and pension plans often vote their *huge*
shareholdings for particular candidates for the boards, instead of
abstaining as would be more appropriate.
On the other hand, corporate officers (again, 91.7% white males) are
hired by the boards of directors. Why are they not complying with the
same equal opportunity and affirmative action laws that everyone else
must comply with?
Could a class-action lawsuit be used to rectify this situation?
:James Salsman
::Bovik Research
Edmond Dantes
This means nothing. It doesn't consider the field of the degrees. It
doesn't account for periods of absence. It doesn't consider length of
time continously with the same employer. It doesn't consider the degree
of agression used on salry negotians.
--
Edmond Dantes
<dan...@netcom.com>
Thomas M Buccelli
Just a quick observation that many people seem to forget. Aren't many
of these same COB's/CEO's in their late 50's/early 60's or somewhere
around there. That means they have been working ~35yrs give or take,
meaning they graduated, if they went to college, sometime in the 50's.
Now, I wasn't even born then, but from what I hear, most women weren't
starting in the positions THEN to make themselves ready to become
COB's/CEO's NOW.
If someone has a statistic, and yes I have heard many quotes about
those, of the percentage of men that are COB's/CEO's from the available
pool of talent.
Tom
#include <std_disclaimer.h>
Susan Garvin
I have on hand an old study that attempted to explain the
differences in wages between white men and other groups.
"Percentages of the Wage Gap Between White Men and Other
Groups of Workers Explained by Differences in Qualifications
1975
Black White Black
Men Women Women
Formal 38 2 11
Education
Years of 15 11 8
training
completed
on current job
Other work 3 28 14
history
Indicators -3 3 -1
of labor
force attachment
Unexplained 47 56 68
Wage 23% 36% 43%
Differential"
(Corcoran, Mary and Greg J. Duncan, "Work History, Labor
Force Attachment, and Earnings Differences Between Races
and Sexes," _The Journal of Human Resources 14, no.1,
(Winter 1979):8, 18.)
I don't have any more recent studies on hand, as I said, but
I do remember that the unexplained portion of the difference
continues to be greater than 50% for both black and white
women.
Susan
Bronis Vidugiris
)
)This table is adapted from page five of the July 1993 issue of
)_The_Written_Word_, a literacy-education publication that draws
)statistics from the U.S. Department of Education's National Center
)for Education Statistics.
)
)Median annual income of: Male, Female: difference; Delta
) (US$) (US$) (%) (%)
)High school dropouts 20,902 14,429 69.0 N/A
)High school graduates 26,653 18,318 68.7 -0.3
)College dropouts 31,734 22,227 70.0 1.3
)College graduates 39,238 28,017 71.4 1.4
)College postgraduates 49,304 33,750 68.5 -2.9
)
)I find the negative figures very disturbing.
)
):James Salsman
)::Bovik Research
One can do a bit better (typically) when one throws in such important
variables as work experience and hours worked - women tend both to work
less hours than men, and have less experience.
Here's some (old about 10 years old) data on earnings per hour vs education
and work experience.
Source: "U.S. Bureau of the Census, Current Population Reports, Series
P-70, No. 10, Male-Female Differences in Work Experience, Occupation, and
Earnings: 1984, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C., 1987
education <= 12yrs 12-15years 16yrs+
all not hs grad hs grad college grad
work
exp. M F R M F R M F R M F R
<=5 6.83 5.48 .80 5.21 4.49 .86 6.36 5.13 .81 9.15 7.42 .81
5-9 8.15 6.62 .81 8.15 6.62 .81 6.54 5.01 .77 10.71 8.88 .83
10-19 10.77 7.78 .72 7.84 5.86 .75 9.93 7.25 .73 14.03 10.32 .74
20+ 12.22 7.80 .64 8.89 5.69 .64 11.59 7.55 .65 17.19 11.44 .67
Note that none of this is for the same job.
For the same job, I will offer the following data, even though it is only
for one specific profession.
1990 IEEE salary survey.
Experience Number Median
M F M F Ratio
<= 3 318 41 33.7 35.0 1.04
3-4 292 30 40 34.4 .86
5-6 342 44 44 42.3 .96
7-9 458 45 50 49.5 .99
10-14 769 37 58 52 .90
15-19 597 21 64 58 .91
--
"The power of this battlestation is _insignificant_ when compared with
the power of the Farce." - D. Vader.
Michael G. Kurilla
I will preface my remarks by stating that I do not pretend to
be an economist, but I find the disturbing reaction very
disturbing myself.
It is very difficult to get excited about the above numbers
because they attempt to portray the basis for a difference as
simply due to sex and assume all other parameters are identical.
How about controlling for other potential sample biases before
giving raw data like that?
I would expect age to play a significant factor in earnings.
Are the age distributions of the male and female workers in the
above sample identical. I would suspect that the female
workers are skewed more to younger (and lower pay) compared to
men.
What about occupational distribution? Although there are
certainly many more opportunities for women today, the average
female will be lumped together with older females that are
reflective of social conditions 20 and 30 years ago. If the
age effect is true, then that will tend to lower female wages.
There could be other factors involved as well. Males may be
more mobile and therefore move towards higher pay more readily
than females. The two groups may also factor in different
concerns when selecting employment opportunities. Males could
focus more on wages, while females evaluate other aspects
(fringe benefits, flexible scheduling, travel time).
How about controlling for some of the above?
Mike K
Mark Evans
: This table is adapted from page five of the July 1993 issue of
: _The_Written_Word_, a literacy-education publication that draws
: statistics from the U.S. Department of Education's National Center
: for Education Statistics.
: Median annual income of: Male, Female: difference; Delta
: (US$) (US$) (%) (%)
: High school dropouts 20,902 14,429 69.0 N/A
: High school graduates 26,653 18,318 68.7 -0.3
: College dropouts 31,734 22,227 70.0 1.3
: College graduates 39,238 28,017 71.4 1.4
: College postgraduates 49,304 33,750 68.5 -2.9
Median is a very poor average when wide disparity exists between the
highest and lowest.
It is calculated by taking the value in between the highest and lowest
readings.
Mostlikely what you are showing half the annual income of the highest
earner in each catagory.
I suspect that either mode or arithmetic mean would be better averages.
With something which follow a complex distribution histograms are of
Brian K. Yoder
>Median annual income of: Male, Female: difference; Delta
> (US$) (US$) (%) (%)
>High school dropouts 20,902 14,429 69.0 N/A
>High school graduates 26,653 18,318 68.7 -0.3
>College dropouts 31,734 22,227 70.0 1.3
>College graduates 39,238 28,017 71.4 1.4
>College postgraduates 49,304 33,750 68.5 -2.9
I have seen some statistics that make the situation look considerably
different. If the breakdown is made according to marital status, unmaried
females actually make a little more than unmaried males, while married men
make quite a bit more than married women and slightly more than unmaried
females. Marriage had a lot more to do with income levels in those
surveys than sex did. Remember, correlation doesn't prove causation.
David Garrod
>>
>> This table is adapted from page five of the July 1993 issue of
>> _The_Written_Word_, a literacy-education publication that draws
>> statistics from the U.S. Department of Education's National Center
>> for Education Statistics.
>>
>> Median annual income of: Male, Female: difference; Delta
>> (US$) (US$) (%) (%)
>> High school dropouts 20,902 14,429 69.0 N/A
>> High school graduates 26,653 18,318 68.7 -0.3
>> College dropouts 31,734 22,227 70.0 1.3
>> College graduates 39,238 28,017 71.4 1.4
>> College postgraduates 49,304 33,750 68.5 -2.9
>>
More info needed.
Do these figures cover only full-time employed people?
That are at variance from data reported by The Family Economic Research
Group and also Consumer Expenditure Survey data.
David Garrod
Russ Anderson
> _The_Written_Word_, a literacy-education publication that draws
> statistics from the U.S. Department of Education's National Center
> for Education Statistics.
>
> Median annual income of: Male, Female: difference; Delta
> (US$) (US$) (%) (%)
> High school dropouts 20,902 14,429 69.0 N/A
> High school graduates 26,653 18,318 68.7 -0.3
> College dropouts 31,734 22,227 70.0 1.3
> College graduates 39,238 28,017 71.4 1.4
> College postgraduates 49,304 33,750 68.5 -2.9
OK, I'll take the blame for blowing the curve. :-)
My first job after graduating from college paid $22,500 while
my wife's job paid only ~$10,000. Of course I had a double
major in Computer Science and Economics and was hired by
EDS as a Systems Engineer while my wife majored in Elementary
Education and was hired by Children's World Daycare.
Clearly the pay differential was due to my gender, for which I
apologize. :-)
--
Russ Anderson | Disclaimer: Any statements are my own and do not reflect
------------------ upon my employer or anyone else. (c) 1993
EX-Twins' Jack Morris, 10 innings pitched, 0 runs (World Series MVP!)
bo...@cos.com
figures have been dropped. I just wanted to award some 5.9s and
6.0s for all the great skating done by previous posters :-)
Mark Evans
: In article <CKJA3...@eecs.nwu.edu>, bo...@eecs.nwu.edu (James Salsman) writes:
: |>
: |> This table is adapted from page five of the July 1993 issue of
: |> _The_Written_Word_, a literacy-education publication that draws
: |> statistics from the U.S. Department of Education's National Center
: |> for Education Statistics.
: |>
: |> Median annual income of: Male, Female: difference; Delta
: |> (US$) (US$) (%) (%)
: |> High school dropouts 20,902 14,429 69.0 N/A
: |> High school graduates 26,653 18,318 68.7 -0.3
: |> College dropouts 31,734 22,227 70.0 1.3
: |> College graduates 39,238 28,017 71.4 1.4
: |> College postgraduates 49,304 33,750 68.5 -2.9
: |>
: |> I find the negative figures very disturbing.
: |>
: |> :James Salsman
: |> ::Bovik Research
: I would like to know if I understand this correctly...I am not an economist nor
: do I read these kinds of charts for a living:
: the statisticss state that women on average earn approximately
: 68.5 to 71.4 percent of what men earn. women earn a higher percentage
Nope what they actually state is that the highest paied women in each catagory earns
between 68.5 and 71.4 percent of the highest payed man in the same catagory.
That is what MEDIAN means.
Mark Evans
: In article <CKK7K...@aston.ac.uk>,
: Mark Evans <eva...@mb48026.aston.ac.uk> wrote:
: #Median is a very poor average when wide disparity exists between the
: #highest and lowest.
: When there are a few very high and very low observations, the
: median is the preferred average.
A most odd idea.
: #It is calculated by taking the value in between the highest and lowest
: #readings.
: The median is the value such that half the observations are greater
: and half are less. (That's not the same thing.)
: #Mostlikely what you are showing half the annual income of the highest
: #earner in each catagory.
: Without more evidence, there's little reason to believe that.
It appears highly likely that the lowest income is zero!
: #I suspect that either mode or arithmetic mean would be better averages.
: Argue with the statisticians at the Census Bureau. I doubt that
: they'll be any more impressed with your reasoning than I am,
: though.
: #With something which follow a complex distribution histograms are of
: #much more use than any average figures.
: You don't know much about statistics, do you?
It appear to be either you do not know what you are talking about.
Or the yanks are insisting on doing things differntly from the rest of the
world again.
Douglas C. Merrill
eva...@mb48026.aston.ac.uk writes:
>Susan Garvin (gar...@cs.cmu.edu) wrote:
>: In article <CKK7K...@aston.ac.uk>,
>: Mark Evans <eva...@mb48026.aston.ac.uk> wrote:
>: #Median is a very poor average when wide disparity exists between the
>: #highest and lowest.
>
>: When there are a few very high and very low observations, the
>: median is the preferred average.
>
>A most odd idea.
Hmm. Let's see. John Tukey's book _Exploratory Data Analysis_ (as well
as *every* other statistic book I have ever seen including the 15 on my
office shelves) discusses the obvious effects of extreme values on
measures of centrla tendency. In the event of a skewed distribution,
such as income (Thurow, 1984 ,for want of a better citation), the mean,
median, and mode diverge. For the time being, let's presume that income
is skewed to the right (i.e., that there are disproportionally too many
people making high incomes). Then the mean will be pulled to the right,
and will not represent the "middle" as well as the median.
If Ms. Garvin meant that there were as many high and low observations in
the income data, then one might as well use a mean. However, if the
distribution is skewed, a median is an appropriate measure of central
tendency.
BTW -- "average" is *always* the wrong word to use, Mr. Evans, because it
carries, by conventional use, the idea of a MEAN, rather than a selection
of possible measures of central tendency.
(discussion of how to calculate median deleted)
>It appears highly likely that the lowest income is zero!
This is an assumption. While it is true that, in general, the minimum
income in a society is presumably zero, it is not necessarily the case
for this data sample. It may have excluded unemployed people, for
example. If so, then the minimum value is most assuredly *NOT* zero.
Beware of assumptions, sometimes they're not true.
>: #I suspect that either mode or arithmetic mean would be better
averages.
>
>: Argue with the statisticians at the Census Bureau. I doubt that
>: they'll be any more impressed with your reasoning than I am,
>: though.
If indeed income is skewed, as suggestee by various an sundry econometric
studies, then the mean and mode are wholly inappropriate measures of
central tendency.
>: #With something which follow a complex distribution histograms are of
>: #much more use than any average figures.
>
>: You don't know much about statistics, do you?
>
>It appear to be either you do not know what you are talking about.
Hmm. A number, in and of itself, can not convey adequately the
distribution. If you give me a mean, I'll probably ask for the
coeeficents of skew and the standard deviation, to better understand the
meaning of the statistic. For medians, one might ask for quartile
spread. In general, it is not enough to give a single number; I agree
with Mr. Evans, a histogram (or medians plus quartile spreads) would
indeed be more helpful.
And I assure you, Ms. Garvin, I do know a great deal about statistics.
>Or the yanks are insisting on doing things differntly from the rest of
the
>world again.
It sounds to me like you need to go investigate the data on income in the
UK or US or any other industrialized country you like to discover what
many people have known for years: income is skewed. Once you know that,
you have two choices. You can insist that only "Yanks" would bother
using the correct measure of cetnral tendency. Or you can be a little
more careful throwing epithets around.
Have a nice day, children, and do try to play nicely next time...
Michael G. Kurilla
>
>
> According to the January 31, 1994 issue of _BusinessWeek_, white males
> make up 47% of the U.S. total labor force, but they hold 88.1% of the
> seats on U.S. corporations' boards of directors, and 91.7% of the
> corporate officer positions. Those kinds of jobs are usually at
> six-figure and sometimes seven-figure salaries, plus huge stock-option
> and benefit packages.
>
> The directors are elected by shareholders, so I don't see any clear
> discrimination there. I am concerned that institutional investors
> such as mutual funds and pension plans often vote their *huge*
> shareholdings for particular candidates for the boards, instead of
> abstaining as would be more appropriate.
>
Exactly, why would it be more appropriate for them to abstain.
If I own shares in a mutual fund would it not be in my best
interests to have my mutual fund manager exert some influence
in seeing that the companies he/she choose to invest in were
run in the most profitable manner.
> On the other hand, corporate officers (again, 91.7% white males) are
> hired by the boards of directors. Why are they not complying with the
> same equal opportunity and affirmative action laws that everyone else
> must comply with?
>
Would you kindly provide data to indicate the availability of
qualified nonwhite males is anywhere near your implied 53%.
Let's face it, the vast majority of the 47% white male labor
force are not qualified for those types of positions (in terms
of educational background and work experience). It seems that
you like to compare apples and oranges and find one rotten
compared to the other.
Since you like to throw out raw data, how would you deal with
the following:
From the most recent USNews&WorldReport (if you have issue with
the number then please correct me), 55% of college students are
female and 69% of awarded Masters degrees go to females.
Would a class action suit by male high school and college
students rectify this situation?
Finally would you conclude since the gender longevity gap
(difference in lifespan between males and females) is about 6.5
years in favor of females that there is discrimination against
men with regards to health care?
Mike K
Ted Frank
>
>In article <CKJtu...@murdoch.acc.virginia.edu>,
> Raymond Dwayne Smith <rd...@curry.edschool.Virginia.EDU> wrote:
>> bo...@eecs.nwu.edu writes:
>> >
>> > Median annual income of: Male, Female: difference; Delta
>> > (US$) (US$) (%) (%)
>> > High school dropouts 20,902 14,429 69.0 N/A
>> > High school graduates 26,653 18,318 68.7 -0.3
>> > College dropouts 31,734 22,227 70.0 1.3
>> > College graduates 39,238 28,017 71.4 1.4
>> > College postgraduates 49,304 33,750 68.5 -2.9
>>
>> The average female graduating GPA is a whole tenth of a point higher than
>> the average male's, yet women still make so much less.
Women have different majors than men. Too, several hundred years of
overt discrimination aren't going to disappear overnight; women college
graduates in the workforce probably a median age ten or fifteen years
below than of male college graduates.
The Chicago Tribune recently complained about the low pay that
African-American Ph.D.'s get. They ignored the fact that
the majority of African-American Ph.D.'s are in education, and only
a handful were in the sciences.
>On the other hand, corporate officers (again, 91.7% white males) are
>hired by the boards of directors. Why are they not complying with the
>same equal opportunity and affirmative action laws that everyone else
>must comply with?
Do you have evidence that they're not?
>Could a class-action lawsuit be used to rectify this situation?
Against whom? By whom?
--
ted frank | "But what DOES have a place on alt.tv.snl? 'Hey, remember
the u of c | when it was good?' 'This week's episode sure sucked.' 'Boy,
law school | Update isn't even funny anymore, now that Nealon's doing it.'
kibo#=0.5 | Must get kinda boring after a while..." -- Andy Perry
Joe Barber
>Nope what they actually state is that the highest paied women in each catagory earns
>between 68.5 and 71.4 percent of the highest payed man in the same catagory.
>That is what MEDIAN means.
Unfortunately, this has ABSOLUTELY nothing to do with the definition of
a median. As other contributors have pointed out, the median of a
variable is the value at which 50% of the observations have a higher value
and 50% have a lower one. You seem to believe it is the value for the
observation where 0% have a higher value. Wrong! Wrong! Wrong!
The next article on the subject is a mild flame by Mr. Evans based on
this nonsense. He concludes with an insult to the "yank" approach.
In article <CKM25...@aston.ac.uk> eva...@mb48026.aston.ac.uk (Mark Evans) writes:
>Susan Garvin (gar...@cs.cmu.edu) wrote:
>: In article <CKK7K...@aston.ac.uk>,
>: Mark Evans <eva...@mb48026.aston.ac.uk> wrote:
Evans:
>: #Median is a very poor average when wide disparity exists between the
>: #highest and lowest.
>
Garvin:
>: When there are a few very high and very low observations, the
>: median is the preferred average.
>
Evans response:
>A most odd idea.
The odd idea is that you are maintaining your miscomprehension of the
definition of a median. The median is a *statistic* (not an average as
Ms. Garvin states) that is of use when the distribution of a variable is
not normal. (For a normal distribution, the median should equal the mean
with a continuous distribution and enough observations.) The median is
*guaranteed* not to be affected by outliers as you seem to suggest.
Evans:
>: #It is calculated by taking the value in between the highest and lowest
>: #readings.
Wrongo! see above.
Garvin:
>: The median is the value such that half the observations are greater
>: and half are less. (That's not the same thing.)
True
Evans:
>: #Mostlikely what you are showing half the annual income of the highest
>: #earner in each catagory.
>
Garvin:
>: Without more evidence, there's little reason to believe that.
Evans in response:
>It appears highly likely that the lowest income is zero!
Another "fact" growing out of his definition of median.
Evans:
>: #I suspect that either mode or arithmetic mean would be better averages.
Mode is not an average! Mode is the single value shared by more obser-
vations than any other. The most common single value of income is
0$ exactly. ==> 0$ is the mode.
Garvin:
>: Argue with the statisticians at the Census Bureau. I doubt that
>: they'll be any more impressed with your reasoning than I am,
>: though.
Agreed.
Evans:
>: #With something which follow a complex distribution histograms are of
>: #much more use than any average figures.
This is certainly obvious but irrelevant. Distributing raw data would
be of much more use than your complex distribution histogram, but the
whole point of statistics is to distill large amounts of data into human
understandable form. The degree of simplification is a decision made by
the presenter in light of his audience. Apparently, no amount of
simplification would be sufficient to instill any degree of insight on
your part.
Garvin:
>: You don't know much about statistics, do you?
Another obvious point but well taken.
Evans in response:
>It appear to be either you do not know what you are talking about.
>
>Or the yanks are insisting on doing things differntly from the rest of the
>world again.
I always thought the British schools, taking LSE as my primary reference
point but including others as well, were a little light on the rigor.
Your comments, in light of your overwhelming ignorance, put the problems
with British education in a whole new perspective. How can anything but
drivel come out of a system in which people are trained to press the keys
on a computer to express their opinions, but cannot be trained to have
any opinions worth expressing.
As a disclaimer, obviously there are many well educated Brits who don't
put two and two together and come up with twenty two. But I fear their
voices may be drowned out by the rest of the society who insist on acting
like twits as Mr. Evans has chosen to.
T. Scott Thompson
sci.stat.math.
eva...@mb48026.aston.ac.uk (Mark Evans) writes:
>Susan Garvin (gar...@cs.cmu.edu) wrote:
>: In article <CKK7K...@aston.ac.uk>,
>: Mark Evans <eva...@mb48026.aston.ac.uk> wrote:
>: #Median is a very poor average when wide disparity exists between the
>: #highest and lowest.
>: When there are a few very high and very low observations, the
>: median is the preferred average.
>A most odd idea.
On the contrary. The robustness properties of the median are
well-established. The median is known to be highly insensitive to
"wide disparities between the highest and lowest" observed values. See
Peter Huber's "Robust Statistics" for a discussion.
>: #It is calculated by taking the value in between the highest and lowest
>: #readings.
>: The median is the value such that half the observations are greater
>: and half are less. (That's not the same thing.)
>: #Mostlikely what you are showing half the annual income of the highest
>: #earner in each catagory.
>: Without more evidence, there's little reason to believe that.
I have a dozen statistics books on my shelf that agree with Susan's
definition. Huber's volume mentioned above is one. Lindgren's
"Statistical Theory" is another, as is Serfling's "Approximation
Theorems of Mathematical Statistics", Snedecor and Cochran's
"Statistical Methods", and Freund's "Mathematical Statistics".
>It appears highly likely that the lowest income is zero!
>: #I suspect that either mode or arithmetic mean would be better averages.
>: Argue with the statisticians at the Census Bureau. I doubt that
>: they'll be any more impressed with your reasoning than I am,
>: though.
>: #With something which follow a complex distribution histograms are of
>: #much more use than any average figures.
That is true. Distributions always provide more information than
summary statistics.
>: You don't know much about statistics, do you?
>It appear to be either you do not know what you are talking about.
>Or the yanks are insisting on doing things differntly from the rest of the
>world again.
While I don't condone the name calling, I do believe that Susan is
correct here. And I do not believe that this is a question that has a
different answer on each side of the Atlantic. If you can give a
reference supporting your definition of the median as the midpoint of
the sample range (i.e the average of the highest and lowest observed
values) then I would be very interested in seeing it.
--
T. Scott Thompson email: thom...@atlas.socsci.umn.edu
Department of Economics phone: (612) 625-0119
University of Minnesota fax: (612) 624-0209
Mark O. Wilson
|This table is adapted from page five of the July 1993 issue of
|_The_Written_Word_, a literacy-education publication that draws
|statistics from the U.S. Department of Education's National Center
|for Education Statistics.
|Median annual income of: Male, Female: difference; Delta
| (US$) (US$) (%) (%)
|High school dropouts 20,902 14,429 69.0 N/A
|High school graduates 26,653 18,318 68.7 -0.3
|College dropouts 31,734 22,227 70.0 1.3
|College graduates 39,238 28,017 71.4 1.4
|College postgraduates 49,304 33,750 68.5 -2.9
|I find the negative figures very disturbing.
Why? Remember these are surveys.
Of course you now have to factor out the many differences between men and
women's work experiences.
--
Mob rule isn't any prettier merely because the mob calls itself a government
It ain't charity if you are using someone else's money.
Wilson's theory of relativity: If you go back far enough, we're all related.
Mark....@AtlantaGA.NCR.com
Mark O. Wilson
|James Salsman (bo...@eecs.nwu.edu) wrote:
This would be true if the intent of the table were to convey meaningful
information.
Brian K. Yoder
>In article <1994Feb2.0...@midway.uchicago.edu>,
> Ted Frank <th...@midway.uchicago.edu> wrote:
>>>> The average female graduating GPA is a whole tenth of a point higher than
>>>> the average male's, yet women still make so much less.
>>>On the other hand, corporate officers (again, 91.7% white males) are
>>>hired by the boards of directors. Why are they not complying with the
>>>same equal opportunity and affirmative action laws that everyone else
>>>must comply with?
>>Do you have evidence that they're not?
>
>I believe that the boards of directors of U.S. corporations are in
>violation of the law by refusing to correct the statistically biased
>and clearly unfair proportion of white males employed as officers.
I don't know whether that's the law, but if it is, it should be changed.
To force that sort of standard on people is racism pure and simple.
>
>I fully realize that such adjustment would most likely mean demotion
>of a great number of people, but I think such action is the very least
>society can do to correct an unfair discrimination that has gone on
>for far too long.
Discrimination by whom? Against whom? What about the whole generation
of white males who will never be allowed to get such jobs PURELY because
of their race and sex? Is that justice? Or is it revenge against people
on the grounds of their physiological similarities to others you don't like
and who you think were evildoers? If that's not racism I don't know what is.
Of course you have a right to express such racist sentiments, but please
don't do it in the name of opposition to racism. Join up with like-minded
people in the KKK or the Nation of Islam. They'll appreciate your views there.
>>>Could a class-action lawsuit be used to rectify this situation?
>>Against whom? By whom?
>Against U.S. corporations with unintegrated officers by the people of
>the United States of America.
Just what crime do you think they committed? This is really ridiculous.
Do you have an equal number of black and white friends? If not maybe we
should sue you too. Does it matter that you might not have met as many
blacks/whites? That not as many of one or the other group happened to
have appealing personalities? Not if we apply your standard.
>>The Chicago Tribune recently complained about the low pay that
>>African-American Ph.D.'s get. They ignored the fact that
>>the majority of African-American Ph.D.'s are in education, and only
>>a handful were in the sciences.
>
>Why are are there fewer African-Americans in science Ph.D. programs?
>
Maybe because fewer applied? There aren't many black CS undergrads
either, and if they are on average from less affluent backgrounds they
will likely want to get their BS and get a job at a higher rate than
whites. Am I to understand that you think that graduate admissions
everywhere in the country (including at all-black schools) are
controlled by some kind of racist conspiracy? Take it to alt-comspiracy.kook.
Susan Garvin
I just wanted to make a few comments.
Some people (usually those who lie with statistics) do
refer to the median and mode as "averages." I've seen
them referred to as such in intro stat texts for social
sciences.
I am aware that a distribution provides more information
than a statistic. My comment to the person with the
erroneous definition of the median was a general comment,
not one specifically addressing his last claim. I
was unclear.
Susan
Charles J Savoie
Mark Evans <eva...@mb48026.aston.ac.uk> wrote:
->
->Nope what they actually state is that the highest paied women in each catagory earns
->between 68.5 and 71.4 percent of the highest payed man in the same catagory.
->
->That is what MEDIAN means.
Mark, for the last time, READ A BOOK. You're making yourself look
extremely bad by declaring such ridiculous things, especially
after several people told you to get an introductory book on
statistics. If you don't have the time or the money, find a
*dictionary* and look up "median," "mean," and "mode." But please
put an end to this.
Charles
--
-- Why do they even bother continuing to call it *fast* food? --
Mark Evans
: In article <CKM25...@aston.ac.uk> Mark Evans,
If you actually look you will see that it was Susan Garvin who used the term!!!
: (discussion of how to calculate median deleted)
: >It appears highly likely that the lowest income is zero!
: This is an assumption. While it is true that, in general, the minimum
: income in a society is presumably zero, it is not necessarily the case
: for this data sample. It may have excluded unemployed people, for
Which makes a complete nonsense of the whole thing!
(even more so than it is already)
ami a silberman cis fac/staff
Exactly. I remember hearing that, for one particular year in
the early 80s, the average graduating economics major at Stanford was
making $400,000 per year. Of course John Elway (the quarterback) was
one of them...
Scott Susin
Roger Shouse <nels...@cicero.spc.uchicago.edu> wrote:
>I'm sure someone else has pointed out to you that there are no
>controls here for the fact that males and females tend not to
>enter the same professions--women tend to enter professions with
>lower average salaries. In addition, this chart does not control
>for years of work experience; again, men on average have more years
>of experience within their field. A more realistic comparison
>would be between male and female teachers/engineers/mathematicians/etc.
>with similar years of experience.
>
>As they stand, I see nothing disturbing about these figures at all.
The implicit assumption you (and lots of other posters in this thread)
are making is that these things are the result of unconstrained choices
made by women. That is, you seem to think that women simply prefer
occupations like child care, and are happy to accept the low pay.
Similarly, women must choose to be in charge of changing their
babies' diapers and thus spend less years at paid labor than men.
But what reason is there to think that these 'facts' about women's preferences
are true?
Even if gender salary differentials did go away when we adjusted for
tenure, education, occuption, etc., why would this be reassuring?
It wouldn't tell us whether women are disproportionately laid off,
whether women who take leave to bear a child are treated worse than
men who take medical leave, whether women bear a disproportionate
share of the burden at home.
If we want a single statistic that sums up the effects of all forms
of sex discrimination, I think that simple medians are pretty good. They're
probably better than the adjusted numbers that so many posters have
asked for.
In Solidarity,
Scott Susin
Stan Koper
>
> There are no Affirmative Action laws. As for equal opportunity laws,
Sure there are. If a company is a Federal contractor or
subcontractor, they are subject to the Equal Employment
*and* Affirmative Action obligations of:
Executive Order 11246, as amended (by Executive Order
11375), which requires Affirmative Action
on the basis of sex and race, if the contract or
subcontract is in excess of $10,000;
The Vietnam Era Veteran's Readjustment Assistance Act of
1974, as amended (38 U.S.C. 4212), which requires
affirmative action on behalf of Vietnam-era veterans and
special disabled veterans, if a contract/subcontract is
$10,000 or more; and
Section 503 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, as
amended, requiring affirmative action on behalf of
persons with disabilities, where a contract or
subcontract is $2,500 or more.
In addition, companies employing 50 or more persons *and*
having a contract or subcontract of $50,000 or more, are required
to develop written affirmative action programs. Programs
developed under the regulations implementing Executive Order
11246 may require a company to establish annual numeric goals
for women and/or minorities.
Stan Koper
sko...@netcom.com
This message brought to you by uqwk 1.7 and Yarn 0.55
Chris Auld
>In addition, it is sexist that jobs more interesting to women have
>lower average salaries.
Sexist on who's part? Wage determination in large, advanced economies
is extremely decentralized, it's not as if some group of nefarious old
chauvinist pigs comes out with a list of prescribed wages each year,
systemically paying less to ``jobs more interesting to women.''
Fundamentally, wages are determined by supply and demand, and it becomes
exceedingly difficult to argue that payments to those employed in
widespread and dispersed professions, such as secratarial positions, are
low due solely to discrimination on the part of employers.
Further, as has already been pointed out in this thread, a job has
many important characteristics other than money wages. Women tend
to accept jobs with lower probabilities of injury or death on the
job and less variation in product demand, and in so doing forgo
compensating wage differentials. Finally, women, other things
equal, have a greater tendency to exit the labour force for periods
of time, which makes them less attractive to even a non-discriminating
employer.
>Education is a good example. The technical
>but obscure fields that men find more interesting are not as important
>as the teaching of basic literacy skills to those without such skills.
>Salaries should reflect that importance.
This type of argument confuses total and marginal output. Whether
``the teaching of basic literary skills'' is as important or not
than the ``obscure fields that men find more interesting'' is
completely irrelevent, what matters is that value of the output of
the figurative `last' person hired. Just as water is cheaper than
diamonds, despite the fact that the total usefulness of water is
much greater than the total usefulness of diamonds, elementary
school teachers earn less than geophysicists, despite the fact that
the total value of elementary education is much greater than that
of geophysical research. Hence, salaries should *not* ``reflect
that importance,'' and misguided government attempts to rectify
this perceived problem will likely lead to massive resource
misallocation.
--
Chris Auld
Department of Economics
Queen's University at Kingston
au...@econ01.econ.queensu.ca
James Salsman
James Salsman
In article <2iro2j$a...@nntpd.lkg.dec.com>,
Carl G Heinzl <hei...@thestraw.lkg.dec.com> wrote:
>
> Making up for past wrongs by committing
> those very same wrongs against other people has got to be one
> of the most perverse way of attempting to (and failing miserably)
> at providing justice.
With that logic you would be opposed to jailing kidnappers.
:James Salsman
::Bovik Research
James Salsman
In article <byoderC...@netcom.com>,
Brian K. Yoder <byo...@netcom.com> wrote:
> [in response to:]
> > I believe that the boards of directors of U.S. corporations are in
> > violation of the law by refusing to correct the statistically biased
> > and clearly unfair proportion of white males employed as officers.
>
> Just what crime do you think they committed?
They have violated Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action laws.
> Do you have an equal number of black and white friends?
No; my friends are roughly proportional to the gender and racial
porportions that make up my community.
> If not maybe we should sue you too.
I don't hire my friends and paid them six- and seven-figure salaries.
> To force that sort of standard on people is racism pure and simple.
Wrong, and it isn't sexism either. When more than 90% of the
corporate officers are the same race and gender, that is racism
and sexism and it must be corrected.
:James Salsman
::Bovik Research
Ted Frank
>
>In article <byoderC...@netcom.com>,
> Brian K. Yoder <byo...@netcom.com> wrote:
>
>> [in response to:]
>> > I believe that the boards of directors of U.S. corporations are in
>> > violation of the law by refusing to correct the statistically biased
>> > and clearly unfair proportion of white males employed as officers.
>>
>> Just what crime do you think they committed?
>
>They have violated Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action laws.
There are no Affirmative Action laws. As for equal opportunity laws,
you have yet to demonstrate they have been violated. Show us the prima
facie case for violation, and well as the aggrieved party who has standing
to sue under the laws.
--
ted frank | "Women should not be allowed to serve on a jury..."
the u of c | -- Rush Limbaugh
law school | "There are different Klans, just like there are different
kibo#=0.5 | fraternities in college." -- David Duke
Ted Frank
>
>>In article <CKK6on...@cs.cmu.edu>,
> Susan Garvin <gar...@cs.cmu.edu> wrote:
>>
>> I have on hand an old study that attempted to explain the
>> differences in wages between white men and other groups.
>>
>> Force Attachment, and Earnings Differences Between Races
>> and Sexes," _The Journal of Human Resources 14, no.1,
>> (Winter 1979):8, 18.)
>>
>> I don't have any more recent studies on hand, as I said, but
>> I do remember that the unexplained portion of the difference
>> continues to be greater than 50% for both black and white
>> women.
I believe Scully did a study explaining away the difference for
women and men, but I haven't seen it.
>Wouldn't this be grounds for a class action lawsuit?
A fourteen-year-old study would not be grounds for a class
action lawsuit. A fourteen-day-old study would not be grounds
for a class action lawsuit. There's nothing in the equal opportunity
laws allowing for an "Everybody v. Everybody" suit.
James Buster
>In addition, it is sexist that jobs more interesting to women have
>but obscure fields that men find more interesting are not as important
>as the teaching of basic literacy skills to those without such skills.
>Salaries should reflect that importance.
Why? Salaries don't really reflect *importance*, per se, but rather reflect
*value*. I could find *dozens* of people with, say, CS degrees who could easily
teach basic mathematics or literacy skills. They don't need special "teaching"
credentials. The basic skills are easy to learn and easy to teach. People with
such skills have little *value*, in that they are easily replaced. On the other
hand, if you want an expert in "inference aggregation in database management
systems", you had better just pay up because there aren't very many.
--
James Buster
bit...@netcom.com
James Salsman
In article <1994Feb2.2...@virginia.edu>,
Michael G. Kurilla <mg...@Virginia.EDU> wrote:
>
> bo...@eecs.nwu.edu writes:
> >
> > According to the January 31, 1994 issue of _BusinessWeek_, white males
> > make up 47% of the U.S. total labor force, but they hold 88.1% of the
> > seats on U.S. corporations' boards of directors, and 91.7% of the
> > corporate officer positions. Those kinds of jobs are usually at
> > six-figure and sometimes seven-figure salaries, plus huge stock-option
> > and benefit packages.
> >
> > The directors are elected by shareholders, so I don't see any clear
> > discrimination there. I am concerned that institutional investors
> > such as mutual funds and pension plans often vote their *huge*
> > shareholdings for particular candidates for the boards, instead of
> > abstaining as would be more appropriate.
>
> Exactly, why would it be more appropriate for them to abstain.
> If I own shares in a mutual fund would it not be in my best
> interests to have my mutual fund manager exert some influence
> in seeing that the companies he/she choose to invest in were
> run in the most profitable manner.
...unless such a manner is in violation of the law.
:James Salsman
::Bovik Research
Robert Vienneau
Economists of the first rank have rejected this claim. Here's four:
Thorstein Veblen, John Maynard Keynes, Nikolas Kaldor, and Piero
Sraffa. Even first rate Neoclassicals have known of serious problems
with his claim, e.g. Alfred Marshall, Knut Wicksell, Paul Samuelson,
and Frank Hahn.
>...Hence, salaries should *not* ``reflect
>that importance,'' and misguided government attempts to rectify
>this perceived problem will likely lead to massive resource
>misallocation.
Arguments for reactionary politics almost always fall into a few
rhetorical forms, whatever the context. This suggests they need not
be taken seriously.
What *are* they teaching these days in American (?) universities?
Robert Vienneau
--
The opinions expressed are not necessarily those of the University of
North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the Campus Office for Information
Technology, or the Experimental Bulletin Board Service.
internet: laUNChpad.unc.edu or 152.2.22.80
Scott Susin
Michael G. Kurilla <mg...@Virginia.EDU> wrote:
>>
>> The implicit assumption you (and lots of other posters in this thread)
>> are making is that these things are the result of unconstrained choices
>> made by women. That is, you seem to think that women simply prefer
>> occupations like child care, and are happy to accept the low pay.
>> Similarly, women must choose to be in charge of changing their
>> babies' diapers and thus spend less years at paid labor than men.
>>
>
>between men and women are due to employers valuing the
>productivity of men and women differently that is being
>questioned based on the data presented.
But I'm not worried about only employment discrimination. I'm also
worried about discrimination in education, government spending, and
in family life, for example. I'd like a number that sums up all
these effects: like the simple medians presented.
>The point is that until you can demonstrate that men and women
>as composite groups are identical (or eliminate the group
>differences statistically), you can't draw conclusions about
>one wage differentials.
But most of the reason that women aren't identical is that there's
discrimination! For example, if female firefighters are routinely
subject to harassment on the job, few women will choose to be
firefighters. What sense, then, does it make to adjust for
occupation, or the applicant pool?
In order to measure overall patterns of discrimination, it makes no
sense to adjust for choice variables (like tenure, occupation, education).
The choices people make about, say, how much education to get are
affected by discrimination.
< deletions >
>The problem I have with the above statement is the implied
>notion that any difference that arises between two groups must
>be due to discrimination of one group. Different groups of
>people will make different choices and that could result in
>gross differences without any inherent discrimination.
There's not much evidence beyond casual empiricism about the
different preferences of men and women. In the face of this,
my working hypothesis is that women and men have pretty much the
same preferences for employment. So I conclude that a public
policy response is needed if outcomes differ as much as they do.
Faced with the same lack of evidence, you make the opposite assumption
and draw the opposite conclusion. Historically, exclusion has
often been justified on the basis that women didn't really want
to be (doctors, firefighters, whatever). But when opportunities
have opened up, it turned out that women _did_ want to practice
these professions. Given this history, shouldn't we err on the
side of my assumption, rather than yours?
In Solidarity,
Scott Susin
Brian K. Yoder
No you wouldn't! Punishing a person who kidnapped someone is one thing,
Bnishing someone who LOOKS LIKE the kidnapper or is related to the
kidnapper is what you are calling for. It's not justice you are
calling for, it is racism.
--Brian
puu
Michael G. Kurilla
>
> The implicit assumption you (and lots of other posters in this thread)
> are making is that these things are the result of unconstrained choices
> made by women. That is, you seem to think that women simply prefer
> occupations like child care, and are happy to accept the low pay.
> Similarly, women must choose to be in charge of changing their
> babies' diapers and thus spend less years at paid labor than men.
>
Not really. It is the conclusion that salary differences
between men and women are due to employers valuing the
productivity of men and women differently that is being
questioned based on the data presented.
> But what reason is there to think that these 'facts' about women's preferences
> are true?
The point is that until you can demonstrate that men and women
as composite groups are identical (or eliminate the group
differences statistically), you can't draw conclusions about
one wage differentials.
>
> Even if gender salary differentials did go away when we adjusted for
> tenure, education, occuption, etc., why would this be reassuring?
> It wouldn't tell us whether women are disproportionately laid off,
> whether women who take leave to bear a child are treated worse than
> men who take medical leave, whether women bear a disproportionate
> share of the burden at home.
>
It's not a question of being ressaured. It's a question of
where to look to for the source of the differential. If you
adjust for all of the above that you mention and the
differential goes away, then I would conclude that employers in
fact do not discriminate on the basis of sex. Forcing
employers to make up for what you perceive as a difference then
would imply preferential treatment of women in terms of
salary. Since it's the assumed preferential treatment that you
are objecting to, it doesn't make sense to take this approach.
In addition, by focussing on that aspect, you are missing
in fact, the true underlying reason for the differential in the
first place.
By way of comparison take an example of university admissions.
You may look at the numbers and say that women are less than
50% of the matriculating class. Your solution may be to just
admit more women. However if in fact the acceptance rate of
males and females is the same then I would argue that the
university is treating male and female applicants equal and the
lower % of women is due to lower numbers of female applicants.
Instead of taking a higher % of women which could result in
lowering admission standards, the obvious approach is to try and
increase the available female applicant pool. Thus, the
university may have to examine as to why it doesn't attract
females in numbers equal to males. In addition, the university
may find that factors beyond their control (like what students
do in high school) may be having more influence on the
available applciant pool.
In fact, if you want to see gross distortions of unadjusted
numbers, it is quite easy to create a hypothetical university
where each individual school within the university accepts
females at a higher admission rate than men, but because of
size differences in applicant pools between men and women, the
overall % of female acceptances is lower than males for the
entire university.
> If we want a single statistic that sums up the effects of all forms
> of sex discrimination, I think that simple medians are pretty good. They're
> probably better than the adjusted numbers that so many posters have
> asked for.
>
The problem I have with the above statement is the implied
notion that any difference that arises between two groups must
be due to discrimination of one group. Different groups of
people will make different choices and that could result in
gross differences without any inherent discrimination.
Equal opportunity does not necessarily result in equal
outcomes, nor should we force the outcomes to be equal.
Mike K
Michael G. Kurilla
>
> In article <byoderC...@netcom.com>,
> Brian K. Yoder <byo...@netcom.com> wrote:
>
> > [in response to:]
> > > I believe that the boards of directors of U.S. corporations are in
> > > violation of the law by refusing to correct the statistically biased
> > > and clearly unfair proportion of white males employed as officers.
> >
> > Just what crime do you think they committed?
>
> They have violated Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action laws.
>
> > Do you have an equal number of black and white friends?
>
> No; my friends are roughly proportional to the gender and racial
> porportions that make up my community.
>
Except that you have defined the `community' as the whole
country which is where the statistics come from. In terms of
equal opportunity let's supposed that they were violated, since
the corporate positions yu are talking about require decades of
work experience, the lost opportunity was lost 30 or more years
ago.
In terms of your `holier than thou,' attitude with regards to
your friends, I suppose that you would like to see laws to
force people what friends they will have and that a lack of
meeting the friend quota will imply racism and sexism.
> > If not maybe we should sue you too.
>
> I don't hire my friends and paid them six- and seven-figure salaries.
>
> > To force that sort of standard on people is racism pure and simple.
>
> Wrong, and it isn't sexism either. When more than 90% of the
> corporate officers are the same race and gender, that is racism
> and sexism and it must be corrected.
>
And what about nursing where about 97% of the labor force is
female. Is that sexism? How about the NFL and NBA, is that
racism? I'm sure you feel that there is sexism in politics as
well in spite of the fact that more women than men typically
vote.
Mike K
Joe Barber
Everyone has a different set of preferences. Even identical twins.
These preferences are shaped by all of life's experiences, including
which society one is born into. Just because everyone is an individual
and interprets the signals that come from their environment differently
is no argument to drum identical preferences into everyone. If I chose
economics over social work doesn't necessarily mean that I prefer
economics or that it was an easier degree to get. It means that I would
prefer to work harder and make more money than would be the case if I
pursued a social work degree. (Don't flame me because I said economics is
more difficult than social work. For me, that is the case.)
Is it because I am a male that I have those preferences? It doesn't
matter. Would I be better off if I had different preferences? Being
a moral relativist, I couldn't say so. Are my preferences superior to
those of one who chose social work? Of course not. You cannot say
someone has less utility because they have different preferences. No
matter whence those preferences arise. Even if they arise from society.
Rather than ask why classes of people have different preferences (or
even if they have different preferences which is obvious though Scott
asks this as well) we should ask whether people have the same *marginal*
utility. I'm not just talking about marginal utility of income or
consumption, but about all the factors in life. Measurable and
unmeasurable. If a class of people choose to become priests are they
worse off because their income is lower?
The point is: Is there equality of opportunity? If a girl was born
whose only goal was to be a multimillionaire, could she achieve it?
Since we don't know the preferences of the people behind the statistics,
we can't say if this is true or not. This must be looked at on a case
by case basis.
>Faced with the same lack of evidence, you make the opposite assumption
>and draw the opposite conclusion. Historically, exclusion has
>often been justified on the basis that women didn't really want
>to be (doctors, firefighters, whatever). But when opportunities
>have opened up, it turned out that women _did_ want to practice
>these professions. Given this history, shouldn't we err on the
>side of my assumption, rather than yours?
>
You completely ignore the fact that there is one difference in opportunity
set that no one can do anything about. And that is child bearing. You
could make an argument that no one can be fulfilled without bearing
themselves a child. This would mean that despite all the financial
achievements men have made throughout the eons, they could only gain a
fraction of the satisfaction that women have achieved. This would make
your argument stand on its head. Men only stay at work gaining experience
on the job because they cannot take time off and gain the spiritual
fulfillment that comes from passing an item the size of a watermelon
through a delicate and small orifice.
>In Solidarity,
>
With whom?
>Scott Susin
James Salsman
In article <2ive4f$d...@agate.berkeley.edu>,
Scott Susin <ssu...@econ.Berkeley.EDU> wrote:
>
> In article <1994Feb3.2...@midway.uchicago.edu>,
> Roger Shouse <nels...@cicero.spc.uchicago.edu> wrote:
> >
> >I'm sure someone else has pointed out to you that there are no
> >controls here for the fact that males and females tend not to
>
> The implicit assumption you (and lots of other posters in this thread)
> are making is that these things are the result of unconstrained choices
> made by women. That is, you seem to think that women simply prefer
> occupations like child care, and are happy to accept the low pay.
> Similarly, women must choose to be in charge of changing their
> babies' diapers and thus spend less years at paid labor than men.
Since women with children have a greater economic need than
individuals, they are even more disadvantaged by traditional wage
differences than the simple statistics can show.
> Even if gender salary differentials did go away when we adjusted for
> tenure, education, occuption, etc., why would this be reassuring?
> It wouldn't tell us whether women are disproportionately laid off,
> whether women who take leave to bear a child are treated worse than
> men who take medical leave, whether women bear a disproportionate
> share of the burden at home.
In addition, it is sexist that jobs more interesting to women have
lower average salaries. Education is a good example. The technical
but obscure fields that men find more interesting are not as important
as the teaching of basic literacy skills to those without such skills.
Salaries should reflect that importance.
There is an article that I think is very misleading article in the
February 7th _U.S._News_and_World_Report_. I talks about how women
are [finally] making inroads into advanced degrees, but completly
ignores the facts that we have been discussing -- women with advanced
degrees make much less in proportion to men than they do in any other
educational category. The article closes with the observation that
Congress should not fall for Gender Equity in Education. I think at
this point that we have equity in education, but we desparatly need
Gender Equity in Employment.
:James Salsman
::Bovik Research
Michael G. Kurilla
>
> But I'm not worried about only employment discrimination. I'm also
> worried about discrimination in education, government spending, and
> in family life, for example. I'd like a number that sums up all
> these effects: like the simple medians presented.
>
lost in the process of distilling down to that one number.
>
> >The point is that until you can demonstrate that men and women
> >as composite groups are identical (or eliminate the group
> >differences statistically), you can't draw conclusions about
> >one wage differentials.
>
> But most of the reason that women aren't identical is that there's
> discrimination! For example, if female firefighters are routinely
> subject to harassment on the job, few women will choose to be
> firefighters. What sense, then, does it make to adjust for
> occupation, or the applicant pool?
>
It makes sense because you are addresing two different issues
with that one statement. If women don't want to become
firefighters because of harrassment, that is a very different
issue than the salary they receive for being firefighters.
> In order to measure overall patterns of discrimination, it makes no
> sense to adjust for choice variables (like tenure, occupation, education).
> The choices people make about, say, how much education to get are
> affected by discrimination.
>
It does make sense. The salaries people earn indicate the
value employers place on the productivity of those workers.
Discrimination in terms of educational opportunity is an
entirely different issue.
> < deletions >
>
> >The problem I have with the above statement is the implied
> >notion that any difference that arises between two groups must
> >be due to discrimination of one group. Different groups of
> >people will make different choices and that could result in
> >gross differences without any inherent discrimination.
>
> There's not much evidence beyond casual empiricism about the
> different preferences of men and women. In the face of this,
> my working hypothesis is that women and men have pretty much the
> same preferences for employment. So I conclude that a public
> policy response is needed if outcomes differ as much as they do.
>
I would say that you need to present evidence that work
preferences are equal, if you are going to claim that all
differences in outcome result solely from discrimination. You
seem to want to force identical outcomes on the population
without regard for individuals choices.
> Faced with the same lack of evidence, you make the opposite assumption
> and draw the opposite conclusion. Historically, exclusion has
> often been justified on the basis that women didn't really want
> to be (doctors, firefighters, whatever). But when opportunities
> have opened up, it turned out that women _did_ want to practice
> these professions. Given this history, shouldn't we err on the
> side of my assumption, rather than yours?
>
Let's face it, women outlive men by about 6.5 years. I guess
that is evidence of discrimination against men by the health
care system. I could argue that until there are as many men in
their eighties as women, we need to change public policy
in terms of elderly health care, but instead I acknowledge that
people who make it to their eighties are there mainly due to factors
going back over decades and not the result of current policies.
There are more women in college than men and more women getting
masters degrees. The % of women getting PhDs is closing in on
50%. I don't see overall exclusion in the educational arena, but you
are finding more subtle forms of discrimintion in order to
justify more social engineering in favor of women. What will
it take to stop?
Mike K
Scott Susin
Joe Barber <papa...@andosrv.sas.upenn.edu> wrote:
>In article <2j183t$7...@agate.berkeley.edu> ssu...@econ.Berkeley.EDU (Scott Susin) writes:
>Everyone has a different set of preferences. Even identical twins.
>These preferences are shaped by all of life's experiences, including
>which society one is born into. Just because everyone is an individual
>and interprets the signals that come from their environment differently
>is no argument to drum identical preferences into everyone. If I chose
>economics over social work doesn't necessarily mean that I prefer
>economics or that it was an easier degree to get. It means that I would
>prefer to work harder and make more money than would be the case if I
>pursued a social work degree. (Don't flame me because I said economics is
>more difficult than social work. For me, that is the case.)
No doubt everyone has different preferences. But you (and lots of others
in this thread) have asserted that male-female wage differentials
can be explained by systematic differences in preferences. In
the passage above, you imply that women systematically prefer nurturing
professions. Chris Auld suggests that women are more risk averse than
men and thus avoid dangerous but high paying jobs.
But given that there aren't many women coal miners and a lot of female
social workers, why do you think this is evidence for different
preferences? I see this as evidence for sex discrimination.
It wouldn't be hard do dig up lots of arguments, from 1950 or so, that
women don't really want to be doctors or soldiers, and wouldn't apply
even if opportunities were open. Since this argument has been repeatedly
proved false, it would take a lot of evidence to convince me that
there are some instances where it's true. Since I'm not aware of
any evidence for the kind of systematic gender differences in preferences
that you point to, I don't believe your argument.
>Is it because I am a male that I have those preferences? It doesn't
>matter....
It sure matters if you're trying to explain why women earn so much less!
>You completely ignore the fact that there is one difference in opportunity
>set that no one can do anything about. And that is child bearing. You
Bearing a child takes a few months. It's raising a child that's time-
consuming. I can certainly think of lots of policies that would
make it easier to combine work with child-rearing. Even if this
was the only reason women earn less, I'd say that there's a strong
case for government intervention. This is hardly controversial,
public education being a good example. But the numbers show
that we're not doing a good enough job at easing women's child-care
burden.
>>In Solidarity,
>>
>With whom?
All that is just and right.
>
>>Scott Susin
Scott Susin
>It makes sense because you are addresing two different issues
>with that one statement. If women don't want to become
>firefighters because of harrassment, that is a very different
>issue than the salary they receive for being firefighters.
But they're both important issues. Adjusting for occupation
ignores the kind of discrimination that I'd guess is more
prevalent.
>
>> In order to measure overall patterns of discrimination, it makes no
>> sense to adjust for choice variables (like tenure, occupation, education).
>> The choices people make about, say, how much education to get are
>> affected by discrimination.
>>
>
>It does make sense. The salaries people earn indicate the
>value employers place on the productivity of those workers.
>Discrimination in terms of educational opportunity is an
>entirely different issue.
Not necessarily. If women doctors face barriers that men don't
then fewer women will get medical degrees. This could be
true even if medical schools didn't discriminate at all.
>I would say that you need to present evidence that work
>preferences are equal, if you are going to claim that all
>differences in outcome result solely from discrimination. You
>seem to want to force identical outcomes on the population
>without regard for individuals choices.
I think that the history of women taking advantage of different
opportunities as they've opened up is strong enough evidence.
How can you accuse me of wanting to force identical outcomes,
when I haven't proposed any remedies at all!
In Solidarity,
Scott Susin
Van Thienen Erik
: In article <CKs7E...@eecs.nwu.edu> bo...@eecs.nwu.edu (James Salsman) writes:
: >In addition, it is sexist that jobs more interesting to women have
: >lower average salaries.
: Sexist on who's part? Wage determination in large, advanced economies
: is extremely decentralized, it's not as if some group of nefarious old
: chauvinist pigs comes out with a list of prescribed wages each year,
: systemically paying less to ``jobs more interesting to women.''
Of course not. But a lot of old chauvinist pigs who each individually
still prefer to live in the stone age, add up. It's a cultural bias
that influences those supposedly "invisible hands" of market forces.
: Fundamentally, wages are determined by supply and demand, and it becomes
: exceedingly difficult to argue that payments to those employed in
: widespread and dispersed professions, such as secratarial positions, are
: low due solely to discrimination on the part of employers.
Supply and demand? In an ideal world that runs according to economists'
textbooks, maybe ...
Discrimination is real. It's out there. It has been pointed out many times,
by many methods. Because it's not in *your* text books, doesn't mean
it doesn't exist. You know, not all scientists consider economics an
exact science ... :^>
: Further, as has already been pointed out in this thread, a job has
: many important characteristics other than money wages. Women tend
: to accept jobs with lower probabilities of injury or death on the
: job and less variation in product demand, and in so doing forgo
: compensating wage differentials. Finally, women, other things
: equal, have a greater tendency to exit the labour force for periods
: of time, which makes them less attractive to even a non-discriminating
: employer.
Who says this? Is this scientifically proven? Quote sources please.
Or else this is just a list of rationalisations to discriminate
women.
: >Education is a good example. The technical
: >but obscure fields that men find more interesting are not as important
: >as the teaching of basic literacy skills to those without such skills.
: >Salaries should reflect that importance.
: This type of argument confuses total and marginal output. Whether
: ``the teaching of basic literary skills'' is as important or not
: than the ``obscure fields that men find more interesting'' is
: completely irrelevent, what matters is that value of the output of
: the figurative `last' person hired. Just as water is cheaper than
: diamonds, despite the fact that the total usefulness of water is
: much greater than the total usefulness of diamonds, elementary
: school teachers earn less than geophysicists, despite the fact that
: the total value of elementary education is much greater than that
: of geophysical research. Hence, salaries should *not* ``reflect
: that importance,'' and misguided government attempts to rectify
: this perceived problem will likely lead to massive resource
: misallocation.
Here we have two different world views. Both are based on ideological
beliefs, but they have *nothing* to do with science. I was raised
to believe that salaries *should* reflect that importance. And
a governement that attempts to accomplish this, is just doing it's
bloody job : taking care that our societies don't degenerate back
to the Victorian times, and protecting us from Brazilian situations.
The kind of monetarist, laissez-faire economic policies pushed
by Reagan, Thatcher and their ilk, I consider as glaring examples
of "massive resource misallocation". Luckily, most countries are
coming back to their senses.
End of rant.
Erik Van Thienen
: Chris Auld
--
================================================================
Erik Van Thienen evt...@vub.ac.be
B-3000 Leuven lev...@well.sf.ca.us
Belgium Tel. : ++-32-16-22.56.39
================================================================
-My other .sig is written by Oscar Wilde-
Chris Auld
>Discrimination is real. It's out there. It has been pointed out many times,
>by many methods. Because it's not in *your* text books, doesn't mean
>it doesn't exist. You know, not all scientists consider economics an
>exact science ... :^>
Discrimination is a subject that has been much studied by economists,
for your information it is ``in *my* text books.'' You might want to
pick up a copy of Becker's _The Economics of Discrimination_, Chicago,
1971. What I was trying to refute was the original poster's implication
that low pay in jobs traditionally held by women was some sort of giant,
sexist plot.
>Who says this? Is this scientifically proven? Quote sources please.
>Or else this is just a list of rationalisations to discriminate
>women.
See:
Filer, Randall, ``Male-Female Wage Differences: The Importance of
Compensating Differentials,'' _Industrial and Labor Relations Review_
(1985).
>Here we have two different world views. Both are based on ideological
>beliefs, but they have *nothing* to do with science.
Prices are not determined by total worth, that is simply a fact, and
about as scientific a one as economics can achieve. It has little
to do with ``ideological beliefs,'' as I can't think of a single
school of economics -- from the most die-hard Marxist to the most
adamant neoclassical -- who would have a problem with that statement.
> I was raised
>to believe that salaries *should* reflect that importance.
Were you also raised to believe that water should cost more than
diamonds? Who is to determine ``importance?'' Why do you think
the outcome of the system you propose would be better than the
market outcome? Why do you think elementary school teachers
should be paid more than rocket scientists, and what are you going
to do about the staggering unemployment rates amongst teachers
such a policy would cause?
> And
>a governement that attempts to accomplish this, is just doing it's
>bloody job : taking care that our societies don't degenerate back
>to the Victorian times, and protecting us from Brazilian situations.
>The kind of monetarist, laissez-faire economic policies pushed
>by Reagan, Thatcher and their ilk, I consider as glaring examples
>of "massive resource misallocation". Luckily, most countries are
>coming back to their senses.
I haven't a clue what the target of this little tirade is. No matter
what one's political leanings are, policies designed to pay people
according to the ``total worth'' of their output are simply misguided.
Radford Neal
>: ...Whether
>: ``the teaching of basic literary skills'' is as important or not
>: than the ``obscure fields that men find more interesting'' is
>: completely irrelevent, what matters is that value of the output of
>: the figurative `last' person hired... salaries should *not* ``reflect
>: that importance,'' and misguided government attempts to rectify
>: this perceived problem will likely lead to massive resource
>: misallocation.
>
>Here we have two different world views. Both are based on ideological
>beliefs, but they have *nothing* to do with science.
It's not a matter of ideology, or for that matter of science, but just
of common sense.
Consider a group of workers building a car. Some of them are highly
skilled mechanics who adjust the ignition system for optimal performance.
Some of them turn the nuts to put on the tires just before the car goes
out the door. If the highly skilled mechanics don't do their job, the
car sort of runs, but not very well. If the nut-turners don't do their
job the car won't go anywhere at all. Do the nut-turners deserve higher
pay?
Perhaps you might argue on ideological grounds that everyone should
get the same pay, but to argue as you do for pay based on "importance"
is either ill-defined, ridiculous, or an attempt to dress completely
subjective judgements in objective garb.
Radford Neal
Michael G. Kurilla
> No doubt everyone has different preferences.
However you seem to feel that those different preferences will
not result in different outcomes. By wanting one number to sum
it all up (median salary) you ignore the possibilty that
different preferences could result in individuals trying to
maximize other varaibles at the expense of salary.
Women do live longer than men, so I would think that retirement
plans would in fact be more important to them as a group.
> But you (and lots of others
> in this thread) have asserted that male-female wage differentials
> can be explained by systematic differences in preferences. In
> the passage above, you imply that women systematically prefer nurturing
> professions. Chris Auld suggests that women are more risk averse than
> men and thus avoid dangerous but high paying jobs.
>
I don't think anyone is trying to explain all the differential,
rather people are pointing out other sources rather than
everything being due to discrimination.
> But given that there aren't many women coal miners and a lot of female
> social workers, why do you think this is evidence for different
> preferences? I see this as evidence for sex discrimination.
>
So you feel that men are discriminated against in terms of
obtaining academic entry and job positions in the field of
social work?
> It wouldn't be hard do dig up lots of arguments, from 1950 or so, that
> women don't really want to be doctors or soldiers, and wouldn't apply
> even if opportunities were open. Since this argument has been repeatedly
> proved false, it would take a lot of evidence to convince me that
> there are some instances where it's true. Since I'm not aware of
> any evidence for the kind of systematic gender differences in preferences
> that you point to, I don't believe your argument.
>
Medicine is a good example to use. Desire for entry into
medicine is clearly there among females. The rise in
acceptance rate for females and the increasing % of women in
med schools is evidence for that. However as a profession
medicine is changing. I don't know whether women are
responsible for that, have apart in it, or will have been
unfortunate to entered the field at this time. More recent
grads are opting for work in HMOs and other similar
operations. Incomes for those docs are now and will continue
to be lower than more traditional private practice docs.
They (both men and women) are accepting lower salaries in
exchange for other benefits (less working hours, more
convenience, less administrative responsibilites, more secure
income stream, etc.). This will go on and so men's and women's
incomes will continue to be divergent for a long time (because
young male docs make up a smaller % of total male docs compared
to female docs and older docs make more). All of this without
any discrimination necessary.
> >Is it because I am a male that I have those preferences? It doesn't
> >matter....
>
> It sure matters if you're trying to explain why women earn so much less!
>
>
> >You completely ignore the fact that there is one difference in opportunity
> >set that no one can do anything about. And that is child bearing. You
>
> Bearing a child takes a few months. It's raising a child that's time-
> consuming. I can certainly think of lots of policies that would
> make it easier to combine work with child-rearing. Even if this
> was the only reason women earn less, I'd say that there's a strong
> case for government intervention. This is hardly controversial,
> public education being a good example. But the numbers show
> that we're not doing a good enough job at easing women's child-care
> burden.
Child rearing is an issue for both men and women. Women do
seem to dominate the daycare profession. Given the level of
concern about child abuse, I would find it hard to believe that
in the near future we could obtain a 50-50 split of male and
female child care. I think in many instances, public pressure
would make it nonviable (remember McMartin). Do you think men
are discriminated against in the daycare profession.
The alternative is to make it more economically rewarding for
those women in it. But look at the potential results of that.
Raising wages to daycare workers would make daycare more
expensive. At some point, the economic benefit of a second
working spouse would not be worth it (I saw something similar
in Calfornia during the late 70's and increases in gas prices;
people quit their jobs and took closer low paying ones because
the transportation costs were too high).
The only other way to go is to have government subsidies for
daycare (beyond the tax benefits we have now). So both spouses
taxes will go up in order to provide the revenue for the
government outlay. This doesn't sound very different from milk
price supports and I haven't figured out the benefits I get out
of that.
Mike K
James Salsman
In article <CKv6q...@cbnewsk.cb.att.com>,
joseph.r.moore <jr...@cbnewsk.cb.att.com> wrote:
>In article <CKM1y...@aston.ac.uk> eva...@mb48026.aston.ac.uk (Mark Evans) writes:
>>: |>
>>: |> Median annual income of: Male, Female: difference; Delta
>>: |> (US$) (US$) (%) (%)
>>: |> High school dropouts 20,902 14,429 69.0 N/A
>>: |> High school graduates 26,653 18,318 68.7 -0.3
>>: |> College dropouts 31,734 22,227 70.0 1.3
>>: |> College graduates 39,238 28,017 71.4 1.4
>>: |> College postgraduates 49,304 33,750 68.5 -2.9
>>: |>
>>: |> I find the negative figures very disturbing.
>
>Of course you do. You don't understand statistics. Let's look at the
>College graduates raw data.
>
> Male Female
> 0 0
> 0 0
> 25,000 0
> 28,000 10,000
> 32,000 28,017
> 39,238 39,238
> 41,000 42,500
> 42,500 45,000
> 42,600 51,000
> 45,000
> 48,200
There are just slightly more women than men. That "raw data" is
*very* misleading.
> I'm a college grad, no one asked me, nor did I give
> them my salary. They really don't know.
The statistics included in the table posted are from the U.S.
Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics,
which compiles statistics many ways, including the colation of census
and tax return data. You can contact the NCES at 800/424-1616 and
202/219-1611.
:James Salsman
::Bovik Research
Susan Garvin
I posted an earlier econometric analysis of the wage gap,
but it was universally ignored. I'll try a newer one.
The following table is from _The Economics of Women, Men, and
Work_, 2nd ed., by Francine Blau and Marianne Ferber, Prentice-Hall,
1993, p. 193.
"Table 7.2 Percentages of the Wage Gap between Women and Men
Explained by Differences in Characteristics
Characteristics Not High High College
School School Graduates
Graduates Graduates
Formal education[a] - 0.8 12.7
Experience[b] 13.9 22.2 22.6
Skilled trades[c] 12.9 - -
Gender composition 30.3 30.0 17.4
of occupation[d]
Other 2.4 7.1 12.8
characteristics[e]
Unexplained 40.5 39.9 34.5
Total 100.0 100.0 100.0
Wage Differential(%) 29.7 31.0 28.2
[a] Includes type of high school program, number of math, science,
and foreign langiage courses in high school, whether public or
private high school (high school and college graduates); highest
degree and field of study (college graduates)
[b] Includes number of years with current employer, years in
current occupation less years with current employer, years of
work experience less years in current occupation, whether
usually worked full-time during work years, length of time
between current and previous job.
[c] Whether in precision production, craft, or repair occupation.
[d] Includes percent of persons in occupation who are female.
[e] Includes marital status, type of geographical area, whether
covered by a union contract, size of firm, class of worker,
whether involuntarily left last job, race and Hispanic origin,
disability and health status, presence of children.
Source: U.S. Bureau of the Census, CPS, Series P-70, No. 10,
_Male-Female Differences in Work Experience, Occupation and
Earnings: 1984_ (1987)."
Also from Blau and Ferber (their source was the U.S. Dept.
of Educations's _Digest of Education Statistics: 1990_)
(to support the disputed claim about education):
In 1988, according to preliminary data, 52% of Bachelor's
degrees, 51.5% of Master's degrees, 35.2% of Ph.D.'s
and 35.7% of first professional degrees were awarded to
women.
Susan
Lois Patterson
>
>I believe that many U.S. corporate boards of directors are violating
>the civil rights of U.S. women and minorities because more than 91% of
>the officers of U.S. corporations are male whites (according to
>BusinessWeek magazine.)
>
>
[snip]>I believe that the most effective way to proceed at this point is to
>file Freedom of Information Act Requests with the U.S. Securities and
>Exchange commission in order to determine which corporations' boards
>of directors have been the worst and most flagrant in such violations.
>Corporations are required to disclose to the S.E.C. the makeup of
>their boards of directors.
>
>Then, a lawsuit would put it to a jury whether the corporations in
>question have indeed violated the civil rights of U.S. women and
>minorities. It may take several cases before a guilty verdict is
>returned, but such a verdict would set valuable precident.
>
Why would women (can't speak about minorities) be clamoring for
the opportunity to be corporate board directors? If they
are really interested, they can form their own corporations.
The corporate life, as presently structured, requires
extraordinary personal sacrifices. Many would argue that
it also requires rather elastic ethics. Perhaps the pursuit
of status simply does not drive women the same way it drives
men. Furthermore, maybe women are smart for not pursuing
this route. Fortune 500 companies are in decline, and they
will continue to decline. If one is trying desperately
to work their way up the ladder of one of these companies,
they may find themselves with a booby prize at the top.
Since directors are chosen by shareholder vote, how
exactly would you remedy this situation? Would you
prohibit people from voting for the director of their
choice?
One does not need a multimillion dollar compensation
package to achieve personal satisfaction. At any
rate, only a very few can achieve this. Why spend
so much time and energy on supposed inequities
in this field, when most people, whether man, woman,
minority, or majority, will never have any chance
at attaining this exalted position?
Lois Patterson
lp...@unixg.ubc.ca
Scott Susin
Michael G. Kurilla <mg...@Virginia.EDU> wrote:
>Are you trying to argue that women are being dissuaded from
>entering certain professions because they feel they won't get
>paid as much as men and instead are opting to go for
>traditional low wage jobs that have historically been
>predominantly female (teaching and daycare)?
Basically, yes. Suppose women think that they'll get paid less, be
passed over for promotion, face harassment, won't be hired. Then they're
unlikely to apply for the job, train for the job, or keep it very long
if they do get it. Nobody likes to beat their head up against a wall.
>Also since older physicians will earn more than young
>physicians, looking at male verses female doctors' incomes is
>really misleading and doesn't tell you anything about potential
>discrimination.
You're probably right that the figures should be adjusted for
age.
>The fact that you use evidence of different outcomes as a basis
>of proof for discrimination would seem to imply that you would
>not be satisfied with the results until the outcomes are
>identical since that is how you believe they would be without
>any discrmination.
It seems like you have in mind issues like whether there's discrimination
at a particular company. Here I'd agree with you that comparing median
salaries of men and women probably isn't a good procedure.
But for public policy issues like subsidized day care, family and
medical leave, and tax policy, medians are very relevant.
--
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Scott Susin "Time makes more converts than
Department of Economics Reason"
U.C. Berkeley Thomas Paine, _Common_Sense_
Tim Smith
board is elected by the shareholders. I seriously doubt that you would
be able to make any argument that how a shareholder votes can be a
violation of anyone's civil rights, so your suit would not get very
far.
--Tim Smith
Robert Vienneau
In article <CKvA5...@mach1.wlu.ca> dmcc...@mach1.wlu.ca
(doug mccready F) writes:
>...Yes, discrimination is possible but one must not forget that there
>are factors such as demand and supply which means that if one arbitrarily
>sets wages according to some measure of equivalent worth there will be major
>problems in some occupations because of that...
I happen to think political struggle can slowly affect income distribution,
although it's hard and takes persistence. If this is wrong, it's because
of secular forces that are much more basic than any nonsense about
Supply and Demand, forces that all economists of whatever stripe have
difficulty understanding.
>...Wages depend, not on total product but on marginal product and the
>value of that marginal product...
More likely, this is exactly backwards. What do you hold constant when
you define the marginal product of labor? The answer that makes the most
sense to me is interest rates. Thus, a very important aspect of
distribution must be known before one can calculate the value of the
marginal product of labor. When will economists trust their own logic?
>...You were raised to believe that salaries should reflect the input
>not the output and that kind of thinking will mislead any time...
I also think more insight into economics is found by focusing on
production than on utility.
>...This is pure tirade and has nothing to do with the rest of the
>postings - Chris' or the earlier one. Reagan and Thatcher are not what you
>think they are...
Chris Auld's post was in an authoritarian style obviously promoting
an ideological view. We leave the proof as an exercise to the reader.
To defend Chris' post as pure science or scholarship is to lessen ones
own credibility.
To bring up Chicago-school writings on discrimination, and insist this
has nothing to do with Reagan's policies is unbelievable. Rightists
who worship Reagan think Milton Friedman is on their side. This is not
an accident.
I agree the relationship between Neoclassical economics and politics
is not all that direct. But economists ought to give some thought why
the public perception among the right, at least in the U.S., is that
their political ideas are simply sound economics. (I cannot speak to
Canadian politics. Just when I thought I was getting a minimal
understanding of the political system in the land of my forefathers,
the major political parties self-destruct.)
I do not think questions about the public perception of economics
are mainstream versus radicals, us versus them issues. But mainstream
economists might make a little effort to not appear to be validating
Marx's screeds about "vulgar political economy" and "commodity
fetishism."
Rob Vienneau
Johnson
=)individuals, they are even more disadvantaged by traditional wage
=)differences than the simple statistics can show.
=)
Surely you're not saying that wages should be determined by need?
This has been discredited both in the failure of communist
economies, and the antiquated justification for paying men
more than women in many jobs because "they have families to
support." Please tell me that liberals are above stealing
arguments from conservatives after discrediting them
themselves. :-)
--
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| "Johnson" | Behind every absurdity there lies a basic truth. |
| joh...@wes.mot.com | Behind every basic truth there lies an absurdity. |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
Doug S. Caprette
Wasn't there a recent ruling to the effect that how the registered voters of
a comunity (Kansas City?) voted _was_ a violation of civil rights?
--
d...@gemini.gsfc.nasa.gov
| Regards, | Hughes STX | Code 926.9 GSFC |
| Doug Caprette | Lanham, Maryland | Greenbelt, MD 20771 |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"If necessity was the mother of invention then who was the daddy?
Probably impatience!" -- Joe Chilson
Judy McMillin
>In article <CKs7E...@eecs.nwu.edu> bo...@eecs.nwu.edu (James Salsman) writes:
>
>
>Fundamentally, wages are determined by supply and demand, and it becomes
>exceedingly difficult to argue that payments to those employed in
>widespread and dispersed professions, such as secratarial positions, are
>low due solely to discrimination on the part of employers.
>
Two points:
Women generally tend to work in fields the give
them flexibility to jump in and out of the job
market, secretarial and teaching happen to fall
in this category. Nursing, too. (those "traditional"
womens' jobs!)
Society happens to place less value on work that
can be done by women; there are myriad reasons
for this which have been discussed.
This does not exclude discrimination by employers,
but it is a possible answer as to why women are
often paid less than men.
>
[snip]
>Chris Auld
>Department of Economics
>Queen's University at Kingston
>au...@econ01.econ.queensu.ca
Many of us who have studied economics find that
that so-called science has been used by a male-
dominated system to rationalize exploitation and
discrimination of all sorts to further theier own
interests. I only took 12 hours of economics, but
that was enough to learn the value of that old
"all other things being equal" exception to
everything. In my opinion, since all other things
are rarely equal, the whole science is on pretty
rocky ground. Well, I guess this paragraph should
have been left out - it's really off the subject.
By the way, I REALLY loved economics when I was
studying - everybody should study it, no matter
what their major is. Personally, it was the first
time I was ever exposed to the kinds of information
used by business and government uses in making
their decisions -- and I was in my 40s!
Bronis Vidugiris
)
)I posted an earlier econometric analysis of the wage gap,
)but it was universally ignored. I'll try a newer one.
)
)The following table is from _The Economics of Women, Men, and
)Work_, 2nd ed., by Francine Blau and Marianne Ferber, Prentice-Hall,
)1993, p. 193.
)
)
)"Table 7.2 Percentages of the Wage Gap between Women and Men
)Explained by Differences in Characteristics
<stats omitted>
)Source: U.S. Bureau of the Census, CPS, Series P-70, No. 10,
)_Male-Female Differences in Work Experience, Occupation and
)Earnings: 1984_ (1987)."
Were Blau and Farber quoting the Census Bureau stats? They look
a little familiar :-). (I posted some results from that study
myself, though not the main conclusion as I don't really like some
of their analysis).
IMO the Census bureau uses some factors to 'explain' the
difference that I think are dubious, but doesn't include some others I'd
like to see.
In your earlier quotes, there wasn't enough information to tell what was
used and not used to attempt to 'explain' the gap.
I think that the wage gap between genders should best be comapred
to the wage gap between professions in terms of our understanding.
If there is an unexplainable gap in what different professions earn,
is this discrimination, or are there factors not being taken into
account?
One of the more interesting outcomes of the Census bureau study, IMO,
was the fact that there was a strong correlation between lower wages and
the 'percentage female' in a profession.
--
"The power of this battlestation is _insignificant_ when compared with
the power of the Farce." - D. Vader.
Caitlin Mackay Shaw
>In addition, it is sexist that jobs more interesting to women have
>lower average salaries. Education is a good example. The technical
>but obscure fields that men find more interesting are not as important
>as the teaching of basic literacy skills to those without such skills.
>Salaries should reflect that importance.
"[J]obs more interesting to women..."
Would somebody care to define these jobs and give an explanation for
this inherent "preference" (and while you're at it, prove that this
preference really does split down gender lines)?
Why, for example, do women "prefer"
educational careers as oppossed to, say, scientific ones?
-Caitlin
Math major
Part-time stablehand
Owner of technical and
non-nurturing academic interests
Michael G. Kurilla
> In article <1994Feb7.1...@Virginia.EDU>,
> Michael G. Kurilla <mg...@Virginia.EDU> wrote:
>
> >Are you trying to argue that women are being dissuaded from
> >entering certain professions because they feel they won't get
> >paid as much as men and instead are opting to go for
> >traditional low wage jobs that have historically been
> >predominantly female (teaching and daycare)?
>
> Basically, yes. Suppose women think that they'll get paid less, be
> passed over for promotion, face harassment, won't be hired. Then they're
> unlikely to apply for the job, train for the job, or keep it very long
> if they do get it. Nobody likes to beat their head up against a wall.
>
Except that the numbers seem to indicate otherwise. Rates of
medical school admissions for women has been steadily
increasing. You can argue about the slope of curve, but it's
been up consistently. The last two Surgeon Generals have been
women. After Clinton's win, I was struck most that his desire
for diversity in terms of posts seemed to be overly biased in
terms of lawyers and there were plenty of women there. Given
the age of many of the appointments, we talking about people
who went to law school over a decade ago. I assume the
situation is somewhat improved since then as well.
I do find it hard to believe that someone with the capability
to pursue a career requiring postgraduate education like law,
medicine, or business would decide it was not worth it and go
into daycare or elementary school teaching.
> >Also since older physicians will earn more than young
> >physicians, looking at male verses female doctors' incomes is
> >really misleading and doesn't tell you anything about potential
> >discrimination.
>
> You're probably right that the figures should be adjusted for
> age.
>
And area of specialization as well.
> >The fact that you use evidence of different outcomes as a basis
> >of proof for discrimination would seem to imply that you would
> >not be satisfied with the results until the outcomes are
> >identical since that is how you believe they would be without
> >any discrmination.
>
> It seems like you have in mind issues like whether there's discrimination
> at a particular company. Here I'd agree with you that comparing median
> salaries of men and women probably isn't a good procedure.
>
> But for public policy issues like subsidized day care, family and
> medical leave, and tax policy, medians are very relevant.
>
In those issues, I think median salaries are most
inappropriate. Those issues affect both men and women. The
problem is that median salary misses the other parameters that
enter into decision making about job opportunities. It's clear
that many problems with welfare reform are related to an
inability to quantify noncash benefits. Right now I'm sure
that alot of people are staying with jobs that they would
prefer to leave except that aspects like health insurance, etc.
lead them to stay.
Alot of those above issues are very relevant to the quality of
life of families (most of all your examples above relate to
children). Since raising the next generation of contributors
to social security should be of importance to everyone, I would
prefer to see these issues addressed in a forum that dealt with
parents and children instead of male verses female.
Mike K
James Salsman
The boards of directors hire the corporate officers, and that is where
the flagrant sexist and racist discrimination is worst. (Boards of
directors are 88.1% male whites; corporate officers are 91.7% male
whites, according to _BusinessWeek_, 31 January 1994, p. 52.)
:James Salsman
::Bovik Research
Mark Evans
: Let's not look for those statistics, that way we won't ever have to face
: the truth that the world isn't a bunch of greedy men out to oppress women,
: it's a bunch of greedy people who want to make more money than they know
: what to do with, and others who make career decisions based on personal
: decisions that say damn the statistics.
There are also plenty of people interested in claiming the former. Regardless
of it is actually true. Becuase it gives them political power. (there are more
things that just plain money which can motivate people.) In the political case
one thing that really annoys the people involved is anything which might result
in their claims not being taken at face value.
Mark Evans
: Ummm - unadjusted medians are 'better' only if you really want to
: legislate that men and women must be alike and do the same things.
: Perhaps you really want to do this. I don't. I strongly believe that
: men, or women, who *choose* to enter the workforce deserve an equal
: opportunity to succeed.
: I *don't* believe that the government should adjust the conditions until
: both men and women work the same amount. Especially if they aren't
: also 'adjusting' things so that men get equal custody (through the
: same heavy-handed measures that governments like to use).
Rather more the 'dependents index' i.e. the number of people a person's
income supports is the same for men and women.
Gary Strand
js> I believe that many U.S. corporate boards of directors are violating the
civil rights of U.S. women and minorities because more than 91% of the
officers of U.S. corporations are male whites (according to BusinessWeek
magazine.)
Exactly how is this a violation of a given person's civil rights? Is it ne-
cessary to have women make up 51% of all corporate officers, blacks make up
15%, gays 1% (or 10% or whatever) and so forth? What difference would it
make, really? As Lois Patterson pointed out, the absolute numbers we're
talking about here are very small, and the vast majority of individuals in
this country aren't going to be corporate officers, so why do you want to
make a court case of the issue?
Isn't this analogous to berating NBA basketball teams for having dispropor-
tional numbers of black players, or NHL hockey teams for having "too many"
white players?
--
Gary Strand Opinions stated herein are mine alone and are
stra...@ncar.ucar.edu not representative of NCAR, UCAR, or the NSF
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Somewhere in this mess is a little gem of a program trying to get out". - JRH
Mark Evans
: Child rearing is an issue for both men and women. Women do
: seem to dominate the daycare profession. Given the level of
: concern about child abuse, I would find it hard to believe that
Though the question of why then to allow members of the gender
who abuse most children to dominate shouls be raised?
: in the near future we could obtain a 50-50 split of male and
Eric Poole
In article <CKw5t...@eecs.nwu.edu> bo...@eecs.nwu.edu writes:
>
> ... (lots of stuff about how women and minorities are downtrodden and
> discriminated against, and how we should all rise up and sue the
> pants off of any corporation and employer that has the gall to
> hire the best qualified person for the job, irrespective of race,
> gender, etc.)
>
Once again, the sins of the fathers are visited upon the sons.
Because my ancestors committed injustices against women, persons of
color, and minority religious groups in the past, you think it's
perfectly fine for me and other white males of my generation to suffer
and pay for it.
All across this land of ours, "affirmative action" programs continue
to force employers, on pain of lawsuits, penalties from our
government, and bankruptcy, to hire less-qualified persons for jobs
simply because their ancestors (not _they_, mind you, but their
ancestors) were discriminated against.
And people wonder why productivity in this country is in the shithole.
I am a consultant, and have done a lot of work for a lot of different
companies. Most of those companies have a perfectly respectable
percentage of women and minorities in senior engineering and
management positions. Some of them even got there by being the best
qualified for the job, rather than by some bleeding-heart liberal
affirmative action program. If left alone, you will find that more
and more of them will work their way through the system just like I
did.
My sister, for example, is the president of the Salt Lake City branch
of the Federal Reserve ... in a city that is the Mormon capital of the
world, where a woman's place is in the home, etc. She did it by being
in the right place at the right time and being the best at her job.
Women and minorities in this country have had more than a level
playing field for most of my working life. And you want them to be
able to extort by threat of legal action what they fail to achieve on
merit and by hard work.
Knock yourself out, Hoss.
. . . . . ep </dev/null open and ready ... >
Mark Evans
: I posted an earlier econometric analysis of the wage gap,
: Unexplained 40.5 39.9 34.5
: Total 100.0 100.0 100.0
Where is number of dependents (including obligated dependentcey resulting
from ex-spouse or child support awards. N.B. these can simaltaniously
increase the index for one person and decrease it for another) note that
this may not be an integer if either there are children involved or
individuals are financially dependent on more than one person?
Joe Barber
has been going on so far. Unfortunately, it is not definitive, nor do I
think that any analysis can be definitive. Some of the wage gap, IMO,
is due to unmeasurable items such as socialization. Some, of course, is
due to discrimination.
What this table says is that for Non High School graduates, a wage gap
of 12.03% exists after accounting for the variables studied. For High
School Graduates, the remaining wage gap is 12.37% and for College
Graduates it is 9.73%.
This sort of analysis is very useful but in economics, as opposed to
controlled experiments, the remaining research is an analysis of the still
unexplained part. The authors of the study made a good choice of analysis
variables, but it is not exhaustive.
A 10 - 12 percent gap, while not as alarming as the approximately 30%
or 40% numbers in the original post is still a significant amount. Given
the scope of the influences accounted for by the table's authors I would
be very surprised if the rest of the gap can be explained by other meas-
urable variables. However, what these differences do point out is that
there are differences in preferences between men and women. Effort
required and expended on the job is probably also important in the wage
gap. Of course, so is discrimination.
papa...@econ.sas.upenn.edu Joe Barber
Department of Economics
University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, PA 19104
Doug S. Caprette
>
>The boards of directors hire the corporate officers, and that is where
>the flagrant sexist and racist discrimination is worst. (Boards of
>directors are 88.1% male whites; corporate officers are 91.7% male
>whites, according to _BusinessWeek_, 31 January 1994, p. 52.)
>
What if (due to past discrimination by _other_ parties) 98% of the qualified
applicants are male whites?
Does the 91.7% figure then indicate that affirmative action has been at least
partly successful?
Mark Evans
: Why would women (can't speak about minorities) be clamoring for
: the opportunity to be corporate board directors? If they
: are really interested, they can form their own corporations.
: The corporate life, as presently structured, requires
: extraordinary personal sacrifices. Many would argue that
Quite possibly the number of women who REALLY want to do this
is quite similar to the number of men. Not very many actually.
davis robert
>I believe that many U.S. corporate boards of directors are violating
>the civil rights of U.S. women and minorities because more than 91% of
>the officers of U.S. corporations are male whites (according to
>BusinessWeek magazine.)
So what? Don't women and minorities have anything better do to than
whine, complain and cause trouble?
Just what is it that you have against white males anyway? White males
are the backbone of this nation and our civilization. It was white
males whose ingenuity and capital were used to start most of the
largest business in this country. It was white males who wrote our
Constitution and the Bill of Rights. It was white males who allowed
the blacks to have their freedom in this nation, and allowed to remain
here, which many are ungrateful for.
>Scores of people have raised the observation that there seem to be few
>women and minorities who are qualified for corporate office. I am for
Women and minorities should start their own companies then instead of
whining about what they falsely perceive to be discrimination. Women
and minorities have it better than anyone else in this nation today,
and are having everything handed to them on a silver platter. The
"straight" male WASP (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant) is descriminated
against, and ridiculed, more than any other group is, yet we're the
ones who very rarely complain about how we're being treated. I think
that it's well past the time that we started opening our mouthes about
what's going on and started fighting back, while we still can, before
it's too late.
People and companies should be able to hire anyone that they want to
hire. People should be free to associate with whomever they wish. I
notice that certain minorities, such as colored people, are free to
act in such a manner. For example, look at how many universities have
"black student unions". However, white sare not allowed to have their
own exclisive organizations anymore. Look at how many black-owned
firms groom blacks for upper management positions.
Because of loathesome rabble-rousers like you, we're now cursed with
such bureaucratic and grossly unfair government agencies like the EEOC
and nauseatingly foolish programs like affirmative action. I'll bet
that you love to see it when white males are the victims, as white
males often are, of reverse discrimination resulting from such
unconstitutional government meddling which results from affirmative
action and the EEOC. What many fail to realize is that minorities and
women are hurt as well by such policies, as incompetent people are
hired for positions which are unable to perform well in.
[....much mindless troublesome drivel deleted]
Please get the chip off your shoulder and try to become a productive
member of our society instead of trying to destroy what made this
nation great.
--
Robert D. Davis | Eccentrics have more fun!
...uunet!mystica!rdd |
rda...@umbc.edu | May those politicians who tax us so heavily and
1-410-744-7964 | want more control over our lives rot in Hell!!!
Sanjay Sinha
}
} I believe that many U.S. corporate boards of directors are violating
} the civil rights of U.S. women and minorities because more than 91% of
} the officers of U.S. corporations are male whites (according to
} BusinessWeek magazine.)
}
Board of directors are elected in a vote by the shareholders.
Shareholders are free to vote for any one he/she feels deserves
the resposibility of looking after their company.
BMW sells their cars to mainly people of a particular race.
They do not promote wider ownerships of their cars by setting
up dealerships in inner cities or lowering prices for minority
buyers.
Let's sue them.
Sanjay
} Scores of people have raised the observation that there seem to be few
} women and minorities who are qualified for corporate office. I am for
} the most part in complete disagreement with that observation, but I
} know that the best qualification is experience. Without allowing
} those that have been clearly discriminated against the experience they
} require for qualification, we will never break the cycle of
} discrimination; a cycle that has trapped U.S. culture and higher
} education into the embarrassing position that women with advanced
} degrees make less in proportion to men with similar educations than
} any other educational category. (U.S. Dept. of Ed.)
}
} I believe that the most effective way to proceed at this point is to
} file Freedom of Information Act Requests with the U.S. Securities and
} Exchange commission in order to determine which corporations' boards
} of directors have been the worst and most flagrant in such violations.
} Corporations are required to disclose to the S.E.C. the makeup of
} their boards of directors.
}
} Then, a lawsuit would put it to a jury whether the corporations in
} question have indeed violated the civil rights of U.S. women and
} minorities. It may take several cases before a guilty verdict is
} returned, but such a verdict would set valuable precident.
}
} I would file such FOIA requests and lawsuits myself, were it not that
} I am a male white and so I have no grounds. If any aspiring feminist
} or minority lawyers are reading this, please organize and help to stop
} the cycle of discrimination. If you aren't such a lawyer, but you
} know one, please forward this message. The time for change is now.
}
} In article <1994Feb5.1...@midway.uchicago.edu>,
} Ted Frank <th...@midway.uchicago.edu> wrote:
} >
} > I believe Scully did a study explaining away the difference for
} > women and men, but I haven't seen it.
}
} Scully who?
}
} :James Salsman
} ::Bovik Research
--
Sanjay Sinha, KotD email wa...@a.chem.upenn.edu
DoD #1224 snail Center for Energy, Room G-29,
CB 650 `The Cow' 210 S. 34th. St. Philadelphia, PA 19104
Michael G. Kurilla
> Michael G. Kurilla (mg...@Virginia.EDU) wrote:
>
> : Child rearing is an issue for both men and women. Women do
> : seem to dominate the daycare profession. Given the level of
> : concern about child abuse, I would find it hard to believe that
>
> Though the question of why then to allow members of the gender
> who abuse most children to dominate shouls be raised?
>
The above question seems to suggest that women are responsible
for a majority of child abuse; unless I'm interpreting the
question wrong. I don't know the answer to that simply because
the definition of child abuse (beyond a limited legal sense) is
rather arbitrary and varies from person to person (one's
person's abuse is another person's discipline).
I really don't have problems with one gender dominating a
profession as long as entry into that profession is
unrestricted. I'm sure that Orientals dominate the Chinese
restaurant market, but I don't feel discriminated against just
from their dominance. On the other hand (gee, now I sound like
an economist), tall people dominate the NBA and short people
may feel discrimianted against in terms of getting a shot to
play.
Let me pretend to be an economist for a moment. Suppose that
women are in fact discriminated against in terms of wages (30%
less than men). Would it not be in my greedy, self-interest as
an employer to hire all women to work for me and reduce my
labor costs by 30%? Would that not give me a competitive
advantage against other employers hiring men at almost 50%
higher rate (compared to me)? This would mean that businesses
that had higher larger % of women would gradually dominate their
markets. Has this happened for any industry?
It seems that owners of corporations can either be greedy or
sexist, but not both at the same time.
Mike K
James Salsman
In article <2j8mc9$k...@ncar.ucar.edu>,
Gary Strand <ga...@colossus.cgd.ucar.edu> wrote:
>
>js> I believe that many U.S. corporate boards of directors are violating the
> civil rights of U.S. women and minorities because more than 91% of the
> officers of U.S. corporations are male whites (according to BusinessWeek
> magazine.)
> Isn't this analogous to berating NBA basketball teams for having dispropor-
> tional numbers of black players, or NHL hockey teams for having "too many"
> white players?
No: the demands of athletic performance can be shown to be directly
related to physical attributes such as secondary sex characteristics
or attributes that vary among races.
The same can not be said for the intellectual demands on corporate
officers.
:James Salsman
::Bovik Research
James Salsman
Bronis Vidugiris <b...@areaplg2.corp.mot.com> wrote:
>
> I strongly believe that men, or women, who *choose* to enter the
> workforce deserve an equal opportunity to succeed. I *don't* believe
> that the government should adjust the conditions until both men and
> women work the same amount.
How can you reconcile your beliefs when qualifications entail
experience?
:James Salsman
::Bovik Research
Richard Harter
>Total 100.0 100.0 100.0
----
This looks similar to other break-outs that I have seen presented on the
net. There are some factors not mentioned in your presentation which are
often raised. These include:
(1) Average number of hours worked per week. Statistics have been posted
that say that females working "full-time" work an average of five less hours
per week than males working "full-time". [I make no claim as to the validity
of said statistics -- I merely assert that they have been posted with sources.]
(2) What is meant by "wage differential" is not defined. Is it referring
to (a) a difference in hourly rate per measured hour worked, or (b) to total
annual return irrespective of hours worked. There are problems with gathering
either measurement.
A second issue with "wage differential" in the above is that there is no
statement of how it is measured. One gets the impression that they are doing
a standard linear statistical analysis; in which case the "wage differential"
is a raw mean of dollars earned.
----
Taken at face value, the above statistics would imply that the following
wage differentials exist, after the cited corrections:
Not HS grads 11.9%
HS grads 12.4%
College Grads 9.5%
Note that *if* the cited wage differentials are based on aggregate annual
dollar returns and *if* in fact there is a real difference in hours worked
of about 10% (i.e. ~5 hours/week) then *all* of the wage differential has
been accounted for (within a percent or two). This would imply that there
is *no* significant direct wage discrimination when all factors are taken
into account.
One has to be a bit skeptical; however it probably is true that direct wage
rate differentials are small and are much smaller than are generally assumed.
--
In my lifetime we've had a Polish Pope. | Richard Harter, SMDS Inc.
In my lifetime Communism has collapsed. | Phone: 508-369-7398
In my lifetime Men have walked on the Moon. | SMDS Inc. PO Box 555
But will the Red Sox ever win a world series? | Concord MA 01742
Matthew S. Stringer
> So what? Don't women and minorities have anything better do to than
> whine, complain and cause trouble?
SO people with eqivilent or greater abilities than their co-workers will be
passed over for promotion while their lighter skinned or and / or external
gonad possesing coworkers become their bosses. Regardless of the reasoning for
this discrimination, it is wrong, and arguing with it should hardly be
construed as whining, complaining, or causing trouble.
> Just what is it that you have against white males anyway? White males
> are the backbone of this nation and our civilization. It was white
> males whose ingenuity and capital were used to start most of the
> largest business in this country. It was white males who wrote our
> Constitution and the Bill of Rights. It was white males who allowed
> the blacks to have their freedom in this nation, and allowed to remain
> here, which many are ungrateful for.
Of course white males have all those accomplishments, we hold all of the
power by design. We, or some of us, are also responsible for most of our own
problems. Those self-same big corporations have raped this country and its
people in more ways than I want to know. As for ALLOWING the blacks to stay
here, I believe that the whites invloved didn't give them much choice, and how
much graditude should they give for 400 years of slavery followed by 200 as
de facto 4th class citizens? White America is responsible for the current
situation of Black America, plain and simple. White males (and by this I think
that you mean white, Christian or religiously androgynous, heterosexual, and of
European descent males) may have made this country great, but they sure helped
make it shitty at the same time.
deleted stuff
> act in such a manner. For example, look at how many universities have
> "black student unions". However, white sare not allowed to have their
> own exclisive organizations anymore. Look at how many black-owned
> firms groom blacks for upper management positions.
What about Polish, Italian, French, Jewish, etc Student Unions? These
are almost exclusively populated by whites. By effectively cutting off the
slaves from their heritage, the slave-owners and their cultural descendants
created a gap in the culture of black America, and took away the luxury of
making the more specialized distinctions that the Euro SAs have. As for
black-owned firms, there are precious few of them, an ghettoism has never
promoted equality. Separate but equal is a crock.
> Because of loathesome rabble-rousers like you, we're now cursed with
Our country was founded by "loathesome rabble-rousers." Read your history.
> such bureaucratic and grossly unfair government agencies like the EEOC
> and nauseatingly foolish programs like affirmative action. I'll bet
In response to some pretty unneccesary practices of the business world that
left us little other avenue.
> that you love to see it when white males are the victims, as white
> males often are, of reverse discrimination resulting from such
> unconstitutional government meddling which results from affirmative
> action and the EEOC. What many fail to realize is that minorities and
> women are hurt as well by such policies, as incompetent people are
> hired for positions which are unable to perform well in.
Legislative action is all we have left when the established big-boys squash
any inroads we make. What corporate America would have if left to its own
devices is not free-enterprise, its oligarchy, and they're far too close to it
for my purposes anyway. Tell you what: when urban schools are up to the
standards or schools in richer areas, when banks are as willing to loan money
to black entrepeneurs as white entrepeneurs, when people of varying gender and
socio-ethnic backround are paid the same for the same work, then I will crusade
beside you (or maybe upwind) for the abolishment of the agencies and policies
that you mention.
> Please get the chip off your shoulder and try to become a productive
> member of our society instead of trying to destroy what made this
> nation great.
I could say the same to you, sir.
> rda...@umbc.edu | May those politicians who tax us so heavily and
> 1-410-744-7964 | want more control over our lives rot in Hell!!!
And may those people who wish to extend the privleges of one group of people
by enslaving another rot in a similar Hell.
--
-*****************************************************************************
-* M. A. Matt (H!) | Matthew S. Stringer | "I have the drum, the drum is mine.
-* internet: stri...@cs.buffalo.edu | I have the drum, I'm doin' fine."
-* bitnet: V114...@UBVMS.BITNET | - The Kids in the Hall
Gary Strand
gs> Gary Strand
js> I believe that many U.S. corporate boards of directors are violating the
civil rights of U.S. women and minorities because more than 91% of the
officers of U.S. corporations are male whites (according to BusinessWeek
magazine.)
Which *specific* civil rights are being violated here? The "right" to be a
corporate officer? Where does that come from?
r...@uihepa.hep.uiuc.edu
Now *this* is interesting. For those who would flame me, keep in mind
that I'm not advocating any position in the following, I'm just asking
questions.
Why would you automatically assume that there may be physical
differences between the sexes and races, but just as automatically reject the
hypothesis that there may be mental differences?
For example -- It can be shown that men are generally physically
stronger than women. But, there are also tests (such as the SAT) that say that
may may be able to handle math and science better than women, and that women
outscore men on the communications topics. Yet this is automatically dismissed
as a built-in bias in the test.
Why?
The same questions can be asked of racial characteristics, if you
believe there to be a physical difference in performance.
There seems to be a double standard in your thinking.
Raymond L. Swartz Jr. (r...@uihepa.hep.uiuc.edu)
================================================================================
Excel in everything -- specialization is for insects!! (paraphrase of R.H.)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I read the newspaper today and was amazed that, in 24 hours, five billion
people could accomplish so little.
================================================================================
Gary Strand
ms> White America is responsible for the current situation of Black America,
plain and simple.
That's not what Khalid Abdul Muhammad said. He said that the Jews are the
cause of African-American America's problems.
I think both Mr. Stringer and Mr. Muhammad have their heads up their respec-
tive rear ends.
Lois Patterson
Michael G. Kurilla <mg...@Virginia.EDU> wrote:
>[snip]
>I do find it hard to believe that someone with the capability
>to pursue a career requiring postgraduate education like law,
>medicine, or business would decide it was not worth it and go
>into daycare or elementary school teaching.
>
>
Oh, please. Thank God that not all smart people want to become
lawyers, doctors, or businesspersons. I'm afraid, though,
that most of society probably echoes your opinion that
capable people will not choose elementary school teaching.
That's precisely why there is difficulty finding teachers who
really want to challenge their students, and who can teach
bright kids the concepts which they are ready to learn.
(Maybe you're just being ironic?)
Lois Patterson
lp...@unixg.ubc.ca
Raymond Dwayne Smith
*rubs hands in anticipation*
I haven't seen such racism and sexism in a long time.
I can't wait to delve in!
--
rd...@virginia.edu (Ray Smith)
I'll die for my country, but I refuse to kill for it.
Seth Gordon
>> Isn't this analogous to berating NBA basketball teams for having dispropor-
>> tional numbers of black players, or NHL hockey teams for having "too many"
>> white players?
In article <CKxHn...@eecs.nwu.edu> bo...@eecs.nwu.edu (James Salsman) writes:
>
>No: the demands of athletic performance can be shown to be directly
>related to physical attributes such as secondary sex characteristics
>or attributes that vary among races.
Ah, I see. It's OK to justify the predominance of black pro-sports
players by saying they tend to be more virile and athletic, but it's
not OK to justify the predominance of white corporate managers by
saying they tend (through no *innate* superiority) to have learned more
skills and experience.
I'm in favor of some forms of affirmative action, but this kind of argument
gives it a bad name.
--
seth gordon // se...@gnu.ai.mit.edu // standard disclaimer // pgp2-compatible
"Writing is like sex. First you do it for love, then you do it for your
friends, and then you do it for money." --Virginia Woolf or Anatole France
Matthew S. Stringer
> ms> Matthew S. Stringer
> ms> White America is responsible for the current situation of Black America,
> plain and simple.
> That's not what Khalid Abdul Muhammad said. He said that the Jews are the
> cause of African-American America's problems.
> I think both Mr. Stringer and Mr. Muhammad have their heads up their respec-
> tive rear ends.
Mr. Muhammad's views aside, who brought the slaves to America? Who decided
that the free blacks needed to be ghettoized? Who has just thrown money at the
problem? Certainly individuals have a large stake in their own destinies, but
when the system is so geared towards keeping the poor poor, especially when
they don't look like the rich, you can hardly place responsibility sqarely on
the shoulders of the poor.
Alan Filipski
Matthew S. Stringer <stri...@cs.buffalo.edu> wrote:
-Gary Strand (ga...@colossus.cgd.ucar.edu) wrote:
-> ms> Matthew S. Stringer
-
-> ms> White America is responsible for the current situation of Black America,
-> plain and simple.
-
-> That's not what Khalid Abdul Muhammad said. He said that the Jews are the
-> cause of African-American America's problems.
-
-> I think both Mr. Stringer and Mr. Muhammad have their heads up their respec-
-> tive rear ends.
-Mr. Muhammad's views aside, who brought the slaves to America? Who decided
-that the free blacks needed to be ghettoized? Who has just thrown money at the
-problem? Certainly individuals have a large stake in their own destinies, but
-when the system is so geared towards keeping the poor poor, especially when
-they don't look like the rich, you can hardly place responsibility sqarely on
-the shoulders of the poor.
I deny that there is any such entity as "White America" capable of being
responsible for anything. An individual slave runner bears responsibility
for bringing slaves here, but neither I nor "White America" does.
---------------
alan filipski
al...@indirect.com
S. Giles
:
: I deny that there is any such entity as "White America" capable of being
: responsible for anything. An individual slave runner bears responsibility
: for bringing slaves here, but neither I nor "White America" does.
:
Just as a side point which will immediately be swept aside...Is it not true
that the majority of slave traders got their slaves from other African
tribes? I once pointed this out in another discussion, yet it was dismised
out of hand. If one tribe attacks and sells off the captives to white
slave traders, how is that any different? Are we now to blame the traders
for the increase in tribe warfare? At what point to we stop pointing fingers and get on with life? I never owned a slave. My father never owned a slave.
Nor his, nor his. Before that I can not say, but it is unlikely. Most white
people did not own slaves, farmers usually don't have that kind of luxury.
Why must we continue to emphasize the difference between the races? Why do
we claim that there is an AMERICA? There used to be a saying...You can go
to China, but you won't be Chinese. You can go to the Artic, but you won't
be an Eskimo. But anyone can come to America and become an American.
Ok, so I probably screwed it up...you get the idea right?
Scott