/lit/ - Literature

>>6278991

I'm a practicing economist working for an economical policy group (we essentially inform investors in the local share market as to the effects of governmental policy)

I am now going to find all the wrongs with that pay gap .pdf that you linked.

>"Data from 2006 are used where possible, although sometimes
the most recent figures available are from 2004, 2005 or further back, with
2001 as the cut-off point."

So, off the bat, some of the information that is used is fourteen years old. That's almost a generation of difference.


>"The pay gap tends mainly to be higher in female-dominated work environments (such as health, education and social work) than in male-
dominated environments, which is probably due to the fact that managerial
positions in these sectors are often held by men, and women in these
sectors frequently work in the often lower-paid part-time roles"

This is a very problematic sentence. Firstly, it is using global numbers, which is unfair. There are initiatives in many Western nations to force women into managerial positions in business (take Germany for example). So, to apply it globally doesn't make sense for here. Say, you lived in a country with barely any murder violence, but then you applied the global average, it'd be wrong to state that your murderless country, due to global averages, incurs many murders per year.

Secondly, the information does not factually prove a managerial superiority to the men, it states "probably". No evidence = no argument.

Thirdly, if you look at universities. In many western countries, women are the majority in studiers, and of that, the majority of social work, education and health. (health = nutrition, nursing, not medicine). Higher amounts of people in those fields = an oversupply of workers and thus higher wage competition for business. That's why petroleum engineering, surgery, biotechnology etc are all paid better, less people attain their degrees, and as such, they can charge higher wages.
This reflects WOMEN's choices to get into these fields.

>"Eurostat and ILO base their figures
on national sources that use different methodologies to calculate individual
earnings. Because of this lack in consistency concerning data collection and
methodology, and the data deficiencies in a number of countries, caution has
to be applied when interpreting and comparing pay gap information from
different sources across countries. As is argued in the conclusion of this
report, international agreement on the gender pay gap definition and on the
methodology used for its calculation is necessary to deal with these issues."

Not only is the information flawed, so is the methodology. This is real bad.

To be continued.