March 12 is Equal Pay Day, a reminder that there is still a significant pay gap between men and women in our country. The date represents how far into 2024 women would have to work on top of the hours they worked in 2023 simply to match what men were paid in 2023. Women were…
Please stop with this narrative that the uncontrolled gender pay gap is meaningless. It is not. From the 2024 Gender Pay Gap Report:
“The uncontrolled gender pay gap is not less meaningful than the controlled gender pay gap. It reveals the overall economic power disparity between men and women in society and how wealth and power are gendered. Even if the controlled gender pay gap disappeared — meaning women and men with the same job title and qualifications were paid equally — the uncontrolled gap would demonstrate that higher-paying positions are still disproportionately accessible to men compared to women.”
The uncontrolled gender pay gap is hence an extremely succinct number at summarizing all forms of economic disparity. Yes, controlling for factors such as education and job titles - but the controlled pay gap is meaningless in a post equal pay for equal work environment. Everyone already knows that education and job titles determine most of your salary - hence these are called “bad controls” in the literature. The problem is now that women do not receive the same levels of access to education and higher level job titles, a phenomenon which is captured very well by the uncontrolled gap.
When you’re directly comparing the pay of a male executive against that of a female barista, it is very much meaningless.
Employment choices, priorities, and decisions factor very heavily into how much people get paid. Take those choices, priorities, and decisions into account, and the so-called “wage gap” almost completely disappears.
Please stop with this narrative that the uncontrolled gender pay gap is meaningless. It is not.
It very much is useless.
The uncontrolled gender pay gap is hence an extremely succinct number at summarizing all forms of economic disparity.
Succinct, as all good statistical analysis should be. It gives you no actionable information.
Yes, controlling for factors such as education and job titles - but the controlled pay gap is meaningless in a post equal pay for equal work environment.
What? Then stop talking about pay equity if you’re not interested in that issue.
The problem is now that women do not receive the same levels of access to education and higher level job titles, a phenomenon which is captured very well by the uncontrolled gap.
But access to education and higher level job titles are not the sole factors that are controlled for. Several studies have noted that women have different priorities in the workforce, and some women choose to be the primary caregiver to children or elderly parents.
So why would you use a statistic that doesn’t control for several variables, which I just mentioned, to better understand access to education or higher level job titles?
There are already statistics that deal with educational attainment by sex. If that’s your focus, why would you ignore a data set that directly addresses your area of study to instead focus on the effect caused by what you want to study? That would be analogous to studying covid by looking at a data set regarding fevers, while ignoring data sets specifically tailored to covid. Sure, undoubtedly some of those fevers were caused by covid, but many were not.
Also, if women’s access to education is caused by, or heavily correlated with, the uncontrolled gender pay gap, then why do more women than men have a bachelor’s degree or higher? Isn’t that antithetical to the uncontrolled gender pay gap that tells us that women make nearly 20% less than men?
In 2022, 39.0% of women age 25 and older, and 36.2% of men in the same age range, had completed a bachelor’s degree or more…
Please stop with this narrative that the uncontrolled gender pay gap is meaningless. It is not. From the 2024 Gender Pay Gap Report:
“The uncontrolled gender pay gap is not less meaningful than the controlled gender pay gap. It reveals the overall economic power disparity between men and women in society and how wealth and power are gendered. Even if the controlled gender pay gap disappeared — meaning women and men with the same job title and qualifications were paid equally — the uncontrolled gap would demonstrate that higher-paying positions are still disproportionately accessible to men compared to women.”
The uncontrolled gender pay gap is hence an extremely succinct number at summarizing all forms of economic disparity. Yes, controlling for factors such as education and job titles - but the controlled pay gap is meaningless in a post equal pay for equal work environment. Everyone already knows that education and job titles determine most of your salary - hence these are called “bad controls” in the literature. The problem is now that women do not receive the same levels of access to education and higher level job titles, a phenomenon which is captured very well by the uncontrolled gap.
2024 Gender Pay Gap Report (GPGR) | Payscale Research - https://www.payscale.com/research-and-insights/gender-pay-gap/
When you’re directly comparing the pay of a male executive against that of a female barista, it is very much meaningless.
Employment choices, priorities, and decisions factor very heavily into how much people get paid. Take those choices, priorities, and decisions into account, and the so-called “wage gap” almost completely disappears.
It very much is useless.
Succinct, as all good statistical analysis should be. It gives you no actionable information.
What? Then stop talking about pay equity if you’re not interested in that issue.
But access to education and higher level job titles are not the sole factors that are controlled for. Several studies have noted that women have different priorities in the workforce, and some women choose to be the primary caregiver to children or elderly parents.
So why would you use a statistic that doesn’t control for several variables, which I just mentioned, to better understand access to education or higher level job titles?
There are already statistics that deal with educational attainment by sex. If that’s your focus, why would you ignore a data set that directly addresses your area of study to instead focus on the effect caused by what you want to study? That would be analogous to studying covid by looking at a data set regarding fevers, while ignoring data sets specifically tailored to covid. Sure, undoubtedly some of those fevers were caused by covid, but many were not.
Also, if women’s access to education is caused by, or heavily correlated with, the uncontrolled gender pay gap, then why do more women than men have a bachelor’s degree or higher? Isn’t that antithetical to the uncontrolled gender pay gap that tells us that women make nearly 20% less than men?
Census.gov