Tag: gender pay gap

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ideological culture individual achievement national politics & policies

Ditch Your Male Doctor

woman, female, doctor, gender, medicine, illsutration

It’s the Christmas season, so wait to do this until the New Year, but … be sure to fire your male doctor.

He’s a quack.

At least, that seems to be the gist of James Hamblin’s “Evidence of the Superiority of Female Doctors,” a report in The Atlantic on a new Harvard School of Public Health study.

“Patients cared for by female physicians,” Hamblin writes, “had lower 30-​day mortality than did patients treated by male physicians.” The rate for female physicians was 11.07 percent and for males 11.49 percent.

Though a “modest” difference, it’s still “clinically meaningful.”

The study (conducted by an all-​male team) tracked more than 1.5 million Medicare patients treated by nearly 60,000 general internists.

“If male physicians were as adept as females, some 32,000 fewer Americans would die every year — among Medicare patients alone,” concludes Hamblin. “[T]hese numbers may be what it takes to spur equal (or better) compensation and opportunity for female physicians.”

NBC News played the equal pay angle as well: “Many hope the new study pushes hospitals to promote and pay women equally.”

Still, in a poignant moment of concern for the lesser sex, correspondent Kristen Dahlgren advised, “Maybe not a reason to ditch your male doctor, but there might be lessons to learn from his female colleagues.”

Indeed, the study explained that “physician sex by itself does not determine patient outcomes,” arguing instead that “differences in practice patterns between male and female physicians” must be investigated.

Smart.

The other thing, of course, is that every doctor, male or female, is an individual — not merely an XX- or XY-​chromosome carbon copy.

Sex isn’t everything.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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woman, female, doctor, gender, medicine, illsutration

 

Categories
folly general freedom ideological culture nannyism national politics & policies too much government

The Hypocrisy Gap

wage gap, pay gap, sexism, Equal Pay Day, illustration

You may have missed it. I wasn’t so lucky. This past Tuesday was “Equal Pay Day.”

“[T]he typical woman who works full-​time earns 79-​cents for every dollar that a typical man makes,” President Barack Obama said, repeating what we have already been told ad nauseum about the “wage gap” between men and women.

The “detailed calculation” used to determine this “gender wage gap”?

“Experts” simply added up all the money earned by all the men and all the women (subcategoried) and then divided by the number of men and women, respectively. No accounting for

  • the actual jobs performed,
  • hours worked,
  • education,
  • risk,
  • work history

… or any other factor.

Using this statistic make sense if all people — brain surgeons and taxi drivers alike, having worked every day for the last 40 years or re-​entering the workforce after decades away — should earn the exact same amount.

Communism.

It is already illegal to pay a woman less than a man for the same work. Yet, on the WhiteHouse​.gov page entitled, “This Is Why Today is Equal Pay Day,” the prez says “we must rid our society of the injustice that is pay discrimination.” The website insists that, Obama “has made equal pay a top priority.”

Then, why does a pay gap exist between the men and women working for Mr. Obama? According to the Washington Post, “The White House has not narrowed the gap between the average pay of male and female employees since President Obama’s first year in office …”

The good news? Equal Pay Day is over.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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wage gap, pay gap, sexism, Equal Pay Day, illustration

 

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Accountability crime and punishment ideological culture moral hazard nannyism national politics & policies too much government

Misleading Metric

pay gap, gender, legislation, justice, fairness, hypocrisy, Sen. Susan Lee

Yesterday’s Washington Post clarified how the “gender pay gap” is calculated:

This metric does not take into account the different types of jobs, varying levels of experience and education, or women who lose seniority and promotion opportunities when they leave the workforce temporarily to care for children, which they do in larger numbers than men. Still, it is widely used as a measuring stick.

The Post informed readers that the gap isn’t what it appears, that it doesn’t actually measure discrimination against women. Nonetheless, the paper justifies promoting this misleading statistic with the claim that it is “widely used.”

Sort of a self-​fulfilling prophecy.

The Post’s story was sparked by legislation in Maryland to purportedly mandate “equal-​pay” between men and women. Yet, the bill specifically authorizes unequal pay for any “bona fide factor other than sex or gender identity.”

It’s already against the law for employers to pay women less for the same job or to deny equal opportunity for advancement. This legislation, on the other hand, seems designed to create full-​employment for lawyers. If passed, employees could sue their employer for “assigning work less likely to lead to promotion or future opportunities.”

Sen. Susan Lee, the bill’s sponsor, proclaims that, “Any gap is unequal and unacceptable.”

What about the gender pay gap in the Maryland Legislature? Using the same misleading metric, female legislative employees make less than what males make.

Unacceptable!

So, why don’t legislators fix their own pay discrepancy before they dictate to everyone else?

Or better yet, they could simply stop peddling a divisive non-​solution for this dishonestly hyped “problem.”

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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pay gap, gender, legislation, justice, fairness, hypocrisy, Sen. Susan Lee

 

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Also, please consider showing your appreciation by dropping something in our tip jar  (this link will take you to the Citizens in Charge donation page… and your contribution will go to the support of the Common Sense website). Maintaining this site takes time and money. Your help in spreading the message of common sense and liberty is very much appreciated!