Tag: gender

Categories
ideological culture nannyism national politics & policies

Paid/​Unpaid Labor Gap

wage gap, gender gap, women's rights, pay

The “gender pay gap” is a big deal for some folks, who worry about women earning less than men.

Democrats, for example, often talk as if the issue were about women doing the same jobs as men but getting paid less. But that’s not what the stats about wage differences by sex (that women earn, in America, 78 percent of what men earn) actually track.

Women en masse tend to earn less because it just so happens that women, in general, work in the paid labor market fewer days and hours (often taking more time off to birth and raise children) — as well as choose lower-​paying careers — than men.

It’s about time and productivity. And the choices we make.

Melinda Gates is concerned about something similar to this “wage gap.” She is interested in task dissimilarities between men and women. She’s not a nut about the subject, though. In her contribution to the annual letter of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, she notes that America is the most equal regarding a statistical paid/​unpaid “gender gap.” Women work more time in unpaid labor elsewhere, globally (including Europe) than do men elsewhere, globally.

Funny, I’ve never heard any “We’re No. 1” chants, congratulating Americans on the tiniest gender gap on the planet.

Certainly, we don’t need a new program to help women catch up with men … but for all to be equally free to catch up with their own dreams. Around the world workers need more innovation and, well, free-​market capitalism — to free women (and men) from drudgery.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Printable PDF

wage gap, gender gap, women's rights, pay

 

A healthy democracy depends on the spreading of good ideas. If you found this article useful,  please share it with friends by clicking on any of the social media icons below.

Common Sense Needs Your Help!

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!

Photo credit: Riveting machine operator by  Alfred T. Palmer

 

Categories
ideological culture too much government

Devastating Regard for Gender

This just in: Cutting back on runaway government spending may be sexist.

In Britain, the government has an austerity plan. Yup, the very opposite approach from America’s Spend-​a-​lot Administration. But now the Tory spending reduction plan has been challenged in that nation’s high court by the Fawcett Society, a women’s rights group, which claims the plan would widen gender “inequality.”

Additionally, the country’s Independent Equality and Human Rights Commission recently ordered the treasury to show it had properly considered the impact on women and other “vulnerable groups” of the planned spending cuts.

Is the plan unfair? Well, it lays off government workers, 65 percent of whom are women. Is it discriminatory to women that they will now face more lay-​offs? Or has it all along been discriminatory against men who as nearly half the population can’t get more than 35 percent of government jobs?

Or perhaps it is discriminatory against both men and women. Let’s all sue each other for trillions!

To show the potential impact, the Washington Post article noted that “deficit-​cutting campaigns” are “underway from Greece to Spain,” adding, “and in the United States when it eventually moves to curb spending.”

Eventually? We’ll see … eventually. But, apparently, that budget tightening our federal government has so long refused to do, but could possibly do one day way off in the future, well, it’s probably sexist.

No worries, though: Economic collapse may be fairly gender neutral in its devastation.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.