Women -- we make the world go round. Without us life ceases to exist, literally. Over the last seventy years or so women have entered the workforce in larger numbers than ever before, taking on jobs such as lawyers, doctors, CEO’s, and business owners among a plethora of other jobs. However, one issue has plagued women, and that is the wage gap. The wage gap is a divisive issue, one that is the center for much debate. Commonly known as the “equal work, equal pay” movement, the fight to end this "wage gap" has gained considerable momentum in recent years. There are variations of what the actual wage gap is, some ranging from a $0.23 discrepancy to around $0.20. However, despite massive movements to end this wage gap, the fact remains that the wage gap is nowhere near that large.
Yes, a wage gap exists, and I think everyone could agree that that is beyond unfair and wrong. It is impossible, however, to remain silent in the wake of this movement that is plagued with factual fallacies. Feminists tend to cry the blues that they don’t receive equal pay for equal work, and I have one word for them-- RESEARCH. Stop relying on divisive politicians that are more than happy to utilize misleading statistics in order to gain popularity.
The most overlooked, and essentially most important, component of the wage gap movement is just exactly where these numbers are derived from. There seems to be a common misconception that in any given career a woman is bound to make twenty cents less than her male counterpart. However, the truth remains that in most careers women are actually making the exact same hourly paycheck as their male co-worker.
According to The Washington Post, “….economists at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis surveyed economic literature and concluded that research suggests that the actual gender wage gap (when female workers are compared with male workers who have similar characteristics) is much lower than the raw wage gap.”
The Bureau of Labor Statistics is responsible for computing the difference in earnings for men and women and then distributing the information as they see fit. The wage gap is the ratio difference between the median earnings of men and women. The problem with this calculation lies in the fact that the BLS fails to take into account the type of employment you have, your education, tenure, hours worked, and benefits. Annual wages do not factor in all of these components, and so when the BLS calculates the wage gap they are essentially comparing apples to oranges. When one looks at the statistics provided by the BLS regarding the wage gap they are looking at the median earnings of women who work all types of jobs, including low paying jobs and high paying jobs.
On average, women work fewer hours than men over the course of a year, and so the statistics that advocate groups and politicians use are not only skewed but also extremely unreliable when one takes into account all the factors that go into determining the wage gap. For instance, the annual wage figures do not take into account the fact that teachers--many who are women--have primary jobs that fill only nine months out of the year. The BLS also shows that when looking at weekly wages the gap is only nineteen cents. The gap is even smaller when looking at hourly wages, which is fourteen cents, but not every wage earner is paid on an hourly basis and so the general wage gap does not take that into account.
Also important to note is that the highest earning jobs are predominantly filled by men, which is seen in this Georgetown University Survey. This survey highlights the fact that women tend to fill jobs in the education and healthcare industry rather than the industrial or agricultural industries, among others. It is also important to note that women who have children tend to take time off of work to raise their kids or cut back on the hours to be with them, which only further widens the wage gap.
Annual wages do not factor in important components like the type of employment, hours worked, or benefits. When benefits are factored in this may show that some workers actually earn more given the fact that insurance, which might typically be paid out of pocket, is a covered cost by the employer. So although you may not make as much as someone else, your benefits may outweigh theirs in terms of how much it costs.
I am not going to say that there isn’t a wage gap, because there certainly is, but it is nowhere near similar to the one that we hear about in the news and from our politicians. Misleading statistics as such are one of the reasons why women believe there is a war on them-which for the record there is not. Many Americans do not have the time, nor resources, to fact check news, and because of this many remain in the dark on where statistics are derived from. Feminists need to understand these simple calculations before staging protests and crying that they are oppressed. The actual wage gap is seen in positions like that of a CEO, not your average teacher, union member, doctor, lawyer, etc. Most women aren’t even affected by it because not only is it so minuscule but the reality remains that for many jobs it doesn’t even exist. Learn your facts, fact check the ‘facts’ of politicians, and do some research before you go around claiming that you don’t, and never will, make as much as your male counterpart.