Pay Gap

One thing you can do with the New York Times salary comparison calculator I linked to yesterday is take a look at certain kinds of pay gap issues in America. The graph above, for example, shows us that 24 year-old college educated white men earn substantially more money than do 24 year-old college educated white women and this pattern has held pretty constantly over the years. Since I believe only a small -- and decreasing over time -- number of 24 year-old college educated women have children, this ought to be a pretty apples-to-apples comparison in that sense. Most of these people are just starting out, and the men are already earning substantially more.

Comments

Did you control for job type? Many different jobs still have a strong gender bias, for better or for worse. At my engineering job, my department of 16-18 people has one woman, so don't tell me this isn't true.

(I'm not saying there isn't a gender gap in pay for the same work -- I'm just saying this particular graph may be missing some useful specifics...)

Posted by Dan | June 19, 2007 9:15 AM

I think the input is for a starting age. Thus the graph shows data for people who were 24 years old in 1968, not 24 year olds through the years.

That said, the tool indicates that 24 year old college-educated men in 2000 earned $38K median, while 24 year old college-educated women earned $29K. In 2005 the figures are $41K and $30K. So your point stands.

Dan, the spot checks I did indicate that the gap is consistent for "professionals" and for "managers, officials, or proprietors." It is also consistent for the engineering industry (medians for 24 year olds are $29K women vs. $39K men in 2005), though it's not clear to me whether that data is for engineers or people employed by engineering firms in any capacity. But that's all part of the problem, isn't it?

None of this, of course, is surprising or new information. But it is a nice way to make the point (again).

Posted by Jon FD | June 19, 2007 9:23 AM

Dan's point is a good one. That was the whole idea of comparable worth.

Posted by ptm | June 19, 2007 9:23 AM

Just my own experience. I went to art school and while the majority of students were female, the majors that offered the highest paying jobs after graduation - graphic design, motion graphics, 3D animation - were heavily overrepresented by males. I knew a lot of guys (myself included) who went in for drawing, painting, photo, etc.. but who changed to graphic or web design primarily because it was a more employable path. While I knew plenty of women who stressed out about making a living as a painter or photographer, I don't know a single one that changed majors because of it.

Posted by matthew c | June 19, 2007 9:25 AM

Many different jobs still have a strong gender bias, for better or for worse.

To be clear, this is not a reason to think that sexism is not causing the pay gap. (Note two negatives.)

Posted by Matt Weiner | June 19, 2007 9:46 AM

Why don't liberals get together a program to force female college students to major in well-paying areas such as software design or accounting, and to get male college students to major in economically worthless subjects such as feminist theory and creative writing. Then maybe things will even out.

Posted by John Doe | June 19, 2007 9:50 AM

What Jon FD said is right: this chart is for a single cohort, which was 24 years old in the late 1960s, and that cohort's pay through the years.

Your overall point is valid, but this chart doesn't show it.

Since I believe only a small -- and decreasing over time -- number of 24 year-old college educated women have children, this ought to be a pretty apples-to-apples comparison in that sense.

Sure, but a much larger number of 24 year-old college educated women are expecting to have children in the next 5-10 years and are thus unlikely to strive for longterm-demanding-lifestyle jobs like finance or law that push that upper 10% male pay so high, and instead opt for more "mommy friendly careers" such as teaching or PR. The number of women in this category is surely decreasing as well, but I suspect it's still enormous.

Posted by right | June 19, 2007 9:59 AM

i would third JFD.

but, it turns that Matt seems right even looking at 24-yos starting in 05, in fact, when i did it the gap looked just enormous (42k to 31k), but, given that i spent all of 10 seconds with it, i'm sure i did something wrong.

at least i hope so.

Posted by josh bivens | June 19, 2007 10:22 AM

Right is correct. This likely reflects job choices women make in anticipation of having children, rather than because they already have children.

Posted by Al | June 19, 2007 11:12 AM

BTW, this also likely reflects job choices men make in anticipation of having to support a family.

Posted by Al | June 19, 2007 11:20 AM

Right is correct, but incomplete. The pay disparity also probably reflects employers' (not invalid) expectation that men are a better investment -- and worth a higher salary -- because they are less likely to hop onto the mommy track.

This point may be undermined by ever increasing job mobility, in which case employers are looking to maximize short-term returns from employment dollars.

Posted by Sean | June 19, 2007 12:02 PM

How cool to be a pundit! Use a tool created by someone else. Don't understand the tool, whatever.

INSTANT COLUMN!

Ignore all the research and other studies and analyses that others have done over the years. And don't bother looking them up, what the hell, you have cocktail parties to get to!

The broderism of mathew yglesias continues....

(Congrats though, you are about 20 years ahead in the broderism process of where I figured you would be by now.)

Posted by jerry | June 19, 2007 12:24 PM

I agree with Sean as well, but suspect that it's a lesser factor these days than it used to be. I work at a high-profile consulting firm, and it would be completely verboten to make a hiring, promotion, or compensation decision based on someone's family-related plans. However, I'm sure there are other places where this is a factor.

Posted by right | June 19, 2007 12:34 PM

Matt,

With your find that America is discriminating against women, you're about to become a brazillionaire!

Step 1. Create a class action lawsuit to rectify this violation of the 1963 Equal Pay Act
Step 2. ???
Step 3. Profit!

Step 2 is ??? because I'm not as smart as Matt and I expect him to do what no other man, woman, or attorney has been able to do: find evidence of this illegal activity occurring even to today's graduates across all of America.

Fallback: if Step 2 becomes too difficult Matt, just blame the Patriarchy.

(Note to Matt: you have some interesting work that you could uniquely do if you could question your assumptions from time to time and put your Havaad philosophy education to use.)

Posted by jerry | June 19, 2007 12:58 PM

If you had a handy tag for people's personalities, I bet you would see a pay gap between depressed people and optomistic ones. Men and women have statistically significant differences in peronality as can be seen on tests such as the Myers-Briggs. It could be that certain personality types get higher salaries and that those personality types are disproportionately men, thus making it look like men in general get paid more.

Posted by doug | June 19, 2007 2:42 PM

The graph above, for example, shows us that 24 year-old college educated white men earn substantially more money than do 24 year-old college educated white women...

I guess I'll have to take your word for that, being as how there's not a single indication on this graph about what the various colors stand for. Would it have been so hard to put out a legend, even in text, that gave us a clue?

Normally, at this point I'd also launch into a tirade about how you didn't label your axes, but in this case it's pretty transparently clear what they mean. In general, though, it's always a good idea to label them - I see far too many graphs that leave the reader guessing about what it is that's being graphed.

Posted by Sean Peters | June 19, 2007 3:36 PM

Men have an additional incentive (increased status on mating market) to pursue high-paying, unpleasant career tracks, and high-paying unpleasant jobs within a career option. I don't know how this is constantly ignored.

Posted by yoyo | June 19, 2007 4:35 PM

A few years ago, I remember reading a summary of a study establishing that women's salaries had surpassed men's controlling for position, education, and experience, as well as the often overlooked factor of hours worked. I'm sure someone attempted to refute it, but I thought this issue was basically an anachronism. Yglesias is a smart guy, but he needs to start emphasizing quality over quantity here.

Centrist

Posted by Centrist | June 19, 2007 10:38 PM

I read recently that the average salary of college graduates (non masters) is 50k. Masters is 60K.

I find 40k alarmingly close to those numbers.

there's something demoralizing about the salary structure of such professions as engineering, nursing, teaching, and technical fields (which incorporate a large % of grads). you get out of college and you receive close to what your salary will be in 20 years.

Posted by thehova | June 20, 2007 12:22 AM