By Carrie Lukas
Tuesday, April 04, 2017
According to the National Pay Equity Committee, Equal Pay
Day — the feminist-created holiday meant to signify how far into the year women
have to work to make up for last year’s wage gap — falls on April 4 this year.
That’s the first Tuesday of the month, rather than the second Tuesday, as it
has been in years past.
Is this a nod to women’s progress, and recognition that women’s
earnings as a percentage of men’s has crept up in recent years? Perhaps. But
then again, maybe not.
Accuracy about statistics has never been this movement’s
strong suit. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2014 the average
full-time working woman earned 83 percent of what the average full-time working
man earned. That’s up from about 80 percent in 2004. If you assume that the
2016 wage gap is roughly the same as 2015 and follow the Equal Pay Day math,
then women would need to work about 44 more days in 2017. Allowing for weekends
and holidays, that means Equal Pay Day should have taken place in the second
week of March, not April.
But the far bigger flaw in Equal Pay Day logic is the
assumption that the Department of Labor statistic showing the differences in
men and women’s average earnings is evidence of discrimination’s role in our
economy. The holiday’s champions use the mantras “equal pay for equal work” and
“83 cents on the dollar” to imply that women are regularly being paid less than
men for the same work.
That’s just not what the statistic tells us. The
Department of Labor doesn’t compare two co-workers, one male and one female,
but rather simply tallies up the median earnings of all full-time working women
and all full-time working men and compares the two.
The Department of Labor ignores, for example, that the
average man working full-time spends two hours more each
week on the job than does the average full-time working woman. It shouldn’t be
a surprise — or considered unfair — that someone who works longer hours also
earns more money. They also don’t take into account differences in industry,
years of experience, education, and specialty. Men suffer the overwhelming
majority of workplace deaths and major injuries. To get people to take on
dangerous and physically grueling jobs, businesses have to sweeten the pot with
higher pay. Men even have longer commutes on average than women do. They often
take on the extra commuting burden in order to take a job that pays more.
In studies
that take these and other relevant factors into account, the wage gap shrinks,
leaving just a few percentage points unexplained. People can debate why men and
women continue to make such different choices about work, and why women end up
making choices that lead to lower pay. Undoubtedly, the extra responsibilities
women take on at home are a big part of the equation. Understanding how these
decisions affect earnings and expected earnings in the future is important
information for people — particularly young women — to have as they plan their
careers and family life.
And of course discrimination remains a factor in some
workplaces, which is why there are laws on the books that allow workers to sue
employers who treat them unfairly. We need to continue to encourage businesses
to provide equal opportunity and treatment to men and women.
Yet the public should reject the tired logic of the
feminist movement that seems intent on denying that women ever make any
progress and convincing the next generation of women that America is
overwhelmingly sexist and they are doomed to being consistently shortchanged.
Why else would they insist on exaggerating issues like the wage gap and
misleading the public about what these statistics mean?
The good news is that women are an increasingly educated
and accomplished segment of our society; they are becoming leaders in business,
academia, and the political sphere, as well as leading their communities,
nurturing the next generations, and creating new paradigms for balancing work
and family life. Now that’s something to celebrate.
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