Letter to the editor: The Women’s Wage Gap is a Lie

We’ve heard this thinly veiled propaganda time and time again from a variety of sources, but is there any validity to it? Let’s examine the claim that women get paid 79 cents for every man’s dollar for doing the same work.

This claim first fails on an economic basis. Imagine telling a company that they can save 21% on their labor costs by hiring women. Business owners would be trampling their grandmothers to hire women in place of men. Businesses who hired men would be quicklyoutmatched by companies saving loads of money on their labor costs. A man would never get priority over a woman for a job if she could really be paid so much less. Assuming the wage gap exists then leaves us with only two options: either a woman’s work is only worth 79% of a man’s work, or capitalists are so uninterested in profits that they would prefer to hire only men than to save a ton of money. These are both obviously ridiculous, and so is the idea that it is economically feasible to pay women less for the same work.

“But wait!” you say, “There is a study that shows this wage gap exists!” You’re absolutely right, but let’s critique the quality of that study. While the study did account for some of the differences that separate men and women in the workplace, they missed several key factors. For example, the classification of “full-time” work includes working 35 hours per week and above. Women are 2.5 times more likely to work 35-40 hours per week than men.

Men are 2 times more likely to work more than 40 hours a week, and 2.5 times more likely to work more than 60 hours a week. This significant difference is not accounted for.

The fact that women often leave the workforce for months or even years to raise children was also not accounted for. This is massively significant, especially in fields where a few years out of the game makes your knowledge irrelevant. My Mom has a computer science minor from the early 1990’s. That in no way means that she is up to date or well-practiced in the latest and greatest of computer science, yet this study would have us believe that her experience in the field is as valuable as a freshly graduated CS student. Certainly, it is obvious that these factors are important to consider, and when they are accounted for the apparent wage gap slims to 3%.

One final thought. If we consider two very similar groups –unmarried men and unmarried women- the wage gap disappears! It does not exist when you control for the numerous differences between men and women. The only time a gender wage gap appears is when bad statistics meets ignorance of economics.

—  Michael Larsen

mike.larsen@aggiemail.usu.edu