Tuesday, April 20, 2010

The Equal Pay Canard

Christina Hoff Sommers decimates the "women make 78 cents on the dollar" meme. A couple of key graphs:

"This study leads to the unambiguous conclusion that the differences in the compensation of men and women are the result of a multitude of factors and that the raw wage gap should not be used as the basis to justify corrective action. Indeed, there may be nothing to correct. The differences in raw wages may be almost entirely the result of the individual choices being made by both male and female workers."

And:

"Men also work longer hours and are more willing than women to take dangerous but well-paid jobs as truck drivers, loggers, coal miners, or oil riggers. (My American Enterprise Institute colleague Mark Perry has suggested we designate October 11, 2020, Equal Occupational Fatality Day. That is how far into the future women will have to work to experience the same number of work-related deaths that men experienced in 2008 alone. )"

Read the whole thing. H/T NRO

1 comment:

"The Hammer" said...

George Gilder made those same arguments decades ago, and they were ignored then as they will be now.
Here's one for you, prostate cancer and breast cancer occur in much the same percentages but breast cancer is funded by the Feds at a nine to one ratio.
I guess breasts are more highly valued by our society than prostates.

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