BY BETTINA ARNDT
Nickels and dames
February 16, 2005
Do men really earn more than women? Or do they just work harder and smarter – and sacrifice more?
Thirty years ago, Warren Farrell wrote books about the benefits to men of women’s liberation. He often wore a “59¢” badge – calling attention to the wage gap at the time between men and women. But then he found himself wondering about that gap: “If an employer had to pay a man one dollar for the same work a woman could do for 59¢, why would anyone hire a man?”
Farrell has come up with some answers. His new book – Why Men Earn More – concludes men aren’t being paid more to do the same work. Men simply make different choices which position them better to pull in the bucks. Farrell argues that while discrimination sometimes plays a part, both sexes make trade-offs that affect how much they earn.
If women want to earn as much as men, Farrell says, “Work more hours, have more years of experience especially in your current occupation and preferably more years of recent, uninterrupted experience with your current employer, work more weeks during the year, minimize absences from work and commute to jobs that are further away.”
The book is chock-full of research which shows how differences in the way men and women behave in the workplace determine how much they earn. Men’s trade-offs include working more hours, taking more hazardous assignments, being willing to move overseas or to an undesirable location on demand (women’s greater family obligations inhibit this, acknowledges Farrell) and training for more technical jobs with less people contact.
Women are more likely to balance income with a desire for safety, fulfillment, potential for personal growth, flexibility and proximity to home. These lifestyle advantages lead to more people competing for these jobs and thus lower pay, says Farrell.
The hours-worked gap can by itself account for as much as 70% of the pay gap – in Australia the average hours worked by men are almost twice that of women. Farrell shows a person working 45 hours per week averages 44% more income than someone working 40 hours a week. “That’s 44% more income for 13% more time,” he points out.
With Australian men almost twice as likely as women to work at least 50 hours a week, it is hardly surprising most of our CEOs are male, says Judy Sloan from the Productivity Commission. Sloan argues there is a huge element of choice in the slim numbers of women making it up the corporate ladder. Senior management jobs do not look attractive to many women. “All these bright young female graduates come in and do very well. Then they look upwards and see all these people working really long hours and traveling all the time and they think, ‘Do I really want that?’”
Talk of wage gaps was complete nonsense. “Those gross comparisons tell you absolutely nothing,” says Sloan, pointing out that when women put in the same hours and have had the same experience, training and work history as men, wage gaps tend to disappear.
In Australia, similarly trained men and women under 30 show similar earnings – it is only in the older age groups that wage gaps start to widen, according to Mark Wooden at the Melbourne Institute.
But do women’s family responsibilities leave them real options? “Women have to undersell their labour because there is no other choice for a lot of us if we want our families cared for,” says Siobhan Austen, associate professor of economics at Curtin University. Austen argues that while women earn less because they have been unable or unwilling to engage in the patterns of work that are rewarded in our culture – long hours, continuous patterns of employment and so on – there are other options for productive working lives.
And certainly other routes to fulfillment, as Farrell acknowledges. While his book offers advice to women who want to earn more, he makes the case that women’s choices give them better lives. He quotes research showing people, mainly men, who work 40 to 60 hours a week are the least fulfilled of all employment groups while women working part-time, at home, or as volunteers, are the most content. Men earn more but achieve less.