This week saw the passing of “Equal Pay Day,” which marks the culmination of the roughly three extra months that an average female employee had to work in 2019 to match the amount of money made by an average male worker in 2018. Many people see the pay gap as unjust, but is it really a result of rampant sexism in the workplace as the critics allege?
A survey unveiled on Tuesday by CNBC and Survey Monkey suggests that, actually, both men and women are equally pleased with their employment situations and the earnings gap can largely be explained by women being more likely on average to choose part-time work.
“Men have a Workplace Happiness Index score of 72 and women a score of 70, close enough to lack a statistically meaningful difference,” according to the newly released data. That fits with earlier polling that was conducted by Cato’s Dr. Emily Ekins, which found that in the United States, the vast majority of women “believe their own employers treat men and women equally.” Fully 86 percent of women polled believed that their employer pays women equally.
There is still a pay gap between men and women who work full-time, but that may be partly due to men and women opting to work in different fields. Dangerous jobs in fields like mining and fishing, for example, tend to attract men. Those jobs also tend to be relatively well-remunerated. (As HumanProgress.org advisory board member Mark Perry points out, the gender gap in workplace deaths far exceeds the gap in pay).
Even so, among full-time workers, the “pay gap” is rapidly narrowing. Data from the OECD shows that the gender wage gap in median earnings of full-time employees is declining in practically all countries for which there are data. In the United States, highlighted in blue in the graph below, the wage gap has fallen dramatically since the 1970s. In 1975, the U.S. gender wage gap was 38 percent. By 2015, it had shrunk to 18 percent.
That 18 percentage point difference does not take into account important characteristics like “age, education, years of experience, job title, employer, and location,” according to my Cato colleague Vanessa Calder. A recent study, which controlled for those characteristics, concluded that the U.S. gender pay gap is only around five percent, meaning that Equal Pay Day should actually be in January.
Of course, if any of that small remaining five percent gap is the result of sexist discrimination—rather than additional mitigating factors that the study failed to control for—then that is unacceptable. We should denounce all forms of inequitable treatment, wherever it persists. We should also take a clear-eyed view of the data and recognize the remarkable gains women have made in the workplace—and how labor market participation has transformed women’s lives for the better.
Siku ya mshahara sawa ni siku ya mwisho ya miezi mitatu ya ziada ambayo mfanyakazi wa kawaida wa kike alikuwa na kufanya kazi mnamo 2019 ili kulinganisha kiasi cha pesa kilichopatikana na mfanyakazi wa kawaida wa kiume mnamo 2018. Watu wengi huona tofauti ya mshahara kuwa isiyo ya haki, lakini je, ni matokeo ya ubaguzi wa kijinsia unaoenea mahali pa kazi kama wakosoaji wanavyodai? Uchunguzi uliofanywa na CNBC na SurveyMonkey unaonyesha kuwa wanaume na wanawake wanafurahi sawa na hali yao ya ajira na tofauti ya mapato inaweza kuelezwa kwa wanawake kuwa na uwezekano mkubwa wa kuchagua kazi ya muda. "Wanaume wana alama ya 72 katika orodha ya furaha ya mahali pa kazi na wanawake wana alama ya 70, karibu na kutosha kukosa tofauti ya takwimu, ""kwa mujibu wa data mpya iliyotolewa." "Kama ilivyoelezwa na utafiti wa hivi karibuni uliofanywa na Cato, Emily Ekins, ""Wanawake wengi wanaamini kwamba waajiri wao wanamtendea wanaume na wanawake sawa"" na ""wafanyabiashara wao wanamlipa wanawake sawa.""" Kuna tofauti ya mshahara kati ya wanaume na wanawake wanaofanya kazi ya wakati wote, lakini hiyo inaweza kuwa kwa sehemu kwa sababu wanaume na wanawake huchagua kufanya kazi katika nyanja tofauti. Kazi hatari katika nyanja kama vile uchimbaji madini na uvuvi, kwa mfano, huvutia wanaume. Kazi hizo pia huwa na mshahara mzuri. "Mwanamke mmoja wa shirika la HumanProgress.org, Mark Perry, alisema: ""Kama ilivyoelezwa hapo juu, kuna tofauti kubwa kati ya wanaume na wanawake katika idadi ya vifo vya wafanyakazi." Hata hivyo, miongoni mwa wafanyakazi wa wakati wote, "tofauti ya mshahara" inazidi kupungua. Takwimu kutoka OECD zinaonyesha kwamba tofauti ya mishahara ya jinsia katika mapato ya wastani ya wafanyikazi wa wakati wote inashuka katika nchi zote ambazo data zinapatikana. Katika nchi za Ulaya, zilizotajwa kwa rangi ya bluu katika grafu ya chini, tofauti ya mshahara imepungua sana tangu miaka ya 1970. Mwaka 1975, tofauti ya mshahara kati ya wanaume na wanawake ilikuwa asilimia 38. Kufikia mwaka 2015, idadi hiyo ilikuwa imepungua hadi asilimia 18. Tofauti hiyo ya asilimia 18 haizingatii sifa muhimu kama vile umri, elimu, miaka ya uzoefu, cheo cha kazi, mwajiri, na eneo, kulingana na mwenzangu wa Cato Vanessa Calder. Utafiti wa hivi karibuni, ambao ulidhibiti sifa hizo, ulihitimisha kuwa tofauti ya mshahara wa jinsia nchini Marekani ni karibu asilimia tano tu, ikimaanisha kwamba Siku ya Ushuru Sawa inapaswa kuwa Januari. Bila shaka, kama yoyote ya kwamba ndogo iliyobaki asilimia tano pengo ni matokeo ya ubaguzi wa kijinsia - badala ya mambo ya ziada ya kupunguza kwamba utafiti alishindwa kudhibiti kwa - basi kwamba ni kukubalika. Tunapaswa kukataa aina zote za matibabu yasiyo ya haki, popote inapodumu. Tunapaswa pia kuchukua mtazamo wazi wa data na kutambua mafanikio ya ajabu ambayo wanawake wamefanya katika mahali pa kazi - na jinsi ushiriki wa soko la kazi umebadilisha maisha ya wanawake kwa bora.