[ergocoder]

My female colleague used to hypothesize why men earned more in general.

She said that, if we take an average male and female that have no skills whatsoever, male can still be a coal miner or do a construction job or be a mover better.

This means male inherently has higher earning potential. It makes sense that male earns higher.

As a side note, I appreciate she talked about this at work openly. As a male, I am scared to discuss such a thing at work.

[frontman1988]

This doesn't make sense. A skilless women can always be a prostitute. And they earn a lot better than construction workers who aren't exactly skillless in the first place given they are capable of doing physical labour. Men are paid for their ability to work, while women's bodies have intrinsic value just for being a female. I know it's not the most politically correct example, but skillless women are clearly valued more than their counterpart men, reason why you don't see as many homeless women as men.

[ergocoder]

> A skilless women can always be a prostitute.

Prostitute is highly frown upon socially and morally around the world... It is also often illegal in many parts.

[WaxProlix]

Not sure where this is coming from, or if it relates to the article at all really, but do you think it squares well with the section titled "Does the gender pay gap decrease among long tenured employees?"

I agree that it's often been awkward to talk about my compensation at work, though I continue to try if only to make such disparities more clear.

[ergocoder]

> Not sure where this is coming from, or if it relates to the article at all really

The article shows pay gap, and I offered one of the possible reasons that contributed to pay gap.

How is it not related?

[strikelaserclaw]

Also men tend to take more risks, i.e negotiating.

[ergocoder]

This is highly related to the fact that men also have more choices.

They can be a construction worker or mover.

[Thorrez]

This would explain a difference in average or median pay across all jobs. But it doesn't explain the difference in industries and jobs unrelated to physical labor.

[wahern]

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baumol%27s_cost_disease, which is an example of a phenomenon whereby increased wages in one industry pull up wages in other, seemingly unrelated industries. See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross_elasticity_of_demand and, most generally, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opportunity_cost

Those things show how prices/wages could be linked across industries through opportunity cost of the laborer. It doesn't suffice to explain how a sex pay gap could emerge. If hiring men were more expensive (because they have greater opportunity costs), then just don't hire them--hire the women, or whomever is willing to accept the wage you're willing pay for the particular labor services desired.

[michaelt]

You wouldn't expect a supermarket to pay male cashiers more because the men could become miners.

But they might have to pay more for the people who haul heavy boxes around in the back, which might be male-dominated, leading to a pay gap for 'supermarket worker' if not for 'supermarket cashier'.

[Thorrez]

Yes, but that would only be at the low end of the pay scale. At the middle or high end this wouldn't explain a pay gap.

[Thorrez]

>It doesn't suffice to explain how a sex pay gap could emerge. If hiring men were more expensive (because they have greater opportunity costs), then just don't hire them--hire the women, or whomever is willing to accept the wage you're willing pay for the particular labor services desired.

Yes exactly. It would only explain a pay gap at the low end of the pay scale. It wouldn't explain it in the middle or high end.

[csee]

It's an interesting speculation but the main reasons are child birth (women out of work for longer) and personality differences (agreeableness is known to negatively predict income irrespective of gender) explaining the within-occupation delta and different career interests (more nurses less engineers) explaining the broader delta.

[Gareth321]

Right on the money. This was established fact back in 2009 (https://www.shrm.org/hr-today/public-policy/hr-public-policy...). Evidence has only become stronger over the years.

Unfortunately certain activists continue to argue that there are no innate behavioural differences between men and women at the social level.

[kelseyfrog]

Unfortunately social differences cannot be controled for differences in socialization. People instead reach for essentialism as an explanatory model. Essentialism is a rationalization not an explanation that better falls under the umbrella of reifications than as real and true knowledge.

[csee]

Whether these differences are genetic or socialized or some combination of the two is not relevant.

[kelseyfrog]

Agreed, and parent would do well to avoid framing these differences as innate since it is not relevant.

[ergocoder]

Having more choices improves salaries especially when we look at the average.

This should nontrivially impact the average salary.

[bagacrap]

As an engineer, I don't see how my hypothetical ability to lift dressers affects my pay

[michaelt]

When I graduated with my degree in electronics, I found the software industry paid much more than the electronics industry, so I entered the software industry.

If the electronics industry wants to hire me, they would have to pay higher salaries. So the salaries in one industry (software) can drive up salaries in another (electronics)

Admittedly, nobody's leaving programming to become a miner - but plenty of jobs pay less than mining, so it could explain a pay gap in some parts of the salary range. Especially in countries like Australia with big resource extraction industries.

[Thorrez]

Yes, a salary raise in industry A will lead to a salary raise in industry B. Industry B has no option to stop hiring people altogether, so they have to hire at the higher wage level.

But a gender gap in industry A will not lead to an gender gap in industry B. Industry B will just hire the cheaper gender until industry B has no gender gap.

[jcims]

Now isn't when it counts. You have to look back at when you and your friends were selecting a career. Everything after that is competition/retention.

[Thorrez]

Yes, it improves salaries. But it will improve salaries for both men and women at non-physically demanding jobs.

At non-physically demanding jobs, men and women are competing with each other fairly, so if the salaries demanded by one group go up, the employers will hire the other group until the salaries are equal.