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February 23, 2005

An open question ...

... for those of you who continue to believe that women earn 70cents to every dollar that men earn for the same work.

If this were true, and you were a business owner who is always looking to improve the bottom line, why would you EVER hire a man?

Posted by Darleen at February 23, 2005 01:39 PM

Comments

I don't know, maybe because they're so scarce? According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there were 5,115 male job-related fatalities in 2003 versus 444 female fatalities. Of course, that kind of statistic never comes up in this discussion. Besides, it's up to about $.80 now.

Posted by: Mitch at February 23, 2005 03:57 PM

Some may hire men out of cronyism, others because he had the credentials. I have read or heard that this situation is true when all men and women's earnings are taken into account. There are many CEO's still earning megabucks and few of them are women so that might throw off the average. I haven't seen any statistics lately that compare men and women in jobs earning about $30-50k to know if they are paid equally in similar job descriptions.

BUT if they do earn less;

I suppose if I were a small business owner with little conscience I would hire the ladies planning to pay lower wages.
But, if I had a conscience, I would try to hire the men so they could make wages sufficient to support a family.
There are many couples now living together without marriage and the reason is not just immorality. I read a report that indicates many men are hesitant to propose marriage because they are not certain they can support a wife properly. Many are working two part-time jobs with no health benefits just to exist.
However, if I tried to hire only men I might be slapped with a gender bias lawsuit. Same goes if I tried to hire only women.
More women in the workplace means fewer jobs for men. To hire only men exposes the business to expensive lawsuits.
We have a multi faceted problem here. If we want our daughters and granddaughters to have the opportunity to marry a man who can provide the household with at least a decent standard of living we must encourage businesses to hire fewer women at the risk of ignoring fifty percent of the population and a large pool of talent.
Damned if we do, damned if we don't.

Posted by: teaspoon at February 23, 2005 04:05 PM

- One possibility is that hiring men keeps me....erm them from getting into trouble in the workplace because gawd knows its hard when they sit on the corner of your desk and swing those sexy gams and your temples start to throb and your hands take on a mind of their own and you can't even begin to remember those shipping figures from last month that you need for the meeting and all you can think of is her slipping the hem of that short skirt she's wearing slowly up her glistening thighs and......erm......ahh.....kind of got off topic there.....

Posted by: Big Bang Hunter at February 23, 2005 05:30 PM

Well, maybe you intend to hire more women. But then something like this kicks in, and you don't end up hiring any:


A recent experiment showed that when Princeton students were asked to evaluate two highly qualified candidates for an engineering job - one with more education, the other with more work experience - they picked the more educated candidate 75 percent of the time. But when the candidates were designated as male or female, and the educated candidate bore a female name, suddenly she was preferred only 48 percent of the time.

Here's another example:

Dr. Urry cited a 1983 study in which 360 people - half men, half women - rated [papers about politics, education, and the psychology of women] on a five-point scale. On average, the men rated them a full point higher when the author was "John T. McKay" than when the author was "Joan T. McKay." There was a similar, but smaller disparity in the scores the women gave.

Posted by: Ethical Werewolf at February 24, 2005 04:37 AM

why does no one factor in that women often take time off from work to have children? factor that in, and of course it lowers the amount they make.

Posted by: oh please at March 1, 2005 04:46 PM