Doing a number on mothers

Every time I raise the pay equity issue -- you know, how women make 71 cents on the male dollar -- the usual suspects weigh in on how guys take on higher-risk, heavier-duty, more manly work and so they deserve more money yada yada.

Never mind that all that macho stuff is not relevant when discussing, say, how nurses are compensated in comparison to hospital electricians. Who is on her feet all day, or all night? Who has more responsibility? Stress? Training? Education?

But let's leave that for now and focus on today's release from Statistics Canada:

The hourly earnings of Canadian mothers, controlled for age, were 12% less than those of childless women, and the gap widened with more children.

About 70% of the observed motherhood earnings gap can be accounted for by factors such as career interruption, part-time employment, and other individual or job characteristics.

Overall, the results suggest that employer practices may not be a major factor underlying the gap. But the earnings losses incurred by single mothers, mothers with a long career interruption and those with three or more children are significant.

More:

At younger ages, the gap between women with and without children was quite small. At the age of 20, for example, the earnings of women with and without children were $8.60 and $9.50, respectively (2004 dollars), a gap of 10%.

At the age of 30, the gap widened to 19%. Although it shrank slightly between the ages of 34 and 38, it widened further thereafter. For example, at age 40 the gap became 21%.

Much of this widening gap can be attributed to the career interruptions of mothers. Women with children had almost a six-year difference between their actual and potential work experience, while women without children had a disparity of just above one year.

Long career interruptions had a strong negative impact on the earnings of mothers. For example, the difference in average hourly earnings between childless women and mothers with more than three years of interruption was close to 30% at the age of 40.

Among mothers with different lengths of interruption, the gaps were significant only for mothers who had more than three years of interruption.

The study controlled for both observed factors (such as education) and unobserved factors such as career motivation.

The gap was also related to the number of children: it was fully explained for mothers with one child but remained significant for mothers of two or more children.

The earnings gap between single mothers and single childless women was almost twice as large as that between married mothers and married childless women. Once other individual characteristics were controlled for, the gap for married mothers disappeared, while that for single mothers persisted.

Well-educated (more than high school) mothers incurred greater earnings losses than less educated mothers. This was still so even after controlling for other individual characteristics.

Overall, about 70% of the earnings gap was accounted for by observed individual characteristics and unobserved factors.

But persistent gaps for certain groups of mothers were still evident. In particular, lone mothers, mothers with three or more children and highly educated mothers incurred greater losses than married mothers, mothers with one child, and mothers with less than a high school education.

Now, what does this tell us?

Not only are women punished financially for replenishing the population, but they (and by extension, their children) end up dependent on the kindness/generosity of their partners, if they have them, or the state.

If they're stuck with abusive mates, well, tough.

What's more, they often end up poorer in old age because they did not sock away as much pension earnings as men.

Which is why feminists fight for reproductive choices, childcare options, better housing and social services for women.

Get it?

Nah. I didn't think so.

Comments

[Luna]

Well, colour me unsurprised. I'm 34, have 3 kids, a master's degree, and a $350/mo job. My husband seems to think that when the youngest is 5 that I'll just walk into that high paying job I was promised when I was doing the MA. HA!

[Sebastian Stoker]

The fact seems to be that if you have career "interruptions" for whatever reason, you are going to suffer. Uhm...yeah.

It is not just working mothers who suffer because of this. I am a male, but had your classic, stereotypical GenX life - periods of unemployment, several periods back at college/uni, McJobs, a late start in a profession - and am now facing the prospect of an evaporated career (because of a less meatier resume than some) and a grim old age. There are more than enough like me, male and female. The fortunate group - with life employment, career advancement, benefits and pension plans - is ever dwindling. So,how do we as a society try to compensate people for all the twists of fate in their lives, and some of the damage these can cause?

I do not think that bearing children should be a "get out of jail free" card. If society chooses to compensate working mothers, it would be admirable, but it will only open up a can of worms.

[Antonia]

It's not about ''compensation.'' It's about installing mechanisms that ensure that children grow up in less poverty, that women have options (they can't all become strippers), that they are always not dependent on men who may not be so benign. These are of benefit to all of society.

Also, companies who do not make it easy for highly educated and trained women to return -- either by job-sharing or some other means -- merely drain their available talent pool. Not good business.

[MensRightsNow]

...but women don't replace the population. We have zero population growth in Canada. Of course 3 million abortions since 1972 puts a dent in things.

[Edson]

Great post! This issue speaks to me because it reflects a larger problem, one of a lack of imagination about ways to improve the lot of all people, especially historically disadvantaged people like women, minorities, labour etc.
So many times I am confronted with the attitude that "that's just the way it is and always has been, so just deal with it, don't rock the boat". Not only does this betray an ignorance of the gains made by people who did rock the boat (women, minorities, labour activists), but it betrays an unwillingness to entertain the idea that equality necessarily means a majority of people will be better off. Just as an example, at work, I have been lobbying my union to negotiate for increased maternity leave top up from the current 17 weeks (which is pretty good compared to what most women get), even at the cost of pay raises. To me this benefits not only the nurses who enjoy the top up but also their children whose moms may choose to take longer mat leaves (many do not take the full year now). But it's a hard row to hoe. People are fixated on money and not on measures that benefit us much more than a few extra dollars in the pocket.

[jdv]

MRA - you want women to replace the population by having more children? Keep punishing them for it. That will do the trick!

[cenobyte]

It'd be interesting to see the statistics on self-employed women and women working as artists, specifically.

[Reid]

Your constant whining about the results of poor choices made by women is disheartening. Does the male nurse whine that he doesn't make as much as the female electrician. No, because he understands that he is a nurse and the jobs involve different skills and for better or worse, society values different skills with different compensation. He chose to be a nurse with the full realization of what his pay would be and because that was a career field that he found personally rewarding, he became a nurse.
The pay differences are not due to being female, they are due to taking training for something that is deemed more useful to society by the free market. There is nothing stopping the secretaries for the federal government (your latest anti-Govt rants seem to keep focussing on this poor group of jobs for life ladies) from upgrading their qualifications to something more useful like IT and changing classification to a better paying job, either in the federal public service or in the private sector. They choose to stay, because they know that they are handsomely rewarded for what they are doing, but despite having eaten their cake, want some more.
It makes me cry to see that universities still have sociology departments and womens studies programs. These will be the next sets of victims, self selected to fail. Thank god the government hires some to keep hope alive. Skilled trades and marketable skills are what is in demand for both men and women.
As for the supposed financial penalty that women bear for taking a few years off with young children, I think that the additional life expectancy women have is pretty good compensation for that. The life expectancy of childless career women is not surprisingly declining to that of men, now that they have a full career of stress under their belts.

[Paul]

Antonia, the discussion of how nurses are compensated in relation to electricians ignores the initial criticism that the 71 cent dollar myth is not a comparison of equal work. *Obviously*, your example compares nurses to electricians, not men to women. Before you can cry sexism, you need to ask if the male nurse makes more than the female nurse, for the same job.

Instead, you are simply substituting a straw man argument about how much types of work should be valued – ie nursing vs janitorial vs electricians vs teaching vs parent, and posing that as a gender issue.

The remaining examples show the difference between mothers and women without children, not men and women, and misses the objection again, for the same reasons. Presumably, the male-stay-at-home parents will suffer the same career lag as the women parents. In fact, this is what has happened with my own uncle, where his wife is the “breadwinner” and the kids are off in university.

With your background in stats (I read that in one of your columns), it should be obvious that the data does not necessarily support the conclusions you drew. Women are not punished financially for replenishing the population. It simply says that parents who are primary caregivers are not compensated financially for their time away from paid work. There may be many factors that determine which parent decides to stay home, but it does not mean that women are simply passengers in that ride –my wife would likely resent the fact that you are posing her in such a passive role in that decision.

As for daycare – I’m hardly a feminist, but I see the benefit in helping that for any parent, so that families don’t have to make that decision to kybosh a successful career. Daycare in the US, or at least for NY (where maternity leave is minimal) is plentiful, in comparison to Toronto, where the decision to remove a child from daycare is permanent, due to the wait lists.

[Paul]

PS. Why do you classify household income as kindness or generosity for the person who earns less? How many couples earn exactly the same thing? What prescription would you have for prospective couples engaged in courtship, to avoid getting into such a problem? Should I only remain married to someone who can match my income?

[MensRightsNow]

jdv....Children aren't punishment, they are your annuity.

[Keith]

Antonia's Feminism is defined quite clearly with this post. It's not about society being gender neutral. This post shows how Antonia expects women to get entitlements specifically due to thier gender.

Hey Antonia, if women are entitled to some type of compensation for "replenishing the population" wouldn't they also be responsible for giving half that compensation to the father since she couldn't have done that replenishing without him? LOL Keep the laughs coming.

[Paul M. Clements]

Your hatred for men is affecting your ability to write a coherent sentence. This article is just so much nonsense. Just another excuse to bash males. Why do you hate them so much?
Do you think that electricians sit on a chair all day? Have you ever tried to stand on the rung of a ladder for hours on end? Actually, you made one valid point. The "gender gap" is largely a matter of choice. To get a degree, in what field, to have children, to take time off from working. If an employer could hire a woman for less money, no man would be employed. ANYWHERE!
This whole "gender gap" thing is a red herring intended to promote female superiority. You clearly state your support for a Socialist Gynocracy, a Communist government where women will be fully supported from cradle to grave on the earnings of men.

[Sebastian Stoker]

Antonia, I take exception to two of your points.

It IS about compensation. As a right-wing American might say, it is socialist, even communist for a government to try to compensate anyone for the negative results of any of his or her choices, no matter how unfair or unfortunate. the "take from each according to his ability, give to each according to his needs" is very scary. Scarier still - compensating, paying, people to produce and raise children. That is fascist.

There is a myth about talent shortages and brain-drains. Canada, among other countries, is under-using its talent. We have hundreds of thousands, if not millions of native-born and immigrant Canadians who are languishing in unemployment, under-employment, or inferior employment. I have been in a hiring position, and it can make one cry to see the talent and intelligence that is wasted by our market. If we want to talk about bad business practice, we could be here until the end of time.

[Paul]

True, in a free market economy, if you could truly pay nearly a third less to get a woman to do the same job - the men would be unemployable. In today's economy, instead of laying off a third of the workforce, you could simply replace the men with women.

It's amazing how these canards get passed on. From bogus rape stats (what are we up to now, 1 in 4 thanks to Ms Mag?), to assault rates on Superbowl Sunday - feminists continue mislead women with horrific and outrageous statements about how awful their lives are - how they are continually disenfranchised.

And this is done, presumably, to "empower" them.

[Antonia]

Yeah right, guys. Whatever. Wage gap is fiction.

So what about this?

http://thestar.blogs.com/broadsides/2008/03/toil-and-troubl.html

[Sebastian Stoker]

I certainly do not dispute the wage gap. I do not deny gender discrimination in the work place. In my mind, to do either would be ridiculous. I just have a problem with most of the proposed solutions regarding working mothers. I am not the only one.

The most sever criticism I have heard of EI-based maternity leave comes from my mother's demographic, who see younger women as being given everything on a platter. They perceive these young woman as having no appreciation of the efforts made, and the problems faced, by the women who came before them. And in my experience, such selfishness is the direct result of socialist thinking and practice.

[Paul]

Antonia, if you are going to make an incredible statement that the most fundamental law of free market dynamics doesn't work when it comes to employing women (which is what the 71 cent dollar does), then you are going to need equally incredible proof. Pointing out that one Jane Dick makes less than one Anthony Warr for the same job title is not evidence of some vast conspiracy. It might be unfair, and it might even be sexist, but showing me a case of what might be sexism does not trump the economic data.

The rest of your link includes survey responses to *how people feel* about the treatment of women. They are not primary data ; they are merely a reflection of opinions commonly held - like yours. Given how engrained the 71 cent figure is, I would be surprised to get any other answer from a survey asking what people think. Garbage in, garbage out - yes?

If you want to pose a credible argument about the 71 cent dollar, you'll need to address the data that factor in older pre-feminist women still in the workplace (who make less money), time spent working (which is largely due to kids), and the difference in career choices - these factors account for the entire difference.

[Sebastian Stoker]

Paul, in my experience, it would almost be impossible to come up with the statistical proof you demand. If unions dominated all workplaces, or if the our government was as vigilante as those of other countries about protecting workers, then we could talk.

Despite all the American right-wing screeching about how socialist Canada is, over the last twenty years we have seen employee rights eroded to the point that some people are living a hell at the office.

How can you statistically determine that a woman is being paid less than a man for the same work and performance, when many companies have no structured system to determine/show the salary ranges for all positions, and employee reviews are manipulated because of discrimination (by the system, or individual), personal bias, or in order to quash salary hikes? It would be impossible to untangle the mess often intentionally created by employers. Unfortunately, in most cases (in the private sector) anecdotal evidence is all we have. That backed up with available stats.

To say, show me, or I do not believe any of it, despite the stats that do exist, despite the anecdotal evidence, is being argumentative for argument's sake.