{"id":1757,"date":"2015-04-14T11:20:11","date_gmt":"2015-04-14T17:20:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/?p=1757"},"modified":"2015-04-14T11:20:11","modified_gmt":"2015-04-14T17:20:11","slug":"on-closing-the-gender-wage-gap-no-it-wont-pull-half-of-working-single-moms-out-of-poverty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2015\/04\/on-closing-the-gender-wage-gap-no-it-wont-pull-half-of-working-single-moms-out-of-poverty.html","title":{"rendered":"On “closing the gender wage gap”: no, it won’t “pull half of working single moms out of poverty”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Here\u2019s a piece that appeared in the Wonkblog at the Washington Post last week, \u201cClosing the gender wage gap could pull half of working single moms out of poverty<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

My first reaction: \u00a0bad math.<\/p>\n

Some time ago, I had played around with census figures<\/a>, and learned that, at the lower end of the pay scale, women\u2019s earnings are much closer to men\u2019s than at the top.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s my table:<\/p>\n

Women\u2019s pay as % of men\u2019s, 2013<\/strong>
\n1st decile \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a00.899
\n1st quartile \u00a0 \u00a0 0.880
\nmedian \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a00.821
\n3rd quartile \u00a0 \u00a0 0.781
\n9th decile \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 0.758<\/p>\n

Hence, the finding that the Post touted, that<\/p>\n

The country\u2019s number of working single mothers who live in poverty would drop from about 30 percent to 15 percent, researchers estimate, if they earned on average as much as comparably skilled men.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

seemed pretty suspect. \u00a0If low-earning women earned as much as low-earning men, the needle would move some, but it\u2019s not possible for it to make that dramatic a difference unless vast numbers of single moms were just a smidge below the poverty line and only small increases were required to bump them up.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s more, the source they site, a link to the Institute for Women\u2019s Policy Research<\/a>, provides no additional information, just the same graph as the WaPo reproduces, with no source data or methodology. \u00a0So I thought I was at a dead end, until today, in the Chicago Tribune, the same article was reprinted and I saw something I hadn\u2019t seen before:<\/p>\n

But jobs more often held by female workers without college degrees (child care, retail, administrative work) tend to pay much less than roles dominated by men with the same level of education (plumbing, electricity, contract work).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

If the study\u2019s methodology was indeed to compare pay rates of female-dominated no-college-degree-required jobs to pay rates for male-dominated no-college-degree jobs, well, then, their results are explainable, but meaningless. \u00a0Plumbers and electricians are skilled trades which require, though not a college degree, a significant degree of training via an apprenticeship. \u00a0I\u2019m not sure what \u201ccontract work\u201d means, but perhaps this is construction work? \u00a0And, in contrast, retail work requires no specialized skills, child care may only require a class or two in child development, and secretarial work varies greatly in the level of training and experience required. \u00a0(My employer wants its \u201cadmins\u201d to be college educated, but expects them to do more than just typing and pays them accordingly \u2014 they, not the actuaries, are responsible for ensuring that everything that goes to a client follows the prescribed format, even including color scheme.)<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not even going to address the issue that male-dominated jobs require a lot more physical work, and often are riskier as well. \u00a0Let\u2019s just file this one, instead, under \u201cHigher Education Bubble\u201d by observing that the study\u2019s author and\/or the Post simply treated all non-college-degree jobs as equivalent, without acknowledging the real skill involved in many of these occupations, and then seemingly made the leap to \u201con average, they should all pay the same.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here\u2019s a piece that appeared in the Wonkblog at the Washington Post last week, \u201cClosing the gender wage gap could pull half of working single moms out of poverty.\u201d My first reaction: \u00a0bad math. Some time ago, I had played around with census figures, and learned that, at the lower end of the pay scale, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2209,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1757","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nOn "closing the gender wage gap": no, it won't "pull half of working single moms out of poverty"<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Here's a piece that appeared in the Wonkblog at the Washington Post last week, "Closing the gender wage gap could pull half of working single moms out of\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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