Also why is there no consideration of a sacrifice gap between men and women? It's boiled down to choices within the pay gap dialogue here and elsewhere but there's never a sacrifice of life and limb considered in these analyses.
Of course men are seen as disposable within society by both ruling classes and women but where are the studies done to point out which gender is actually keeping the electricity and water flowing?
Your chart with the comparative changes in wages ignores the prevalent rate of increase within the time frame shown for women as being close to 3 times that for men. Why isn't this brought up in your piece?
Um.... there is no such thing as "affordable" or "free" day care. As an owner of three child care centers, I can tell you it is a very difficult way to make money for the owners and, if the parents are not paying for the child care in Denmark, then taxpayers are, which means the money is just coming from the parents (and others) via a different avenue, not that the care is "free.".
Also, having talked to thousands of Amercian mothers who put their children in child care, exactly 0% of them want to do so. Literally every one of them that I have talked to in our centers would rather raise their own children, but found it fiscally impossible. If we want to look at a more likely culprit of both parents "having to work" at all, do a quick AI query for how much income tax, property tax, and sales tax were combined in the 1940's through 2024: That's why two members of a couple generally have to work now. Take those taxes back to 1940 levels and almost everything about the current lifestyale of American couple changes for the better. Unfortunately, many Americans now wish for the government to take a huge amount of money from it's citizens and redistribute it at 25% for services that 50 years ago, no one thought we needed at all, but now are regarded as "essential government services." Like, for example, paying for other people's child care.
Maybe women should just mate select for men who are more into taking care of kids and less into working more hours than they do to share a higher income so they can devote more time to having kids. (Straight) men respond to female incentives and I just know my mate selection will be better if I advertise resource provenance over “I want to balance my life to take care of kids”. Super easy to test this. Put two profiles on a dating site and have everything the same except for cues to preferences for intensive parenting (at the expense of renumerative work) vs cues for workplace success (at the expense of parenting) and see which gets more interest and more interest from more attractive women. Never explain with male intransigence what is better explained by female mate selection. Women can’t have everything so they optimize for some things at the expense of other things and a higher proportion of women generally would rather have a husband make more than them and share it than have men wasting the time they could be earning money to share with them doing intensive parenting. As do men, but there is much less handwringing over living with tradeoffs and blaming the downstream effects on “culture” or whatever.
I appreciate your write-up - you get to the point and emphasize that this isn't a story of discrimination.
However, the fact that women's wages fall when they have children shouldn't be framed as something bad happening to women. In some cases it might be, but I suspect the majority of the time this is just women making choices about what is important to them.
I could make a graph demonstrating what happens to your earnings at retirement - you'd see a cliff as income falls off to $0. However it would be silly to frame that as something bad - having your income fall to $0 is the point of retirement!
Making trade-offs in life is inevitable and we shouldn't think of women's wages falling after having children as something bad. We could flip this story around - we might look at the choices of men after having children, and lament how awful it is that they have to continue working, rather than getting to spend more time with their families. Why don't we ever read that story?
We shouldn't presuppose one is better, but I'm afraid these types of stories do exactly that.
One of the best explanations of the gender-wage gap. Thank you.
You note that for "most women, having a child is the economic equivalent of being hit by a meteorite. For most men, it barely makes a dent." You also say that men's income often goes up but don't say why. It suspect that men, as they become fathers, they take on more responsibility for making ends meet in the family by working overtime and seeking new more demanding jobs. Men are providers. Rather than denigrating men for making more, we should honor their commitment to their families and making an effort to earn more income.
It is fascinating how we measure each other’s societal worth based on income.
Men get sent to fight wars.
Men are dispatched into all the high-risk fields with the greatest mortality rates.
Men who perform working class jobs are increasingly viewed with disgust by the elite classes, and the elite class now identifies self-consciously as Democrats.
Women earn BAs at a higher degree than men, yet continue to yearn to be mothers.
Women are the only humans who can bring forth human life.
And women are unhappy: with their opportunity to work more, their pursuit of sexual freedom, and their increased desirability among employers.
I think I have just laid out the justification for most of Mr. Reeves’ research in an impolitic voice.
We are making a mash of our culture. Why? Because, as Rob Henderson so eloquently argues, the elite class pushes beliefs that do no scale well across a host of strata.
I found the results to an online survey regarding Americans' views on the gender pay gap from Survey Monkey (Mar. 2019). It seems to fit the article you were describing almost perfectly (couldn't find any grouping of the data by edu. level).
There’s no job I want other than to raise my little kids. You could offer me or my husband a million dollars a year to swap roles, and my husband and I would still keep our lives the way we have it. Just wanted to say that, because this obsession over the closing the wage gap is so messed up to me.
Years ago, I met a very successful female CEO with young children. Her husband also had a high-level job. She said they had a "household manager" who did (nearly) all things a corporate wife would do, in addition to employing a nanny. It was very expensive, she said, and worth every dollar.
Also why is there no consideration of a sacrifice gap between men and women? It's boiled down to choices within the pay gap dialogue here and elsewhere but there's never a sacrifice of life and limb considered in these analyses.
Of course men are seen as disposable within society by both ruling classes and women but where are the studies done to point out which gender is actually keeping the electricity and water flowing?
Your chart with the comparative changes in wages ignores the prevalent rate of increase within the time frame shown for women as being close to 3 times that for men. Why isn't this brought up in your piece?
Maybe, just maybe there are actually reasons for it, real, imagined, necessary, justifiable or diabolical.
Um.... there is no such thing as "affordable" or "free" day care. As an owner of three child care centers, I can tell you it is a very difficult way to make money for the owners and, if the parents are not paying for the child care in Denmark, then taxpayers are, which means the money is just coming from the parents (and others) via a different avenue, not that the care is "free.".
Also, having talked to thousands of Amercian mothers who put their children in child care, exactly 0% of them want to do so. Literally every one of them that I have talked to in our centers would rather raise their own children, but found it fiscally impossible. If we want to look at a more likely culprit of both parents "having to work" at all, do a quick AI query for how much income tax, property tax, and sales tax were combined in the 1940's through 2024: That's why two members of a couple generally have to work now. Take those taxes back to 1940 levels and almost everything about the current lifestyale of American couple changes for the better. Unfortunately, many Americans now wish for the government to take a huge amount of money from it's citizens and redistribute it at 25% for services that 50 years ago, no one thought we needed at all, but now are regarded as "essential government services." Like, for example, paying for other people's child care.
Again your post is wrong it is not a wage Gap, it is an earnings Gap
Maybe women should just mate select for men who are more into taking care of kids and less into working more hours than they do to share a higher income so they can devote more time to having kids. (Straight) men respond to female incentives and I just know my mate selection will be better if I advertise resource provenance over “I want to balance my life to take care of kids”. Super easy to test this. Put two profiles on a dating site and have everything the same except for cues to preferences for intensive parenting (at the expense of renumerative work) vs cues for workplace success (at the expense of parenting) and see which gets more interest and more interest from more attractive women. Never explain with male intransigence what is better explained by female mate selection. Women can’t have everything so they optimize for some things at the expense of other things and a higher proportion of women generally would rather have a husband make more than them and share it than have men wasting the time they could be earning money to share with them doing intensive parenting. As do men, but there is much less handwringing over living with tradeoffs and blaming the downstream effects on “culture” or whatever.
Please edit this article. There are several mistakes:
“I provide what I think it a pretty good”
“gender gap gap”
“…higher someone’s level of education…”
I appreciate your write-up - you get to the point and emphasize that this isn't a story of discrimination.
However, the fact that women's wages fall when they have children shouldn't be framed as something bad happening to women. In some cases it might be, but I suspect the majority of the time this is just women making choices about what is important to them.
I could make a graph demonstrating what happens to your earnings at retirement - you'd see a cliff as income falls off to $0. However it would be silly to frame that as something bad - having your income fall to $0 is the point of retirement!
Making trade-offs in life is inevitable and we shouldn't think of women's wages falling after having children as something bad. We could flip this story around - we might look at the choices of men after having children, and lament how awful it is that they have to continue working, rather than getting to spend more time with their families. Why don't we ever read that story?
We shouldn't presuppose one is better, but I'm afraid these types of stories do exactly that.
There is no pay gap. Is just your struggle understanding 2nd grade math.
Could the men work more because as more children are born into the family more money is needed?Just a crazy thought.
One of the best explanations of the gender-wage gap. Thank you.
You note that for "most women, having a child is the economic equivalent of being hit by a meteorite. For most men, it barely makes a dent." You also say that men's income often goes up but don't say why. It suspect that men, as they become fathers, they take on more responsibility for making ends meet in the family by working overtime and seeking new more demanding jobs. Men are providers. Rather than denigrating men for making more, we should honor their commitment to their families and making an effort to earn more income.
It is fascinating how we measure each other’s societal worth based on income.
Men get sent to fight wars.
Men are dispatched into all the high-risk fields with the greatest mortality rates.
Men who perform working class jobs are increasingly viewed with disgust by the elite classes, and the elite class now identifies self-consciously as Democrats.
Women earn BAs at a higher degree than men, yet continue to yearn to be mothers.
Women are the only humans who can bring forth human life.
And women are unhappy: with their opportunity to work more, their pursuit of sexual freedom, and their increased desirability among employers.
I think I have just laid out the justification for most of Mr. Reeves’ research in an impolitic voice.
We are making a mash of our culture. Why? Because, as Rob Henderson so eloquently argues, the elite class pushes beliefs that do no scale well across a host of strata.
I found the results to an online survey regarding Americans' views on the gender pay gap from Survey Monkey (Mar. 2019). It seems to fit the article you were describing almost perfectly (couldn't find any grouping of the data by edu. level).
https://www.surveymonkey.com/curiosity/equal-pay-day-2019/
There’s no job I want other than to raise my little kids. You could offer me or my husband a million dollars a year to swap roles, and my husband and I would still keep our lives the way we have it. Just wanted to say that, because this obsession over the closing the wage gap is so messed up to me.
But Leftists claim that "Gender" is just a "Social Construct"!
Years ago, I met a very successful female CEO with young children. Her husband also had a high-level job. She said they had a "household manager" who did (nearly) all things a corporate wife would do, in addition to employing a nanny. It was very expensive, she said, and worth every dollar.