IV. WHY DO MEN MAKE MORE MONEY?

WHY DO MEN MAKE MORE MONEY?
Before we look closer at women in the workplace, lets investigate the claim by some that women are simply not financially rewarded in a fair manner for the work they do.
The difference in the status of women and men in the workplace is most often reported as a wage gap. No wonder, as the numbers make good inflammatory headlines. Since women hit a peak, earning 77% of men’s earnings in 1992, they have slipped back to 75.5%, according to the 2004 U.S. Census. That’s comparing full-time year-round workers. Women earn much less (44% of men’s wages) if you include those who work part-time or dip in and out of the job market to tend to family. ****
On the face of it, this seems just plain unfair, but the numbers are misleading. It is not always appropriate to use terms like ‘equality’ or ‘parity’ in discussing the male/female wage gap. Care must be taken, with all the variables involved, to avoid the classic apples-to-oranges comparison.
The difference between the status of men and that of women at work is better described as a gender gap than a wage gap. There is more of a difference in how men and women work (the jobs they choose, the effort they put in) than there is a difference in pay for the same work.
Instances in which a woman earns less pay for doing exactly the same work as a man for exactly the same number of hours probably account for a small part of the disparity. This type of obvious gap is being continually narrowed by lawsuits and company salary reviews.
It is important that women look at everything else that has kept the gender gap alive in the workplace. Once they have a real understanding of the complexities of the issue, they will see that the situation is far from out of their control. There is much that any woman can do right now to position herself to reach any career goal. At the same time, she will be changing the state of the female workforce.
The facts are; women work differently than men, and make different choices than men.
The main reason women make less money than men is that they choose different jobs than men.
As we’ve shown, huge numbers of women flock to occupations in health care, teaching, office support, food service, retail, cosmetology and child-care.
With nearly half of women going into just 5% of the available job choices, salaries stay low relative to level of effort. This is consistent with the laws of supply and demand that characterize the capitalistic economy and is considered by many to be one of the strengths of our democracy. Its effect is not a good one for hard workers who are easy to come by. Its effect is a very good one for rarities in the job market or for entrepeneurs with a specialty niche.
Further inhibiting their lucrativeness, these twenty occupations have evolved in the female job culture. Historically, these jobs have often provided secondary or supplementary income for families. Such jobs have not traditionally paid as much as those which have always been held by the main breadwinner for a family.
Another reason women make less money than men is that women do not rise to top executive levels proportionate to their numbers in the workplace.
There is much talk of the “glass ceiling”, that is, a barrier that’s hard to see or define, but that is nevertheless there, and keeps women from rising to the highest levels of business.
There is no doubt women start falling off the corporate ladder as they approach the highest rungs. While it is true that the CEO club is traditionally a boys club, (in varying degrees depending upon the business), its members comfortable in their exclusive world of men’s talk, fine cigars, business golf, and Laker’s tickets, it is not really a closed club. It simply has not contained many women in the past, and so has developed a leathery male ambience. Studies show that only a small number of women embrace and demonstrate the degree of ambition necessary to advance to the very highest levels of responsibility in top tier companies. There is, therefore, a catch-22. The existence of fewer female than male candidates creates a more universally male atmosphere for conducting business and making decisions. This atmosphere is less welcoming and comfortable for a woman than a man, and it is therefore difficult for both men and women to visualize females in the topmost roles. The context is similar to that in politics. Nevertheless, women can and do rise to the top, when they decide to pursue their careers as dogmatically as their male counterparts. Often they simply do not decide to do so.
Not only are there only seven female CEOs of Fortune 500 Companies, but of the twenty-four top executives working for those women, only three are women! Twenty-one are men who put in the time and quality effort it took to be selected for their positions by their woman CEO.
The Department of Labor list illustrates the numbers of women in non-traditional wage-paying and-salaried employment, but doesn’t really address women-owned businesses or commission-based jobs.
What about female business owners, compared to male entrepeneurs?
The good news is that privately held, majority-owned (not just a partner to the hubby) women-owned businesses account for about 28% of businesses in the country. Even better news is that the fastest growth rates for women-owned businesses are in non-traditional industries, like construction, and agricultural services.
The not-so-good news is that more than half of women-owned firms are still in the service sector (home cleaning, day care, home health care, etc), and many are in retail. Only 9% of women-owned businesses are in finance, insurance, or real estate. Also, as of 1998, while 58% of men business owners had $50,000 or more in credit available to them, a measure of success, only 34% of women did. In 2000, $89.8 billion in venture capital investments went to firms generally. How much of that went to firms with women CEOs? Only five percent! Generally, women-owned businesses are smaller and less sophisticated than businesses in general.
In a hard look at the state of women’s work, women must face the fact that women have, for many reasons, declined jobs in many lucrative fields. They have chosen to do work that doesn’t pay as well. They have also chosen not to compete as aggressively as men for a place on the executive (leadership) track.