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Subscribe to RSSReshma Jagsi, an associate professor and physician researcher at the University of Michigan Health System, uncovered some sobering news recently.
When it comes to the gender wage gap, even top female physicians in academia like Jagsi herself can’t catch a break.
Jagsi is the lead author of a study published Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association that looked at similar groups of men and women who are midcareer physician researchers and found that even among these professionals, income inequality exists.
"It is disappointing," she said about her findings. "We would like to think in medicine these kinds of things don't affect our profession."
The pay disparity between women and men has been long-documented, but often people brush such reports aside because they claim that they don’t look at the whole picture, including choices women may make.
"We thought if we focused on the cream of the crop of physician researchers, all at the same point in their careers, all doing the same work, and if we controlled for specialty and work hours, we could understand what's driving the gender difference," Jagsi explained. "Disturbingly, even after we controlled for all those factors, the male doctors were paid more than the female doctors."
The mean salary for women physician researchers was $167,669, compared to $200,433 for their male counterparts. Even after adjusting for specialty, academic rank, leadership positions, publications and research time, the study found that women made about $12,000 less than men. And over the course of their careers, she added, women in this study will end up earning $350,000 less than men doing the same type of work.
What makes this study unique is that researchers took pains to make sure they were comparing apples to apples. All the physicians in the study had received prestigious National Institutes of Health grants and went on to work for academic institutions.
According to the researchers, “this study, which considered a homogeneous population of physicians, demonstrates a substantial and significant gender difference in salary, one-third of which is unexplained by differences in specialty, productivity or numerous other measured factors.”
Researchers did find some differences between male and female physician researchers, including the percentage of leadership positions they held and the medical specialties they chose.
- Women held fewer of the top jobs, and that could explain some of the disparity in pay, but, the study pointed out, “being passed over for a leadership position may be part of the same process that leads a woman to advance more slowly and be paid less than her male peers.”
- Women also were less likely to be in higher paying specialties, except obstetrics and gynecology. With respect to this, the researchers said, “It may be important to consider the gender gap without adjustment for specialty if women do not choose but rather are encouraged to occupy lower-paid specialties or if those specialties pay less partly because they are predominated by women.”
And as for the mommy penalty, aka, women making less because they choose to pare down their careers for motherhood, the researchers found the notion was not supported in their sample:
“Sex differences in compensation may be related to parental status, with mothers potentially more likely to sacrifice pay for unobserved job characteristics such as flexibility and fathers potentially more likely to wish to earn more to support their families. However, in contrast to some other studies, we did not observe any interaction between gender and parental status; even women without children had lower pay than men. Thus, we found no evidence suggesting differential influence of parental status on priorities or values of the male vs. female academic physicians in this sample.”
The report is further evidence that women do get shortchanged when it comes to their paychecks, and the level of their professional attainment does not matter.
Many have realized the problem for a long time, but legislation to help deal with the problem known as the Paycheck Fairness Act was blocked by Senate Republicans last week.
Catherine Hill, research director of the American Association of University Women, had hoped the bill would motivate employers to start addressing the issue of pay disparity. “The best employers are doing things they should when it comes to pay, but it would be a reminder for all those other employers to catch up,” she said.
The act would have forced employers to create more transparency when it comes to pay, and that's exactly what Jagsi said is needed to help narrow the wage gap.
Given her research, Jagsi believes the persistent disparity in pay in medicine, and other professions, could be a function of gender bias in the workplace. "It's important to consider the role of bias, but I think it much more likely hidden latent unconscious gender bias we all harbor."
Jagsi said she doesn't know if she's underpaid but she said she spoke to her departmental administrator Friday about standardizing the way employees are paid in order to provide transparency. He told her the issue is "very complicated."
To that, she responded, "We do a lot of things in medicine and in society that are complicated. I think our findings merit attention and action."
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Since there are more women than men, get involved in politics and change the status quo. Be the majority at the voting booth, then we can change things.
In many areas women earn more then men,and there are more unemployed males then females,These are some facts that are not told in the liberal bias PC media.The mainstream media keeps quoting statistics that have been manipulated to make it appear women earn less...These statistics include women who work only part time,and women who are out on maternity leave (which is no small number) and women who work in low paying jobs etc, etc. There is no "war on women" and women aren't victimized anymore then men are.
The ranks of the unemployed include only those seeking jobs. The 10+% of women that live as full-time housewives are not included in those stats.
But you're right. The media presents the sex wage gap as discrimination even though the articles themselves rarely contain a single sentence that actually states the gap is the result of employers paying women and men differently for the same work.
I work in a highly tech area for a huge corporation. What few women we have are paid the same even though none of them are required to even ever learn the most advanced technology.. They ARE cute though so nobody minds:)
Also...I never go to female or minority Drs since they were allowed into the profession/medical schools by quotas/affirmative action etc. They may be the best but I can't take that very good chance that they are not...just used the "system" to push their way in with no ability at the expense of those more capable. There is no such thing as a white male who hasn't earned his way and therefore not as much risk for me and family...Not exactly PC but it's real...
Thank you! We have a son who is white, and a doctor, and all of us gave up a lot to get him where he is. He earned every stinking minute of the trip.
This is predictable liberal BS, trying to make the facts fit the theory. The sad thing; Obama care will ruin all of them, and we, the ones depending on the brilliant who had what it takes to wend their way through it all, will be left to deal with some third world doctor with who knows what kind of credentials who is whisked into our country at the top of the immigration list due to being some sort of minority or otherwise an anomoly. Let's prevent the Brave New Obama World where we all suffer together equally, except for Hussein and Michelle's elites of course who will be travelling at taxpayer expense to Spain by the plane load. Vote for sanity and vote them out before they ruin it all.
Hmm wonder if it has anything to do with constantly taking time off for birthing breast feeding taking care of kids - and all the while the males are expected to take the extra call and work for free - yet the males arent allowed to take time off after the birth of their child or to take care of them
ralph - not to mention more women take off to care for their elderly parents as well.
Men are allowed to take time off for a new baby or to care for their families under the Family Leave and Medical Act, though few do.
http://www.dol.gov/whd/regs/compliance/1421.htm
That's not really germane to this article, though, which discusses a study where even childless women were making significantly less than men were.
http://jama.jamanetwork.com/journal.aspx
Women make less because the demand less. Male doctors ask for more money and if they don’t get it they walk. Women are too timid to demand higher pay plain and simple this goes for all industries
I am so sick of hearing crap like this. First off women in the work place is fine if they can do the job. Women take more time off than men. they decide they must have a kid and go home for months on end and then come back months later. you have to hire someone barely get them trained up to speed then let them go. And when little miss feminazi decides to hook up with a felon because she "doesn't need a man to pay her bills" she has to take all this extra time off to bail him out of jail, cart him around to court and rehab. I've seen this so many freaking times it's pathetic. then when the felon/loser/sissyboy decides to leave them they sit around crying constantly. If any guy did this he'd be fired after being warned once. As management if you expect them to be equal to a man you're a heartless @!$%#. Do the equal work and we'll give you the equal pay.
I've also seen many women work their way up the corp ladder 6 inches at a time. oh sure it's just sex with a coworker at the beginning. then when the boss gets promoted it's "recommend me for your position or I'll claim sexual harassment." It's amazing how many women do this. soon we have executives that can't manage anything bigger than the last penis they were working on. And they won't hire anyone better looking than they are. Soon the entire dept is filled with guys she digs and a pile of waterbuffalo. Once again if a man hired someone for looks it's be a massive lawsuit.
I can see why a woman would pick a Felon/loser/sissyboy when she has you for a choice. What's wrong Al did some woman climbing up the corporate ladder step over your 3" rung. I bet the last woman you touched had to be blown up.
al - what are you talking about. Most women do not act like this. By the way, if the boss is sleeping (having sex) with coworkers than it is his problem. If he kept it put away maybe this problem would not be at your company.
Men are just better at everything, except doing laundry and breastfeeding. We deserve greater pay. It's only fair.
So, women agree to work for less than men agree to work for.
Maybe women are just bad negotiators.
Or maybe women who negotiate are perceived more negatively than men who negotiate.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1471-6402.00008/abstract
Since this study was done with university researchers as the main focus, plus the fact that I haven't actually read the study, I can't really speak to the article per se.
But a couple of thoughts did come to mind.
It is without question that the university setting is one of the solid bastions of liberalism. If that is true, then the fact that the research indicates a pay gap is pretty telling of either one or both of two things. The corporatism that liberals love to hate is alive and well in the heart of liberalism. Once again it appears that liberals at the top who pretend to be "down with the struggle", don't have any problem at all being hypocrites. And that statement extends throughout liberalism where the rich and famous liberals say one thing for the perception they like to portray, and do totally another when the cameras and reporters aren't around. Or, maybe just by chance they're all Republicans at the top. Hmmm, don't think that's it.
But again, since this is a university setting, beyond the speculations I just made, I really can't speak to their situation beyond that.
One think I can speak to is my wife's medical group. I can tell you in her group, there is absolutely no disparity in pay among the physician partners of the group. Everyone makes the same amount. That statement does not apply to the several part time physicians they also have on staff, as they are not partners in the group. And I'm not sure what their pay arrangements are.
So, it seems odd that the bastion of liberalism doesn't practice what they preach, and the bastion of capitalism, at least in the medical practice instance I can speak to, has no disparity at all.
"Women also chose lower paying specialities"
Garsh. I kinnot figger out why wimmens is paid less.
This study reported a similar result as other studies. After controlling for a number of important variables, the pay gap was moderate (about 6 percent). I am not sure if the sample was a probability sample, so the gap may not be generalizable. The study did not control for leadership position, a very important variable. Leadership positions are often obtained through aggressive applications for new positions. Flexibility is important to obtain leadership positions as applicants need to be willing to relocate when the positions open.
My advice to both men and women who seek higher compensation is the same. Plan your career so that you have demonstrated accomplishments that are readily marketable. Be aggressive and flexible in seeking new opportunities. Pay close attention to labor market conditions. Strike when the conditions are most favorable. Do not expect your existing employer to reward your accomplishments unless you can demonstrate your worth in the labor market. The best way to obtain more compensation is a competing job offer.
The authors have a political agenda evident in their comments. They fail to understand the dynamics of labor markets and choices made by men, women, and families.
They did control for leadership position, along with specialty, academic rank, publications, and research time.
http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleID=1182859
Other studies indicate that women who aggressively promote themselves and their accomplishments are viewed more negatively by their peers than men who exhibit the same behavior. Damned if they do, damned if they don't.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0005789480800062
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0005789480800062
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/job.185/abstract
Maybe female doctors who are employed or are in academia make less but if they are self-employed, physicians, whatever gender, make the same providing they work the same hours. Insurance companies, Medicare and Medicaid pay the same, although Medicare and Medicaid pay the same low amount.
The study took in several factors, but did it include age and years of experience of the male physicians in question? If it did, I missed it. Reshma Jagsi's hubby, John Pottow, is a bankruptsy lawyer who is also employed at the U. Of Michigan as a professor. I can't help but feel that he didn't spur this debate also. Jagsi appears to want to capitalize on this in more than one way, a probably so does her hubby.
They did adjust for work hours and rank. Still a gap.
http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleID=1182859
took me 12 years to become a doctor,found out after 3 years of practice it wasn't for me,6 months to become a plumber and i think i really make more money and way way less insurance cost,my customers call me the crappy doctor,west palm beach,ask your neighbors about me,on call 24/7
I am not sure that this "pay gap" actually occurs. I know that I have more education than the majority of men out there; however, I choose to work in a field that pays less than most occupations. I made this choice and I do not regret making less than other jobs. I am an Elementary School Teacher and I get many benefits besides cash.
My Sister-in-law has been a VP with two different Fortune 500 companies. She's tough, brilliant and charming. She's risen up the ranks and always gets paid more than her male predecessors.
On the flipside, I just hired a woman to manage one of my companies and I have to coach her constantly on how to be tough and assertive without appearing emotional or irrational. This includes the phrases she uses, her body language, how quickly she gets frustrated, etc. When hired, I even had to try and coax her to engage in her own pay negotiation because she was too uncomfortable to ask for how much money she thought she deserved. She probably could have gotten more than I offered. I would have given it to her. But when I gave her my offer she took it immediately.
I have had dozens supervisors/managers who were direct reports and who were women and hundreds of employees who were women as well. Out here. In the real world. I can't tell you how many hundreds of times I've had a woman cry in my office - about family/relationships/work stress/coworkers/finances, you name it. Never had a guy cry yet.
The point of all this? You can't ignore the fact that men and women are different. We are not the same. I love having female employees because there are a lot of things they do better than most men. But men are more often the more fierce competitors who constantly look for the angles the can play to make the outcome come out in their favor and therefore will generally negotiate more aggressively.
Most women are not like that. A false perception? Those hours spent consoling employees sobbing uncontrollably in my office tells me no. Most of the ones sobbing were great employees too. However, they made it so I don't need to see studies telling me why a gender gap exists. I know it exists and I know why. Most of the ones sobbing were great employees too.
There are some exceptions and those that I've seen that are exceptions rarely have any problem crashing right through the "glass celing." Women I see complain about the glass ceiling I usually shake my head at and think about the laundry list of faults they have holding them back: complaining and whining about problems rather than devising solutions for starters.
And government regulation? As a solution? No, not a solution. There is no solution. The people who demand more out of life and have the intelligence and sophistication to get it, will - male or female. End of story. The fact that many women don't demand every ounce of power and money they can wrap their hands around is not a shortcoming, fault or problem. They thankfully keep us from living in a world of kill or be killed, eye for an eye and power for power's sake. Thank heavens for women.
After Scott Walker is done with the rich, overpaid, pampered teachers maybe he can go after the male doctors in Wisconsin next?
Doesn't matter. Her "study" didn't take into consideration the only thing that matters to an employer when deciding salary. Expected return. It makes no sense to offer a women the same initial salary offer as a man, because dollars invested in training may be wasted if they choose to take time away from their careers for family...which is unknowable because it's illegal to ask. Controlling for whether a person is currently a parent or not is irrelevant, because you look at women without kids the same as a woman with kids. Plus factor in the increased cost of providing health care for women and viola! Rational argument for why paying women between the ages of 18-40 salaries that are appropriate for their expected contributions.
Look.. when I take a woman out to dinner.. and she pays? And there's no stigma associated with me NOT paying? Then we'll talk about this issue.
People brush such reports aside: because such studies do not show the whole picture?
Excuse me, while I vomit before I will explain such terrible misdeeds in our society. The gender gap is so obvious and consistent that any laughable intention of a male trying to explain such outrageous contentions with science, logic, or whatever will be educated by a female that is not afraid to meet such issues head-on.
Then gender gap begins the very same day a little girl is born into this world. This little girl will be raised to be enslaved by males, mentally and physically. This little girl will grow up and mother as well as the father will teach that little girl that the only reason she is on this planet is to please her male counter parts.
A woman is expected to make the life better for a male, any male! That is father, brother, cousins, life partners, whatever. A woman is expected to anticipate mood swings of males and then attempt to counter act either by employing mental or even physical tacticts to change that. Why? To make a male happy of course. What happens to little girls in this world? They grow up in a world where there every thought and action shall only be based on the fact in which way they can benefit males.
I can assure you most males will not carry the same burdens in their lives, because they are raised completely differently. Will males finally understand the complete failure of our society to raise two genders in equality? It simply does not exist. The feeble attempt of males trying to explain any kind of gender inequality with the old fashioned reasons that have been uttered for thousands of years sickens me.
In any relationship, you can look at employer-employee relationships, you can look at parent - child relationships, sibling relationships, life partner relationships: Such relationships will only ever be equal if both sides act with the same kind of respect and empathy a human being deserves: Any human being, male or female.
This message goes out to the males, you know who you are, who do not give a crap about how a female feels, thinks, or what she is trying to accomplish in her life. Thos e kinds of males only see their own needs, a female is fully expected to brush her own needs aside in order to fulfill physical and mental demands of males.
Then those same who would never ever even try to improve a woman's life have the audacity to call females that are not afraid of confronting such injustice as feminists. Well, the time has come to tell you who you really are: the time has come to tell those (men?) that when attempting to label a woman as a feminist because she has the guts to tell it how it is then what you are doing is simply attempting to take away the right of speech. You propably claim that you are patriot too, lol.
Look at the writing on the wall. If one side puts in 20 percent and the other side is expected to provide the other 80 percent than any relationship, private or professional is a relationship that will fail. But yet even women either just do not understand the complete logic of this statement, because they do not even complain, no, they just attempt to make the life of males more pleasant, (even if it means that their own health suffers). Can somebody please employ their gray matter for just seconds and realize how many injustices in our society are simply based on gender injustice issues?
Anyone out there who has the guts to look at such issues without attempting to blame females for male behavior?
Your sexism is so deeply ingrained that I suspect you are beyond being reasonable. Would you be receptive to what a man said if he talked to you the way you have written your comment?
Here's the advisory I wrote as a foreword for "An in-depth look at pay equity" at http://malemattersusa.wordpress.com/2012/01/14/an-in-depth-look-at-womens-pay-equity/
If you are an ardent advocate of women’s pay-equity, I sincerely recommend that you do not read this. Why?
Over the past four decades, the media, which are supposed to objectively reflect all views, have almost exclusively reflected the advocates’ view on pay-equity. The effect of this long-running lack of objectivity and balance is, I think, to create in pay-equity advocates’ minds an entrenched and immutable perception that no other view is possible and that pay discrimination against women is not whimsy but widely accepted fact that is completely beyond dispute.
In this atmosphere over time, pay-equity advocates have, I believe, unconsciously built up such a fragility that a view contrary to theirs often inflames them and renders them not the least bit receptive to that view. My pay-equity view here is practically guaranteed to inflame and anger advocates who throughout their adult life have been fed by the intellectually dishonest media the “incontrovertible fact” of wage discrimination against women.
(Here's a bit of balance that the media failed to provide for the last four decades: “The Doctrinaire Institute for Women's Policy Research”
http://malemattersusa.wordpress.com/2012/02/16/the-doctrinaire-institute-for-womens-policy-research/)
The study is wrong. 1st of all it says apples to apples. How can a study be the same if it is trying to say there is no difference in Gender. You can not put Gender aside and do a comparison. The make up in Gender is significantly different. Men think, act and are different. If we were setting at a machine doing the same repetitive job, then maybe you could make a comparison. But when its male to female, impossible to compare. There is a Gender difference, you can not put that aside in a study. A short time ago women where not allowed to vote, prior considered property. We think and act differently, because of a lot of different factors and I'm glad we do. There is a lot more on this, and I do not think this study is relivent.
"Equal pay" advocates won't even consider this:
They no doubt strongly support the Age Discrimination In Employment Act. Without it, they may argue, employers who obsess over profit and cheap labor would routinely replace older employees with younger ones at lower wages. Yet these same advocates apparently believe employers' obsession with profit and cheap labor is all of a sudden irrelevant when it comes to paying men more than women for the same work! In sum, the advocates believe employers would get rid of older workers to save money, but will not get rid of men to save money. (The same applies with regard to employers hiring illegal immigrants for their cheap labor.)
So why would a profit-obsessed hospital pay male doctors more than female doctors for the exact same work? "Because of sexism" won't get it.
The "proof" cited to show there is wage discrimination against female workers is "women earn 77 cents to men's dollar in the same jobs."
Contrary to what pay-equity advocates say, though, “women's 77 cents to men's dollar” does NOT mean women are paid less than men in the same jobs. Nor does it mean, even more incredibly in the vein of “men are stronger than women” (which to many people translates into "every man is stronger than every woman"), that every woman earns 23% less than every man, perhaps leading some of the more benighted and the blinkered ideological to believe Diane Sawyer of ABC News earns less than the young man walking up and down the street wearing a “Pizzas $5” sign.
Women's 77 cents to men's dollar is arrived at by comparing the sexes' median incomes: women's median is 77 percent of men's. In 2009, the median income of full-time, year-round workers was $47,127 for men, compared to $36,278 for women or 77 percent of men's median. http://www.catalyst.org/publication/217/womens-earnings-and-income
Median income is defined thusly: 50% of workers earn above the figure and 50% below. Think about what this means when you hear that women's 77 cents to men's dollar proves that women earn less than men for the same work: A lot of female workers in the higher ranges of women's median make more money than a lot of male workers in the lower ranges of men's median.
Moreover, “women's 77 cents to men's dollar” doesn't account for the number of hours worked each week, experience, seniority, training, education or even the job description itself. It compares all women to all men, not people in the same job with the same experience. So the salary of a 60-year-old male computer engineer with 30 years at his company is weighed against that of a young first-year female teacher. Also, men are much more likely than women to work two jobs; hence, more often than women, a man earning $50,000 from his two jobs is weighed against a women earning $25,000 from her one job, so that he appears to be unfairly earning twice as much as she.
Over the decades, strategically ignoring the true meaning of "women's 77 cents to men's dollar" has been less than productive:
No law yet has closed the gender wage gap — not the 1963 Equal Pay for Equal Work Act, not Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, not the 1978 Pregnancy Discrimination Act, not the 1991 amendments to Title VII, not affirmative action (which has benefited mostly white women, the group most vocal about the wage gap - http://tinyurl.com/74cooen), not diversity, not the countless state and local laws and regulations, not the horde of overseers at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and not the Ledbetter Fair Pay Act.... Nor will a "paycheck fairness" law work.
That's because women's pay-equity advocates, who always insist one more law is needed, continue to overlook the effects of female AND male behavior:
Despite the 40-year-old demand for women's equal pay, millions of wives still choose to have no pay at all. In fact, according to Dr. Scott Haltzman, author of "The Secrets of Happily Married Women," stay-at-home wives, including the childless who represent an estimated 10 percent, constitute a growing niche. "In the past few years,” he says in a CNN report at http://tinyurl.com/6reowj, “many women who are well educated and trained for career tracks have decided instead to stay at home.”
(“Census Bureau data show that 5.6 million mothers stayed home with their children in 2005, about 1.2 million more than did so a decade earlier....” at http://tinyurl.com/qqkaka. Consider also: "a 2007 Pew Study on working mothers revealed that 60 percent of full-time working moms would rather be part-time -- up from 48 percent 15 years ago" at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peggy-drexler/dont-call-him-mr-mom-the_b_1573895.html.)
If indeed women are staying at home at a higher rate, perhaps it's because feminists and the media have told women for years that female workers are paid less than men in the same jobs — so why bother working if they're going to be penalized and humiliated for being a woman.
As full-time mothers or homemakers, stay-at-home wives earn zero. How can they afford to do this while in many cases living in luxury? Because they're supported by their husband, an “employer” who pays them to stay at home.
The implication of this is probably obvious to 10-year-olds but seems incomprehensible to or is ignored by feminists and the liberal media: If millions of wives are able to accept NO wages, millions of other wives, whose husbands' incomes range from moderate to high, are able to:
-accept low wages
-refuse overtime and promotions
-choose jobs based on interest first, wages second — the reverse of what men tend to do
-take more unpaid days off
-avoid uncomfortable wage-bargaining (http://tinyurl.com/3a5nlay)
-work part-time instead of full-time
All of which lower women's median pay.
Women are able to make these choices because they are supported — or if unmarried anticipate being supported — by a husband who must earn more than if he'd chosen never to marry. (Still, even many men who shun marriage, unlike their female counterparts, feel their self worth is tied to their net worth.) This is how MEN help create the wage gap: as a group they pass up jobs that interest them for ones that pay well. If the roles were reversed so that men raised the children and women raised the income, men would average lower pay than women.
Points to ponder:
Why would "greedy, profit-obsessed" employers, many of whom where possible hire illegal immigrants for their cheap labor, pay men more than women for the same work? If employers could get away with that, they would not hire one man, ever.
The power in money is not in earning it (there is only responsibility, sweat, and stress in earning money). The power in money is in SPENDING it. And, Warren Farrell says in “The Myth of Male Power” at http://www.warrenfarrell.org/TheBook/index.html, "Women control consumer spending by a wide margin in virtually every consumer category." (Women's control over spending, adds Farrell, gives women control over TV programs.)
“There were fewer cases charging sex-based wage discrimination last year than the year before the [Ledbetter law] was signed, and the wage gap was wider in 2010 than it was in 2007.... The bottom line: In Obama’s first three years in office, the EEOC filed six gender-based wage discrimination lawsuits — down from 18 during Bush’s second term." -BusinessWeek, May 13, 2012, at http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-05-17/to-lure-womens-votes-obama-turns-to-lilly-ledbetter” and at http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-05-13/obama-pitches-equal-pay-to-win-women-even-as-charges-drop
The Fact Checker at the liberal Washington Post gives President Obama "One Pinocchio" for lying about the gender wage gap. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/the-white-houses-use-of-data-on-the-gender-wage-gap/2012/06/04/gJQAYH6nEV_blog.html
Excerpted from "Will the Ledbetter Act Help Women?" at http://malemattersusa.wordpress.com/2011/12/03/will-the-ledbetter-fair-pay-act-help-women/
See also gender wage gaps in two major professions:
Lawyers at http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2050037
Physicians at http://faculty.som.yale.edu/keithchen/papers/GenderNPV_WorkingPaper.pdf
"Pesky." Well, once you read the entire article, you find that there ARE differences such as leadership roles and positions and specialty and sub-specialty differences. Also, since when are we a country based on everyone earning the same salary? I don't know any private sector business that pays all their male employees the same - even in the "same" position. There are so many factors: time spent at that job, skill level - not everyone who performs the "same" task performs robotically identically to others. My husband laughs every time one of these articles is printed, because he knows that the men and women who report to him, many with very similar job/role titles, earn varying amounts based on factors beyond job title. This is another liberal stunt to try and show how unfair the U.S. and MEN are. If a woman wants to go to the top, then she should start her own business and stop blaming others for not giving her higher positions or moving her up some kind of entitlement ladder.