A recent number-crunching analysis of government data by Gallup confirms a longstanding argument against the so-called ‘pay gap’ that allegedly exists between men and women in the workforce, a common political talking point that’s supposed to make all of us gals want to stick it to the patriarchy. Or something.
Many left-leaning politicians who love to tout faux victimization to lure the coveted female vote have spent decades feeding women the line that they get paid less than their male counterparts simply because of their anatomical makeup. To back up this emotion-targeting claim, they rely on one overly simplistic data set: that according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, women working full-time make about 79 cents for every dollar earned by a man who’s also working full-time. The Obama administration even used the deceptive claim to justify creating a massive data collection project that targets American businesses who "discriminate" against women.
But what that basic claim ignores, and what Gallup openly admits in its most recent study, is that the alleged pay gap is much more influenced by a disparity in the number of hours men and women work as opposed to the differences in their chromosomes.
In the analysis, Gallup notes that twice as many women (15 percent) work less than 40 hours per week, compared with just 7 percent of their male counterparts. Similarly, workplace data shows 47 percent of men work more than 40 hours per week, compared with only 30 percent of women. Women are also half as likely to work more than 60 hours per week than men.
Broken down by occupation type, the gap gets even wider:
Gallup made a similar discovery when looking at hours data by occupation type and hourly versus salaried positions. Men consistently report working more hours per week than women do. In salaried roles, for example, 28% of men say they work 50 to 59 hours per week, compared with 16% of women who say the same. In hourly roles, 10% of men say they work 60 or more hours per week, compared with 3% of women.
Gallup admits that, “in jobs where employees are promoted and rewarded based on the actual or seeming number of hours they clock, men have the advantage.”
In an obvious effort to not sound sexist in pointing out the actual data behind the “gender gap,” Gallup quickly points out that the problem isn’t that women work less hard than men. In fact, the study notes that women arguably work harder than most men because they hold down two jobs – one at the office, and one at home.
While men say they work more hours at their jobs than women do, these findings do not suggest that men work harder than women. The much more likely scenario is that women often work two jobs: as mothers and as full-time or part-time employees. Working mothers tend to have fewer hours in their day to give to their jobs. They have children to pick up from school and take to baseball or dance practice, homework to supervise, laundry to fold and a family to feed.
Yep. It took hours of data analysis and statistics gathering to stumble upon an age-old truth: Men work more hours outside the home, and women work more hours in it. And maybe, just maybe, this affects how much they get paid.
Interestingly, women seem to be pretty open about wanting to be at home more often. Gallup states in its report that a majority 54 percent of working mothers with children under 18 say they’d rather stay home and take care of their children. Only 45 percent of women say they’d like to climb up the corporate ladder to a senior management position. The struggle to find a satisfactory work/life balance has led about two-thirds of women to say they’re not engaged in their jobs or are currently looking for a new one.
But rather than recognize that men and women may play different roles in family life, and ignoring the majority of women who say they’d actually rather stay home with their kids than work, Gallup instead insists that corporate America must bend to accommodate working women by simply making their workplace more attractive to mothers, such as by creating flexible work schedules or offering a work-from-home option. (Hard to see how this would fare with places like hospitals, though.)
“Organizations have to create cultures that enable women to maximize their full potential in and out of the workplace. Organizations that continue to enforce outdated policies will not be able to keep up with employers who offer more choice and flexibility and greater trust and transparency,” Gallup suggests.
Regardless of whether the male-to-female workplace ratio is actually a problem to be solved, one thing is crystal clear: there's no great sexist pay gap keeping women under some mythical glass ceiling, and corporate America doesn't think less of women than men simply because of their biology -- although any politician who’d push such a lie to get a vote probably does.