Talk:Gender pay gap in the United States

Removal/modification of estimate for discriminatory component of gender pay gap

First off I apologize for any formatting issues, this is the first time I have used Wikipedia's comment tools.

I am talking specifically about the following line,

"The estimates for the discriminatory component of the gender pay gap include 5%[4]:2 and 7%[3]:9 and in at least one study grow as men and women's careers progress.[3]:93"

The first cited fact, that an estimation for the gender pay gap includes 5%, cites Just Talking, a public radio show. The show itself states that the fact came from "The American Association of University Women". (transcript here, page 2 http://www.justicetalking.org/transcripts/070528_ERA_transcript.pdf) I tried to find the study from the AAUW, http://www.aauw.org/, but could not find one. Particularly because it was not named nor specifically dated in the transcript. All that we know is that the study came out shortly before 5/28/2007.

The second and third cited facts come from the following source, http://www.jec.senate.gov/public/?a=Files.Serve&File_id=9118a9ef-0771-4777-9c1f-8232fe70a45c, pages 9 and 92. The fact, that an estimation for the gender pay gap includes 7%, correctly sites the source, but the source incorrectly cites their source. From the JEC page we can see that their source was the GAO. Specifically:

Government Accountability Office (GAO). April, 2009. Women’s Pay: Gender Pay Gap in the Federal Workforce Narrows as Differences in Occupation, Education, and Experience Diminish. Washington, D.C.: Government Accountability Office. (http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-09-279).

First off, should people decide that this fact should be kept, it should be mentioned that 7% is the amount attributable to discriminatory practices in the public sector. (According to the JEC) However, when we look at the JEC source and read the pdf at the GAO we can see on page 3 the following:

Factors for which we lacked data or are difficult to measure, such as work experience outside the federal government and discrimination, may account for some or all of the remaining 7 cent gap.

The JEC and the Wikipedia article are worded such that discrimination accounts for the entirety of the 7% gap, when the original source uses it as one example of 'factors that they lacked data on or are difficult to measure'. Being that knowledge ranks very high on factors that affect compensation, it would be wrong to assume discrimination makes up the majority/nearly all of that 7%.

The second fact referencing the JEC, that the estimate for the discriminatory component grows as careers progress is also incorrect. On page 92, it states that:

The unexplained portion of the pay gap also grew over time, increasing from 2 cents in 1988 to 9 cents in 2007, as shown in figure 2. However, other factors not captured by our data could account for some of the unexplained pay gap.

While it would be correct to use this as a reference that the gender gap increases as careers progress, it would be incorrect to use it as a reference that gender gap due to discrimination increases as careers progress. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kiklion0199 (talk • contribs) 00:04, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

I agree that this should be removed or at least moved to a different part of the article. The introductory paragraphs of this article seem to rely too much on this one report from the US Congress Joint Economic Committee and does not tap into the greater body of literature available on this subject. In the end, the opening paragraphs seems misleading in the fact that it doesn't mention how the existence of a large gender wage gap due to discrimination is heavily disputed. Blossomonte (talk) 08:57, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

The author references the JEC and GAO on statistics that pinpoint the gender pay gap, but when exploring the author's citations, the information on the pages it references does not directly correlate with the statement on the Wiki page. For example, under the "Impact" heading, and then under "Economy" subheading, the author cites a Huffington Post article that does not explicitly include the statistics referenced in the Wiki paragraph. Lamannie (talk) 21:48, 4 November 2016 (UTC)

Under the heading "Sources", and under the subheading "Hours Worked", the author explains the significance of the argument that the sexes are likely to work a different amount of hours. The references are outdated, specifically reference 52 ad 53, "Emplyoment Outlook. Paris: Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development", and "Gender Differences in Pay", respectively -- these references are about 15 years old and information regarding hours worked and occupational differences could have changed since then.Lamannie (talk) 21:55, 4 November 2016 (UTC)

A lot of bias in this article due to assumptions of innately equivalent psychology between the sexes

This entire article wreaks of blank slatism. Just a cursory glance at pretty much any paragraph in the "Explaining the gender pay gap" section will reveal the stench of the biased assumption that men and women have innately identical psychologies and thus that observed differences between men and women in pay negotiation, aptitude in STEM fields, promotions, etc. are due to sexist "stereotypes" and not innate differences in the temperaments, skills, and preferences of men and women. The existence of innate psychological differences between the sexes does not preclude the existence of genuinely unfair discriminatory practices in employment, the point is merely that it's insufficient to conclude that statistical differences in behaviour and outcomes between men and women must be due to discrimination. Until you statistically control for psychological differences between the sexes (especially innate differences) you simply cannot conclude that observed disparities are due to discrimination. That's not opinion. That's logic. Aelius28 (talk) 06:25, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

"That's not opinion. That's logic." Well, you're going to have to provide a source for that. From what I gather in the "explaining" section is that: the more variables you control for, the lower the gap gets. 146.115.161.4 (talk) 23:33, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

The CPS data comes with error ranges. The error ranges are large enough that estimates for one time period are used with caution ( except by politicians). If the CPS, with about 60,000 sample size) is used with caution, I am certain that 2 - 9,000 sample sizes are inadequate for ... well actually not much. 24.128.186.53 (talk) 01:34, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

This article includes many reliable sources of statistical information; however, it does sound bias in that the author accounts much of the difference in pay gap to differences between the sexes that are not explained in the article. For example, at the end of the first paragraph, the author speculates that 6% of the difference in pay is due to "deficiency in salary negotiation skills", - I think it would be appropriate to add a source that explains if negotiation skills have been proven to be different between the sexes. Lamannie (talk) 21:40, 4 November 2016 (UTC)

Requested move 26 March 2015

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: Move. Cúchullain ^t/c 13:36, 6 April 2015 (UTC)

---

Male–female income disparity in the United States → Gender pay gap in the United States – "Gender pay gap" is the commonly recognizable name [1] compared to "male-female income disparity" [2]. The European Commission uses the term [3] and so do the Canadian, UK, Australian, and American governments. The new title would also help maintain consistency between the main article Gender pay gap and the country specific pages Gender pay gap in Australia and Gender pay gap in Russia. Sonicyouth86 (talk) 19:09, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

• Support. What a ridonkulous article title. Red Slash 21:29, 26 March 2015 (UTC)
• Support - The suggested name is the common name and more recognizable. Mbcap (talk) 22:06, 26 March 2015 (UTC)
• Support - For consistency with similar articles. ONR (talk) 00:04, 27 March 2015 (UTC)
• Support: clearly gender pay gap is a more appropriate phrasing. Ebonelm (talk) 21:10, 27 March 2015 (UTC)
• Support. gobonobo ^{+ c} 09:18, 28 March 2015 (UTC)
• Support for consistency. Faceless Enemy (talk) 18:46, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
• Support consistency, as cited above --Sanam (talk) 12:17, 4 April 2015 (UTC)

---

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Employer discrimination at resume stage?

Our current citation for this points to [4], which seems to be a POV source and I'm not even sure constitutes a reliable one. I'm sure there must be some better primary sources we can use, anyone want to take a crack at it?

While randomly Googling this, I came across this working paper, which seems to contradict the idea of contemporary discrimination at resume review stage, but regardless of its inclusion as a source, has citations that may be useful.

Cheers, Vectro (talk) 21:28, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

Actually, looking more closely, the current claim is not even supported by the current citation. I'm going to remove it, but if you have good reliable sources, please restore it. I'm sure they are out there. Vectro (talk) 21:30, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

Actually, the claim is supported by two large sections, Bias favoring men and Motherhood penalty. You see that peer-reviewed research by David Neumark about pseudo-job seekers with identical résumés (doi:10.2307/2946676)? Or that peer-reviewed research by Shelly Correll about fictitious applicants with fictitious identical résumés (doi:10.1086/511799)? The lead section must summarize the article and the sourced claim that you removed, claiming "POV source", does summarize the article. Also the review by the US Joint Economic Commission isn't a primary source, it's a secondary source because it summarizes and interprets available research. --Sonicyouth86 (talk) 09:25, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

percents of percents, explicit math (and ps sourcing)

• A typical quote from the wiki article reads, "The portion of the pay gap that remains unexplained after all other factors are taken into account is 5 percent one year after graduation and 12 percent 10 years after graduation. These unexplained gaps are evidence of discrimination, which remains a serious problem for women in the work force." ... So then, if the pay gap is around 18%, and 12 percent of that is unexplained and assumed to be attributable either to discrimination or some unmeasured factor (?), this particular study suggests that after 10 years, the "gender-driven discrimination charge" (not the pay gap) is about 2.16% of men's mean wages. The Wikipedia article needs to spell out these numbers (or similar, perhaps more recent) quite clearly in the WP:LEDE and throughout (See WP:SUMMARYISNOTOR). The WP:LEDE might include a high-low range of the results of any number of studies; the studies themselves should be presented in body text. I am not suggesting that readers are unable to do this simple math for themselves. I am instead positing a difference between active readers and passive readers, and assuming that the latter greatly outnumber the former. Most people will assume that a 20% gap means something that amounts to very nearly 20% worth of discrimination. [OH PS while I'm here, the three cites placed after that quote are not the quoted Dey and Hill source, which is puzzling because that source is freely available here ]. • Arch♦Reader 13:15, 4 June 2015 (UTC)

Question...

According to the section "Explaining the gender pay gap," some studies purport to show that, even after accounting for "possible explanatory factors such as occupation, age, experience, education, time in the workforce, childcare, average hours worked, grades while in college, and other factors," women were still paid about twenty percent less than men. So the question that screams out to me is, assuming this is true, then why, in a capitalist economy, would companies be hiring men?...

If a company can hire a woman and pay her 20% less than a man with the same qualifications, experience, and level of productivity then it would make no business sense to hire men at all until after every available woman in that field had been hired. There would then be a 0% unemployment rate among women who were qualified to in any field that also hired male workers.

Has this issue been addressed by academics or notable commentators on either side of this issue? If so, then it would probably make sense to include such analysis... -217.225.135.187 (talk) 11:36, 19 March 2016 (UTC)

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Pop-up store

I moved the discussion of the pop-up store out of impact section and into "Popular culture reactions". I actually think this should be deleted since it feels a bit like advertising and I'm not clear if it is actually noteworthy enough. I'll wait to delete in case others feel it should retained. If it is retained, I'm not sure this section I've put it in is best and perhaps we should abbreviate the discussion a bit. -Pengortm (talk) 17:14, 7 September 2016 (UTC)

The extent to which discrimination plays a role in explaining gender wage

This passage: “The extent to which discrimination plays a role in explaining gender wage disparities is somewhat difficult to quantify, due to a number of potentially confounding variables. Discrimination must thus be assumed to exist and be statistically significant despite the unquantified value of the effect and it being one of many potential other unknown contributing factors” was just labeled as failing verification. I've just skimmed the relevant chapter and believe it is a fair summary of what the author states. Here are a few relevant passages from the text:

“But whether, or to what degree, employer discrimination exists or can explain much of the male-female income differences is a question rather than a foregone conclusion because, for whatever reasons, differences in job qualifications between women and men have often been demonstrable and substantial. Moreover, these differences have changed over time, so that a lessening of income disparities between the sexes cannot be automatically attributed to a lessening of employer discrimination when it may also be due to a lessening of differences in education, job experience, or availability to work outside the home.”

“Ideally, we would like to be able to compare those women and men who are truly comparable in education, skills, experience, continuity of employment, and full-time or part-time work, among other variables, and then determine whether employers hire, pay, and promote women the same as they do comparable men. At the very least, we might then see in whatever differences in hiring, pay and promotions might exist a measure of how much employer discrimination exists. Given the absence or imperfections of data on some of these variables, the most that we can reasonably expect is some measure of whatever residual economic differences between women and men remain after taking into account those variables which can be measured with some degree of accuracy and reliability. That residual would then give us the upper limit of the combined effect of employer discrimination plus whatever unspecified or unmeasured variables might also exist. However, even if we were to find zero economic differences between those women and men who were truly comparable, that would not mean that women and men as a whole had the same income or the same likelihood of being hired or promoted, if the sexes as a whole were distributed differently between full-time and part-time employment or in different fields or levels of education or in other ways that affect people’s economic prospects. In short, even an absence of discrimination would not mean an absence of male-female economic differences.”

-Pengortm (talk) 17:25, 7 September 2016 (UTC)

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Misattribution of racial disparities in income to the gender pay gap

Forgive me if this has already been covered, but I'm going to go through the article to clean up statements like this:

In the U.S., using median hourly earnings statistics (not controlling for job type differences) the gender pay gap is largest for Latina women (58%) and second-largest for Black women (65%), while white women have a pay gap of 82%.

All of these percentages describe income relative to white men. The Pew article cited never describes these gaps explicitly as "gender pay gaps," and for good reason—they are at the intersection of both a gender pay gap and a racial pay gap. Describing these simply as gender pay gaps is akin to describing the difference in size between a French house and an American mall as a national building size disparity. The gender pay gap for black women can only describe a difference in pay between black women and black men.
As another example, consider that white men are killed by police at a higher rate than black women are. Describing this disparity using only one demographic factor (i.e., calling this a racial disparity, without mentioning gender) would lead to the erroneous conclusion that white people are at killed by police at a higher rate than black people.
I'm going to rewrite statements like this to better reflect the nature of the comparison being made, but I just wanted to make my reasoning clear on the talk page.Hellosparta (talk) 15:42, 3 May 2017 (UTC)

The word "choices" in the lede

However, after adjusting for choices made by male and female workers in college major, occupation, working hours, and parental leave, multiple studies find that pay rates between males and females varied by 5–6.6% or, females earning 94 cents to every dollar earned by their male counterparts.

Working hours and job are not entirely the individual's choice. The employer also has some say in that. Do the sources reflect the use of "choices", or should the term be "differences"? --72.226.86.106 (talk) 06:10, 30 May 2017 (UTC)