They were almost raped, guys.

[Pyraxis]

If studies are not a convincing argument to you, what kind of arguments do you find convincing?

[Al Swearegen]

If studies are not a convincing argument to you, what kind of arguments do you find convincing?

Good question. I think in issues such as this, where the numbers seem to not in themselves stand up to any real scrutiny, there HAS to be explanations given.

What I mean to say is that there is a world of difference between the conversation around the following (hypothetical examples to follow)

"The average base wage for men and women is $60000 but men have consistently bought hone an average of $69000 due to greater voluntary overtime, danger money, shift allowance, remote location money, etc."

AND

"The average total gross pay between men and women is different by $9000 with women earning just $60000 and $69000"

One makes sense to me and I see it and can comprehend that with equal work and with equal jobs that such voluntary overtime and such would certainly allow on a choice-based earning differential BUT in one we would be having the conversation "Women are underpaid in the workforce" where as in the other we would be having the conversation "Women are not choosing to do overtime or place themselves in danger in their job for more pay, to the extent that men are"

One of the conversations is likely not be seen as warranting further studies nor would it justify the recipients or the creators of the studies where as the other is likely to feed the hordes that wait slobberingly for such studies. I am not talking about the public. I am talking about the industries and academia built around the ideologies of women victimhood and suppression.

The studies are one small mechanism for the people in these areas to continue to self-propagate their demand for their work.

Make no mistake that the studies that do actually show the kinds of things that would give us more pause for thought, but are not following the status quo (for example studies that show that in domestic violence the perpetrators are roughly evenly split between men and women) never see the light of day. The people that commonly bury such studies are the people in Departments such as Ministry for Status of Women (or its equivalent in the country in question). Government Departments that have the veto rights in respect to anything that they consider may not "be in the best interests of women". We also know that University has a barely concealed Feminist agenda/leaning. So to find people to impartially make these studies in the first place is a hard ask. The same goes for publishing them.

So what IS the answer? Well, it is a pretty easy one. Transparency. Something coming out of all this without a bias.
If I am trying to be told

"In Australia, where it is against the law for men and women to be paid less than each other for the same work, and where employers will be at risk of jail time for not complying, most companies pay on average women 15% less than their male counterparts BUT don't just employ women which seem to be cheaper employment."

That is exactly the message it seems and IF I don't swallow it and say "It really makes no sense that the employers systematically would expose themselves like that and in the event that they did, they would surely employ more women (perhaps to save for their legal fees). There has to be something wrong with what I am being fed as a unquestionable truth", then I am being told, "NO studies prove it beyond any reasonable doubt and are infallible".

Does this sound right to you?

[odeon]

Here's what bothers me:

I believe there are a lot of independent studies that all point in the same general direction. Wikipedia articles provide a great starting point because they tend to summarise these independent studies. If you look at, say, a discussion of the current gender pay gap in the EU, it's not one study, it's several. While I can certainly entertain the notion of a number of these being misleading or perhaps not accounting for A, B or C, I have difficulty in accepting that every single one would be wrong, for whatever reason.

You, on the other hand, produce eloquent prose that, in essence, claims this. That they are wrong, all of them, every independent study. Wrong.

Mate, I don't think you are stupid--I know you aren't--but I do think you are fighting rather overwhelming statistics, and going to great lengths to do so.

If my basic raison d'etre is something you can agree on--that men and women should have equal rights, that they should be paid equally for equal work, that laws should account for their differences in order to encourage individual success and, in the end, produce maximum return on those laws for the society as a whole, etc, etc, etc--don't you think your energy would be better spent in making sure that it actually becomes a reality that we don't have to argue over?

Because everywhere I look, I can find examples of this, and I'm finding it increasingly hard to believe that someone would simply deny it occurs.

Now, I could keep the conversation going, reply to statements and quote statistics to back up my arguments with, but since you've already dismissed that particular kind of discussion by stating you simply won't accept the statistics and the studies and whatnot, I fail to see a reason to why I should bother. What would be left of our discussion would be a matter of opinion.

And that simply does not interest me, not here.

[TheoK]

If I remember correctly, Swedish women don't earn less for the same time and the same work than Swedish men. But they work less. This simple fact is twisted by feminists, so they claim that Swedish men are better paid for exactly the same work, which simply isn't true. That's the level these "debates" are on in society.

[odeon]

If I remember correctly, Swedish women don't earn less for the same time and the same work than Swedish men. But they work less. This simple fact is twisted by feminists, so they claim that Swedish men are better paid for exactly the same work, which simply isn't true. That's the level these "debates" are on in society.

http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/statistics_explained/index.php/Gender_pay_gap_statistics

How about this level? I suggest you produce opposing numbers to prove your point.

[TheoK]

How do you know that the statistics isn't screwed up to start with? We have politicians claiming that mass immigration of religious nuts, criminals and illiterates is "enriching" on all levels of society, so it's not like I believe anything that they come up with.

[odeon]

I don't always, so I tend to go for several independent studies. I suggest you to do the same.

[Al Swearegen]

Here's what bothers me:

I believe there are a lot of independent studies that all point in the same general direction. Wikipedia articles provide a great starting point because they tend to summarise these independent studies. If you look at, say, a discussion of the current gender pay gap in the EU, it's not one study, it's several. While I can certainly entertain the notion of a number of these being misleading or perhaps not accounting for A, B or C, I have difficulty in accepting that every single one would be wrong, for whatever reason.

You, on the other hand, produce eloquent prose that, in essence, claims this. That they are wrong, all of them, every independent study. Wrong.

Mate, I don't think you are stupid--I know you aren't--but I do think you are fighting rather overwhelming statistics, and going to great lengths to do so.

If my basic raison d'etre is something you can agree on--that men and women should have equal rights, that they should be paid equally for equal work, that laws should account for their differences in order to encourage individual success and, in the end, produce maximum return on those laws for the society as a whole, etc, etc, etc--don't you think your energy would be better spent in making sure that it actually becomes a reality that we don't have to argue over?

Because everywhere I look, I can find examples of this, and I'm finding it increasingly hard to believe that someone would simply deny it occurs.

Now, I could keep the conversation going, reply to statements and quote statistics to back up my arguments with, but since you've already dismissed that particular kind of discussion by stating you simply won't accept the statistics and the studies and whatnot, I fail to see a reason to why I should bother. What would be left of our discussion would be a matter of opinion.

And that simply does not interest me, not here.

Perhaps simply looking at things from a different perspective.
If you think that those numbers are serious consideration, rather than me dismiss them completely out of hand, perhaps we go the next stage which is "Ok, so there is this widespread systematic problem seemingly through every employment sector in Australia to account for these "realistic" figures given, and despite the fact that it is actually both against the law (and has been for a while) and is far from in an employees best interests to underpay women doing the same work as men. So how is this happening, being that it is proved beyond a measure of a doubt AND why are we not bending over employers?"

The thing is I can not see how anyone can approach this without suspecting that just maybe the figures are not as absolute.
I have already given examples already that could (without doctoring the figures or falsifying them or even being misleading) that could show such a disparity AND yet not reflect anything more than men being more readily to do shift work, voluntary overtime, do jobs that pay remote allowance or danger money. Unless an effort was especially made to show this then you would not be able to account for it.

Given the wide variety of work factors that influence how a person and why a person gets paid what they get paid it is not enough to say "a gets less than b therefore...."
Figures that do not examine anything. Studies based around figures may be good bad or indifferent.

You say all the cases can not be wrong and I say all employers can't be wrong because expecting them to hire the more expensive gender at personal and business risk, does not make sense.

The thing that does make sense is that there are many people that. Get a lot of power, influence and money over such ideologies.

[Al Swearegen]

If my basic raison d'etre is something you can agree on--that men and women should have equal rights, that they should be paid equally for equal work, that laws should account for their differences in order to encourage individual success and, in the end, produce maximum return on those laws for the society as a whole, etc, etc, etc--don't you think your energy would be better spent in making sure that it actually becomes a reality that we don't have to argue over?

Because everywhere I look, I can find examples of this, and I'm finding it increasingly hard to believe that someone would simply deny it occurs.

I really have to address this separately.
No, I believe that this is already a reality. As much as you may be able to see examples of this, I can not (unless you wish to count the studies that I think are actually divorced from the reality you support).
I honestly think that the differences are simply either not there or are easily accounted for.
But I will give you a couple of examples and you tell me what you think is fair.

1. Case study A includes in its data two Librarians  at the same Library (Stacey and Gary) Gary earns $45000 to Stacey's $30000. The study cites the difference in the statistics as a 50% difference in pay. It does not mention that whilst they both do the same work, Gary works full-time and Stacey works Part-time.

2. Case Study B includes data on two Teachers, John and Mary are both young and just out of Teacher's college and in public schools but John earns $10000 a year more than Mary. The study cites that he earns a 20% more based on their base $40000 salary AND his $10000 remote living allowance paid to his for living in a remote desert community

3. Case study C includes in its data two Spot Welders working for the same company (Lisa and Bruce) Gary earns $100000 to Stacey's $60000. The study cites the difference in the statistics as a $40000 difference in pay. It does not mention that whilst they both do the same work, Bruce works full-time on an Oil Rig and is paid a lot of danger money and shift allowance, Lisa work 5 minutes from home.

4. Case study D includes in its data two Office Workers Bob and Jan. Bob earns $80000 whilst Jan earns $70000. The study cites the difference in the statistics as a $10000% difference in pay. It does not mention that whilst they both do the same work, Bob volunteers for overtime and Saturday work whilst Jan does her obligatory hours only.

Now, Odeon, look at the above examples.

IF these are similar to what is behind the figures cited in case studies then rattling sabres and chasing the red herring of unequal pay for equal work thing is not going to work. IF the above is representative AND IF it is still a concern, then do you think the answer would be to boost women's base pay by 15% whilst not doing the same for men?

[Pyraxis]

Are those actually case studies or did you pull them out of your ass?

Why does every example you give involve men working harder than women? Do you really think women are as a whole that passive and lazy?

[Pyraxis]

I think in issues such as this, where the numbers seem to not in themselves stand up to any real scrutiny, there HAS to be explanations given.

What I mean to say is that there is a world of difference between the conversation around the following (hypothetical examples to follow)

"The average base wage for men and women is $60000 but men have consistently bought hone an average of $69000 due to greater voluntary overtime, danger money, shift allowance, remote location money, etc."

AND

"The average total gross pay between men and women is different by $9000 with women earning just $60000 and $69000"

Again, every made-up example you give involves women just doing the basics and men doing all kinds of extras. It's starting to sound pretty insulting. While your argument seems to be "there must be a rational explanation for everything". I'm sure causes can be identified in any case. That doesn't mean the cause will always be "men are working harder in some way". Your bias is massive.

That is exactly the message it seems and IF I don't swallow it and say "It really makes no sense that the employers systematically would expose themselves like that and in the event that they did, they would surely employ more women (perhaps to save for their legal fees). There has to be something wrong with what I am being fed as a unquestionable truth", then I am being told, "NO studies prove it beyond any reasonable doubt and are infallible".

Does this sound right to you?

No.

It is fine to expose yourself if you know the weight of the system is on your side. You seem to be assuming that corruption does not play a factor. So long as the courts are as dominated by gender imbalance as the workplace, there is little for rich CEO's who can afford expensive lawyers to worry about.

[Calavera]

New twist for you all to argue about:

http://www.voxeu.org/article/do-employers-discriminate-female-dominated-occupations

I also remember posting a link to a study (in another thread here) that showed women in the 20's or something were earning more than men.

[Al Swearegen]

Are those actually case studies or did you pull them out of your ass?

Why does every example you give involve men working harder than women? Do you really think women are as a whole that passive and lazy?

Does every example I gave involve men working harder than women?
In the case of overtime it shows a man working longer hours than his female counterpart (though not necessarily harder) and same goes for part time and full time work.
IN the case of the teacher having remote location allowance, it says nothing about how hard he works as to where he chooses to work
In the case of the danger money, again his location points to him being at risk (which may or may not mean he would be working harder than his female counterpart, just that he is at danger whilst doing so).

So by all means from what I said which part of any of that states, implies or infers that women are lazy or passive and show me which part of what I said points to men working harder.

[Al Swearegen]

I think in issues such as this, where the numbers seem to not in themselves stand up to any real scrutiny, there HAS to be explanations given.

What I mean to say is that there is a world of difference between the conversation around the following (hypothetical examples to follow)

"The average base wage for men and women is $60000 but men have consistently bought hone an average of $69000 due to greater voluntary overtime, danger money, shift allowance, remote location money, etc."

AND

"The average total gross pay between men and women is different by $9000 with women earning just $60000 and $69000"

Again, every made-up example you give involves women just doing the basics and men doing all kinds of extras. It's starting to sound pretty insulting. While your argument seems to be "there must be a rational explanation for everything". I'm sure causes can be identified in any case. That doesn't mean the cause will always be "men are working harder in some way". Your bias is massive.

That is exactly the message it seems and IF I don't swallow it and say "It really makes no sense that the employers systematically would expose themselves like that and in the event that they did, they would surely employ more women (perhaps to save for their legal fees). There has to be something wrong with what I am being fed as a unquestionable truth", then I am being told, "NO studies prove it beyond any reasonable doubt and are infallible".

Does this sound right to you?

No.

It is fine to expose yourself if you know the weight of the system is on your side. You seem to be assuming that corruption does not play a factor. So long as the courts are as dominated by gender imbalance as the workplace, there is little for rich CEO's who can afford expensive lawyers to worry about.

Courts do not favour men over women. If it were this simple a proposition then the crisis in the family courts for men would not be what it is. I am more than happy to entertain that there may be some employers that are wanting to stick their necks out and who are chauvinists and want to employ men over women. I am sure there may be a handful of employers out there like that. But that is not what you are trying to have me believe.

If I understand it, you would say that the employers would prefer to hire men and at a pay rate higher than what they could otherwise employ women and that this is systematic through the entire workforce and that this (though completely against the law) is not prosecuted against.

This is not and could not be a case of one or two bad eggs. You realise this. For the percentages to favour men across the whole of the Australian workforce at 15% it HAS to be so marked and so extreme as to be completely systematic.............OR wrong.

This is where I have come into it.

Now because trying to extrapolate possible causes I look for how figures could be misused to provide a higher result. I have to look not at motive, that is easily enough understood (even if there was not a massive agenda to support such results, looking beyond gross wage is a hard caper) but at what may be the difference between two pays a man and a woman IF they are paid the same as they are require to by law and IF there is a different gross wage.

I can tell you that the person who washes your windows in your office (from the outside), is ridiculously higher chance of being male and being paid highly being so. I can tell you that the percentages for men and women in oil rigs does not favour women and even the laundry staff there are paid phenomenal rates in comparison. I can tell you that the number of young men compared to young women attracted to work for higher wages in the mines is hugely favouring the men in applicants.

All of this may affect your sensibilities Pyraxis. You may feel that this is some slight against you. It is not. But tell me if what I wrote about these jobs is true or not. If it is true then tell me if you consider that comparing a oil rig laundry staff
http://www.news.com.au/finance/money/laundry-staff-on-420k-a-year/story-e6frfmci-1226027858419
with any other laundry staff anywhere in metropolitan Australia and there will be a substantial difference. If the difference between men and women favour the man here in who is prepared to choose to work on the rig, then ANY head to head comparison as to who is paid more for laundry is going to on average favour the man.

I know that one example does not make 15% BUT if we stack up these example over and over then eventually we get to a stage where it makes sense. That is what I want because the alternative doesn't.

The problem is, IF I am right and IF what I said more readily accounts for the difference and it does simply come down to choices, there would not be the argument that women are underpaid in society still. Nor would it be that employers do not value women as much. That society is favouring men in employment. It would all come down to women are making choices that impact on the amount of take home income they receive. That is a harder thing to argue.

We could say "Hey if a women decides she wants to work part time because she wants to be able to pick up and drop off her children and spend time with them after work (as many do), maybe she feels a social pressure to do so that her husband doesn't", maybe that may be true. If we said that "A young bloke working remotely and getting paid higher money to do so is less less likely to attract young females because of perception of safety and such", this may or may not be true. But whilst these are debating points unto themselves, they do not quite have the "choicelessness" of "men are paid more than women".

Every job I have worked inI have as many do I guess expressly compared my pay rate and my earning with my closest colleagues and in every instance, I have had the same base rate where I have been in the same position as the women next to me. I have often done far more overtime and earned far more in commission BUT the base rate and the tax rate has always been identical.

I am looking for answers and explaining my proposition and my reasoning. You do not agree and that is obvious. You feel insulted and that was not my intent.

[Pyraxis]

I generalized a bunch of specific explanations. Do you want to argue about whether there is any inference in them or not? That runs into the same thing that you seem to object to about these studies. You'll accept one specific example of something but when it comes to describing trends from a set of examples, you reject the conclusions. Is your problem with the form of the argument or with the specific conclusions drawn?