WSJ: Fewer men enrolling in college

[dismalist]

Some years ago (2015ish) there was a study that examined gender and the college degree. The data demonstrated that white men without a degree often make more money than women with a college degree, especially women of color. So, yes, more women are getting degrees and graduate degrees. That's not necessarily because they want to; it's because women still have to be more credentialed than men in order to earn the same wage.

Those silly employers, hiring men for lots of money when they could be hiring women for little! Foolish, throwing money away, or paying for their prejudices.

Yeah... funny how that works. People are willing to pay to indulge their predjudices.

Yeah, employers [male] don't like women [female], and are willing to forego a lot of income to indulge their tastes.

Yep. Why do you think that is?

Clearly, men hate women.

[mahagonny]

If a married couple works as a team, which my wife and I do, and we calculate we need 5X amount of dollars coming in to make it through 2021, and I earn 3X while she earns 2X then the job is done. We are both equally prosperous. There might be ways that each of us could earn more and there might be ways the two of us could survive on less but the intentionality of the situation is team-generated to a large extent, not so much individually generated.

[marshwiggle]

This discussion came to mind when I saw a recent report, that I can't find a link to, with a graphic of the jobs that were likely to have the greatest absolute increase in demand, and the typical wage.

The big increases in number were in the health care sector. But the health-care jobs were really split in two groups.

One end of the scale was health aides and the like. Almost exclusively women, no degree required, typically $15-20k per year. In the middle, nobody. At the other end of the scale, jobs requiring a degree or two and both men and women, typically ca ~100k per year. Nurse, doctor, PA, NP and hospital administrator.

With such non-normal, even bimodal, distributions, any study that reports averages or medians is completely missing the real story. There may be roughly wage parity at the high end, but severe discrimination at the low end.

If the latter is the case, then the question is whether health aides should really be paid more like plumbers' aides. Are their wages low specifically because it is a nearly all-female occupation (a remarkably common phenomenon).

Their wages are low because there are enough people wiling to do them for that wage. It's well-documented that many women want flexibility (part-time work, specific schedules, etc.) and so look for jobs providing those. Many (most?) men are willing to have less flexibility in order to have more pay.

In Canada, since businesses like restaurants are now re-opening, they are having trouble finding enough staff, both in front-of-house (i.e. servers) and back-of-house (i.e kitchen) positions. Many people who formerly worked there are not coming back after the lockdowns. If this persists, then they will have to raise wages, and restaurant prices will have to rise. It's as simple as that.

It will be fascinating to watch.

[mahagonny]

ETA:  The questions have to be two. Not just 'are women underpaid?' but also 'if so, who gives a damn?' probably nobody.

Most adjunct faculty are women. The jobs pay little because the dynamics of system need to find out how little they'll work for. There is no reality to the 'these jobs should pay more.' All you get is a chorus of people saying 'of course they should pay more! But what is to be done? [sob].' And then they go to work and tell the chair 'what do you mean we can't get an adjunct to cover my course release? This is important.'
Who wants to read more of that crap? Not me.
You can find women complicit in suppressing the wages of women. Common as pigeons in Central Park.

ETA: So you say, well, the whole system is run mostly by men. So what. Replace all the male university presidents with women and the nothing will change. Press them about how adjuncts are treated and they'll start talking about them Polly_Mer style. Because, you know, that's how people are.

[mamselle]

ETA:  The questions have to be two. Not just 'are women underpaid?' but also 'if so, who gives a damn?' probably nobody.

Nobody?

I've said for years that if just 1/2 of the 20-40% differential in wages I've experienced over my lifetime could be restored, I could buy a house.

I suspect that's true of a lot of the other folks you're calling 'nobody.'

Your universe is too small.

M.

[mahagonny]

ETA:  The questions have to be two. Not just 'are women underpaid?' but also 'if so, who gives a damn?' probably nobody.

Nobody?

I've said for years that if just 1/2 of the 20-40% differential in wages I've experienced over my lifetime could be restored, I could buy a house.

I suspect that's true of a lot of the other folks you're calling 'nobody.'

Your universe is too small.

M.

Hey, if my wife could recover those wages, I'd be richer. Good deal all around.

[mamselle]

No, she would be.

M.

[marshwiggle]

No, she would be.

M.

I think if mahagonny got a raise, his wife would be richer as well. In any healthy marriage that would be the case.

[mamselle]

I know there's a logical rule that says the consequent might be true, even if the antecedent isn't, but I'm dubious about both here, given the tenor of an unnamed poster's usual espousal of philosophy on the matter.

M.

[dismalist]

I think if

• got a raise, his wife would be richer as well. In any healthy marriage that would be the case.
  

This is a classic bargaining problem. The wife's bargaining strength depends on her outside options. Starting  with the advent of capitalism, women's outside options have gotten better and better. Thus, women command a larger and larger share of marriage gains.

(about French women in the 18th c.):
"Yet because the woman's spheres were largely removed from contact with the outside market economy, she had little leverage upon her husband. ... The roles she was obliged to perform in relation to him and the outside world were all inferior, subjugated ones, in which the autonomy she enjoyed within the domestic sphere did her no good. Only when wives gained direct contact with the market economy--by means of cottage industry and later by means of factory work--did they seize hold of a solid lever with which to pry themselves loose from these subordinate roles."
(Shorter, Edward, The Making of the Modern Family)


The only setback I see to that increased bargaining strength was and is no-fault divorce. Used to be that the man had to pay one hell of a lot to exit. This is no longer the case.

[mahagonny]

I know there's a logical rule that says the consequent might be true, even if the antecedent isn't, but I'm dubious about both here, given the tenor of an unnamed poster's usual espousal of philosophy on the matter.

M.

Oh?

[mahagonny]

Research psychologist: 'If I gave you a dollar and your father gave you a dollar, how many dollars would you have?'

Larry Fine: 'One dollar.'

Psychologist: 'You don't know your arithmetic.'

Fine: 'You don't know my father.'