On 15 May 2000 07:31:17 -0700, [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Michael Granaas)
wrote:
< snip >
> The misinterpretation of results by the popular press has become a core
> topic for me in recent years. While some of the misinterpretations may be
> harmless (I doubt that eating extra fiber would hurt you unless it lulls
> you into a false sense of security about about your health). On the other
> hand some misinterpretations lead to all kinds of mischief. In recent
> weeks the press locally has jumped on the report that women earn about
> $.73 for every $1.00 that a man earns. This is being reported locally as
> the pay difference FOR THE SAME JOB! But the data are talking about
> the large aggregate (on average, if you will) not about folks within
> the same jobs.
- well, where did you see this? The $.73 is a bit dated, but I am
afraid that from the original reporting that I have seen, they are
right and you are wrong, as to the intentions. I thought it was more
like $.79 or $.83, across all industries and occupations, nowadays,
but there is still a gap in the U.S., which is less than in many
countries. It's nearly vanished in a few occupations, if narrow ones
- For instance, all U.S. Senators get paid the same.
There has been more than one such report. The statistical matching
and control has often done pretty well, and with imagination. There's
been a gap. In about 1970, when I first entered a workforce, it would
be true that male college professors, after 10 years of tenure in an
English department, would expect to have a distinct and definite
income edge over their similarly qualified female counterparts. There
would have been, then, in academia, one of the best work places for
equality, at least a 15% difference -- so far as I think I recollect.
What gets harder to figure out is whether the tenured man should be
compared to a *tenured* female, or should he be compared to the
female who was denied tenure solely because she is female? My own
sister got extremely pissed off, about 1972, when the insurance agency
where she worked automatically recruited a *male* as "management
trainee" -- younger, stupid-er, higher paid, with no better
background -- instead of considering, at all, the females who were
underemployed as secretaries in their own offices.
The more extreme comparisons today do try to "control for" the
unfairness in the background; and that can be controversial, too. How
much penalty should there be, for dropping out to have a child?
There is additional difficulty in trying to compare and contrast jobs
that are "traditionally male" versus "traditionally female" and
which (among "male" jobs) may still have high barriers for entry.
The last time that I saw a dollar-earned comparison, in was from a
scoffer who hyperbolized, mis-cited, invented arguments, and generally
insulted the statistics profession -- as if none of the studies, ever
done by anybody, had ever controlled for anything. This was in the
local newspaper. I keep pretty flexible in my expectations for the
local newspaper.
--
Rich Ulrich, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.pitt.edu/~wpilib/index.html
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