Well, actually Scott Adams addresses sexism in the workplace in the Dilbert Blog.
There are actually some interesting points raised regarding other reasons, besides sexism, that may explain why women, in aggregate, make less money than men.
Examples of proposed explanations include:
- Women work less hours per week. (Backed up by BLS statistics)
- Women have higher absenteeism. (Backed up by BLS statistics)
- Women have less "desire" to attain the highest paying jobs (i.e. they are willing to forego the promotion rather than put in the extra time at work required to get to that next level).
- Women are less willing to do a lot of business travel.
- Women managers are more likely to respond to subordinate issues in a "touchy feely", rather than decisive, manner.
I'm not sure I buy all of the arguments, but I've long believed that there is a degree of self-selection in this issue. I used to work in investment banking. Approximately 50% of analysts (first year out of college) and probably 25% of associates (first year out of business school) were women. Probably 2% of Managing Directors were women. Every woman I was friends with who left the business did so because she did not want to make the tradeoff in lifestyle for money that men were willing to make. The company I worked for was dying to promote more women, they simply did not want to stay in the business. The women who did stay often requested to be transferred into groups where the lifestyle vs money tradeoff was skewed towards better lifestyle in return for less money.
7I have nothing to offer but blood, boil, tears and sweat.
Posted by: tory burch outlet | May 02, 2012 at 04:10 AM