Does the Pay Gap Exist?

[ItWasNiceKnowingYou]

Not just between sexes & genders, but also between other societal groups.

 

Of course leave your thoughts

[ithaca]

Short answer, yes. How is that even a question?

[God of the Forest]

Depends on where you get your "information". lol We often seek out data and resources to validate a bias we already hold, instead it turns into a "I already know Im right, i just wanna see if you disagree so I can prove you wrong and make you look bad" sort of thing. There is strong evidence on both sides that supports the existence of it happening in America as well as evidence to debunk it. I think more definitive evidence needs to be procured in order to have this discussion and avoid conflict

[argar]

I would say it depends on the job.

 

Let's use films as an example.

 

More people will pay to see a white protagonist in a movie than an ethnic actor.

 

Movie making studios know this, hence we have so little ethnic protagonist.

 

In some cases, like Dr. Strange, you have white washing.

 

Is it the fault of the actress?

 

No, it is the nature of the business.

 

They wanted the audience in China to see the movie, so they replaced the original Tibetan character with a white woman so the movie could play in China.

 

In a lot of other business, white business people will be chosen over other ethnicity because they convey the image the company wants to cultivate.

 

Heck, in other areas, attractive people are given preference over other qualified people because the perception is that they are more competent.

 

In another example, some people just believe that men are more competent than women, consequently women have to put up with a lot more crap than their male counterparts.

 

My argument is that is the nature of business.

 

Businesses are out to make money, so they will do what they need to make money.

 

Does that mean that we as workers get screwed sometimes?

 

The answer is yes.

 

To be honest I think I oversimplified this.

 

The question has many layers in diverse areas.

 

Just my opinion though.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Grumpy Alien]

I'm not informed enough to answer though my guess is yes in general.

[Puck]

Yep!

 

It exists, it's complicated, its nuanced, it's worth discussing, it's worth not blaming the victims....

[Dreamer23]

Yes to gender & ethnicity

"Other" to the heteronormative one.

Heteronormativity is a term that encompasses A LOT.

I can't imagine some of its aspects having much of an impact though (I e.g. don't know the sexual orientation of effectively anyone I've ever worked with, so even if I wanted to I couldn't discriminate on that basis)

[Sally]

The pay gap exists.  I experienced it on several jobs.  

[Yatogami]

I answered no to all of them. Mostly because the question is negligent. It implies some very controversial things. 

 

I say there are too many variables to consider fault anywhere. It is working as designed. Poor design means unequal results.

[cooliocool]

1. Yes, research consistently shows that there is a pay gap between men and women regardless of how the conservatives want to think and what "evidence" they looked at. 

2. I don't know

3. I don't know

4. There is a pay gap between racial groups (supported by research) and I have feeling it exists between ethnic groups. Some ethnic groups seem to be poorer overall (as a group) and others seem to be richer overall (as a group) when you compare them with other ethnic groups. 

5. I looked into research and the results are all mixed. According to common sense, we would expect that discrimination against non-heteronormative individuals would cause non-heteronormative individuals to get lower pay. Some say that gay people have more earning potential than straight people. There isn't any research about the pay gap between asexuals and the general population. 

[AshenPhoenix]

21 hours ago, Lemonasculine said:

5. I looked into research and the results are all mixed. According to common sense, we would expect that discrimination against non-heteronormative individuals would cause non-heteronormative individuals to get lower pay. Some say that gay people have more earning potential than straight people. There isn't any research about the pay gap between asexuals and the general population. 

Though this is only speculation, I just wanted to add my two cents.

 

Unlike race and sex (to a lesser extent race), sexual orientation is an extreme minority. With roughly ~5% of the country on average falling under the LGBT umbrella. With such a small sample size I would say there's a great potential for statistics to be skewed for things like earning potential, since it takes less LGBT people getting a higher education/good job for there to be any impact. When looking at income as a whole population kind of plays a big part since wealth is so concentrated. Whereas there is roughly a 50/50 split on female/male, and racial minorities being closer to 40% of the US population (though when you separate it into individual racial categories it become much more of a problem, but usually still one that can be accounted for)

[carbomb]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal_Pay_Act_of_1963

[Diamond Ace of Hearts]

3 hours ago, yourcaptaiin said:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal_Pay_Act_of_1963

because every company follows the law exactly to the letter. Not like any of them have say, evaded taxes or anything. Engaged in corporate espionage? Nooo, surely not. All businesses are morally and legally impeccable, all the time.

 

Look, I will freely admit that I'm not fully clued up on the data, but quoting a law against something as evidence that the thing doesn't happen? Ludicrous. There's pretty much always been a law against murder, so clearly no murders have ever occurred since the first laws were written.

[XYZ96]

I think something that's probably a bigger, but similar issue is the difference in opportunity, which can also then later result in a pay gap (or make a pay gap worse)... 

like who is more likely to get promoted and who will get in trouble or get away easier often probably because of preexisting stereotypes...

Or who will get hired more quickly by higher paying companies, like someone with a uncommon name, will have a tougher time getting hired then someone named John or Marie... 

Spoiler

source: 

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1573-7861.2011.01285.x/full

https://www.shrm.org/hr-today/news/hr-magazine/pages/0203hrnews2.aspx

or how males or females are perceived in non gender typical jobs, like there's still somehow a stereotype held by some, that all men who work with children are obviously pedophiles or otherwise just wrong, and only women should work with little children... 

And then there's still the whole female and male jobs thing... like I had a teacher once that was convinced all or practically all the boys in our class wanted to work at the tractor factory and the girls almost all wanted work at a cloths store... (it was funny, the teacher was scolding a student for getting a bad math grade, because he wasn't going to be able to get a job at the tractor factory with those grades in math, and my classmate was just confused, because he  didn't want a job at the factory.. ..), and then also a lot of the "female" jobs are payed worse, so females are encouraged often to go into the worse payed jobs, and males are often discouraged from going into these "female" jobs because, one they often pay worse and two, they're "feminine"... 

 

and that's my two cents on the subject .. 

[iff]

@ItWasNiceKnowingYou

 

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iff, Census Forum Moderator