It sounds plausible, his point. But of COURSE anytime you mention males and females being different, you'll be burned at the stake for sexism. It's similar with racism in America.

Also, we need to ask whether or not they get paid on average 12% less for the same job, or 12% less over the whole workforce. Because the former is worrisome while the latter is less so. (women tend to be employed in lower paying jobs by choice such as teaching)

its ludicrous.

1. Women don't get any more sick time than men so potential time off is not an excuse
2. Im sure any extra time taken off by women for their menstral cycle (probably not significant) is taken off by men for other reasons

I don't agree with Santa. I don't see how you can just make that assumption for #2. Though the OP brings up the point that until there is statistics saying that women use more regular sick leave compared to men, the fact that they are payed less is wrong.

But I agree with #1. Women don't get any more PAID sick days than men, so what does it matter if they miss more time?

Actually I remember reading an article ages ago that showed there was a real problem with women exacerbating their illnesses and spreading disease because they were considerably less likely to take time off work for being ill than men. I mean, I've never seen my female friends miss class because they were menstruating.
Then again I just looked up the question and a study found that women on average take 189 sick days in their entire career, and men on average take 140, so it looks like women take more sick days on average. That said, I don't think that 49 more sick days over an entire career amount to 12% less work.
Ah now I've found the discrepancy. Men are more likely to call in sick at the first sign of illness, where as women will soldier on despite knowing they're unwell. I suppose there's something to be said for taking time off work when you're sick.
At any rate, the problem with his comments, in case anyone needed this explained to them, is that our society has a serious problem with valuing women considerably less than men. The much discussed wage gap exists because we have trouble taking women seriously compared to men. Attempting to justify sexism in the work place with some cockamamie excuse about menstrual cycles is an attempt to gloss over a very real social problem.

And in higher positions (salaried exempt here in the states), your job is viewed as one of responsibilities. As long as the woman takes on the responsibilities and completes the task in the same efficient and effective manner, she should earn the same pay. Now for salaried non-exempt (people who still get over time or comp time when they work more hours and have to log sick time), I've often thought smokers who statistically do miss more work do to things like emphysema and whose medical conditions over time cost the sompany and their fellow coworkers more in insurance premiums should be paid less.

My remuneration is like a contractor so I'm not sure how it works, but don't you get a certain amount of paid sick leave with the expectation is that you don't use it all?

Also how are you sure time taken off by women for xyz (lets just forget about the menstrual thing, I only brought it up because the hint is what caused a red flag) is make up by men on other things?
The guy who made the comment was CEO of Employers and Manufacturers Association, an association offering employment and remuneration advice, not exactly manager of a strip club. Surely he would know what he was talking about?

(I am totally open to decent stats that point either way.. I just hope people don't get indignant just about the suggestion, or at least that if they do they explain why)

>Attempting to justify sexism in the work place with some cockamamie excuse about menstrual cycles is an attempt to gloss over a very real social problem.
I agree, but I think saying "society has a serious problem with valuing women" doesn't help get to the cause, if finding a solution is the goal.
If employers undervalue women why should that be? Wouldn't an employer see a opportunity to hire equal staff at 12% less, and get a big increase in profitability?


More than arguing about why though I think it's something that people should be able to discuss without worrying about getting sacked.. I mean this is the CEO of a remuneration company who's in favor of equal pay, discussing equal pay, and he gets sacked for giving his experience; it seems overly touchy.

CEO doesn't mean he knows anything abou tthe reaosns people are taking off. In fact, CEOs rarely know much about their employees down in the ranks as their concern is with the business as a whole and they rely on HR and trade articles for their information regarding what is happening in the work force. No, I would say he would carry more weight if he were the HR manager. Being CEO of anything actually kills any serious validation as to his opinion regarding his work force.

Its all very complex but most of the pay gap is justified. I mean would you pay a worker more because they are less likely to take sick leave, yes, would you pay a worker more because they are less likely to end up having to take 3 to 9 months off, yes, would you pay a workers more because they are willing to work in life threatening jobs, yes. These are all qualities men have in general when compared to women. The real problem is that Men are undervalued.

The 12% probably refers to the general workforce. As Women are more likely to choose jobs that pay less and Men are more likely to choose riskier jobs with more regimented hours. Men can be paid more than Women for the same job but most burn down to logical reasons. Factory Worker: Strength, Miner: Risk and Strength, these are ones we can all agree on. If I can carry two bricks and you can carry one why are we getting paid the same?

Also another fact to note is that men are much more likely to work full time jobs and that Women are more of a risk in the modern working environment. Frankly there is almost no reason to pay a woman more than a man in any job except communication and emotionally involved jobs. Its biology that determines most pay checks, deal with it, because I will rue the day female miners are paid as much as male, as a clear example of sexism against males and the affirmative action policy in the US is an example of government sponsored sexism and racism against males and whites. I mean surely you should find that more offensive that a government would happily force a company to hire say for example: an ill educated woman over an educated man, all because she is a woman. Peeps need to sort out your priorities.

"would you pay a worker more because they are less likely to end up having to take 3 to 9 months off"

That's absurd! You pay them the same and then cut their pay while they are on leave. The law requires you to give them leave, but not pay them while they are on it. so no, you don't pay them less for doing the same work because they *might* take time off. Hell, I have elderly parents and in-laws. I *might* have to take time off for FMLA to care for them. Should I get less pay then somebody whose single and parents are either a bit younger or already gone because he or she is less likely to need to take a leave for family purposes? That is beyond ignorant!

@Kumarian - we aren't talking about affirmative action and giving a woman an advantage over a man. For the record, I'm a married white male, age 45. Now, eqaual pay for equal work should be the law. Yes, if a woman at a construction site does the same job, operates the same machinery, moves the same amount of dirt, and takes the same risks as a man, she deserves the same pay. And while your physical labor examples exist, they are hardly the norm. Mosty white collar jobs can be done equally by either sex. Yet women *are* underpaid compared to their male counterparts with equal experience and education. The gap is closing, but they still lag behind. That is a disgrace. As much of a disgrace as allowing someone with lesser credentials to get the job over the person with the greater credentials just because they are a different sex or race. Equal Opportunity in Employment and Equal Pay for Equal Work. they should both be truly enforced as the law. Not Special Opportuity in Employment and glass ceilings and reduced pay for excuses. See I believe in *true* equality in *both* directions.

@Kunarian: I agree with you on almost everything, until you brought up the point about affirmative action. The actual law regarding affirmative action doesn't set quotas, or make it so that a company explicitly HAS to hire women/minorities/disabled people. It simply means that the company has to make sure that those groups are made aware of any opportunities they may have.

Pay inequality exists within industries, with the financial industry being among the worst.

http://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2011/ted_20110216.htm

So in other words, it has nothing to do with job choice. But let the excuse making commence.

I know it exists in much of the white collar industry which is even more shameful because there it truly is equal work and experience. It's not like a senior level female programmer is going to do less work than me, but few of them make what I make. Maybe I can attribute my specific to my ability to engotiate. But it is clearly the case across the board in IT as well as in finance. The old boys club is still in force, just more subtle. The glass ceiling may have been shattered, but the shards are falling on the women who haven't yet made it up the ladder.

Where I work everybody of the same grade gets the same pay per hour, +/-5%, which is appraisal-based. There are no exceptions to this. However, we are also allowed to work less hours if we have young children. One woman works half time. Three others work one or two hours a day less, but they all get paid proportionately less. (No men have taken up this option.)

There was a fuss about this a while ago when the woman working 2.5 days a week was told that she could expect to work for approx. 7 years (elapsed) instead of 3.5 between promotions because she had accumulated only half the experience (some of her male peers had been promoted, but she had not). It was also said that it would be difficult for the management to place her in a responsible customer-facing role (the next step up the ladder) because she wouldn't be there half the time so it would be hard to establish a working relationship.

The management have had to relent on the last point, but the first one still stands.

Actually, the last one could be made to stand as the position requires a certain commitment. So they could say "the option to work part time is rescinded if you want this position" and she'd then have to make a choice. Of course, they'd have to rescind it for everyone in that rolre.

My work is kind of similar in that appraisal combines with where int he pay grade range you fall to determine your increase each year. If you did well and are at the bottom of the pay grade, you'll get the top percentage. But if you are at the top of the paygrade or above it, you will see the minimal percentage no matter how well you do or they bump you up a pay grade with a promotion. But that isn't the case everywhere I have worked at.

@ Draugnar Your problem is that you assume all women can do the same work as a man anywhere just because one woman might be able to. Its simple, biology and human choice are the key things that award pay because biology has a huge effect on human choice. If women want to close the pay gap then they should all get up and work for it not expect other people to do it through laws and acts.

@Kunarian

Biology might be a good reason for a woman not to get involved in construction. Biology does not justify the payment gap in white collar industries, such as finance.

Construction ironically has the lowest pay gap, so evidently the 'biology' thing isn't an issue.

Minimum wage jobs have a 0% pay gap.

@Kinaroan - You assume there is a difference in male versus female capabilities in most if not all jobs. The majority of jobs in the US are not physical jobs where biology makes a difference. In fact the jobs with the highest gap are desk jobs where either sex can be equally adept. That office building built by several hundred construction workers over a year then employs thousands of white collar workers for decades. White collar outnumbers construction 10 to 1. So take your head out of the sand and see the truth. The problem is in white collar which this country has become by shipping its industrial work overseas.

Kunarian. Stupid phone.

Also, if it really is about menstrual cycles do women get raises when they go on the pill? Or go through menopause? Of course they don't. This is all a ridiculous smoke screen.

Back to the OP, in the U.S. at least, we have a society that punishes people for speaking unpleasantness, whether true or not, whether the person supports the thing that is unpleasant or not. That's a big problem in politics because politicians are afraid to do the necessary but unpleasant steps so instead the pleasant head in the sand mentality persists.

I find it interesting that everyone is focused on the physical differences between men and women. Not every white collar job is the same nor is valued the same. At my work most software developers, MIS, Networks, and such employees are male while most product analysts, support, HR, accounting are female. This would make it very hard to compare the value of a male employee compared to a female employee. How much of any differences are bias versus how much are just an affect of supply and demand for the various positions?

So your work seems segregated by sex based on role, Alderian. I'm talking about equal pay for equal work. I have worked with both male and female software developers. Many very talented and doing equal work. But my good friend (a female) made less than me even though we were both Java developers (back when I did Java) working on the same team doing the same project. She has a bachelor's degree (which I don't), but as I started my career a few years earlier, I have a slight edge on experience. Our skills, well she is the better developer if you ask me. Yet she got paid less by alomst $500 per month (more than $5K a year). That is wrong.

Also the fact that women don't end up doing the same jobs and thus aren't paid the same is a problem in and of itself. Is it that women aren't applying for certain kinds of jobs? Because then we have to ask ourselves, why? I suppose the obvious answer that everyone will point to is to say that women are just good at different things than men, and so there's no problem with the fact that women systematically take lower paying jobs. But I don't think we should leap to that answer right away. It's also possible that our unconscious ideas about gender roles systematically direct women into lower paying, less valued roles in the workforce.

I know how some people feel about anecdotal evidence and you all heard about a past situation where identical positions with identical skills had unequal pay by nearly 10% (60K versus 55K at the time, about 8 years ago), but here is another interesting one for you...

Two jobs ago, I worked for a marketing firm where just over 1/8th of the employees were male (a predominantly female company). Now, everyone was white collar employees as it was a marketing and promotion management firm. I was the highest paid non-senior leader but then I was also the third oldest person in the company and the oldest male and the only IT person. But the real interesting anecdotal evidence is I made more than several members of the senior leadership team. Now, one was a woman in her late 20s who started there fresh out of college, but had earned the respect to be senior leadership but not had the work experience to qualfiy for 70K+ a year. But the other was the head of HR, a woman about 8 years older than me, and yet I still made several thousand a year more despite not even being a supervisor, much less senior leadership [when you head up an IT department of just yourself, you don't qualify as a manager :-) ]. So the 51 year old female HR Director made less than the 43 year old fat dude they called the IT guy... Whjat does that tell you about the disparity between the sexes in income?

@Draugnar: It doesn't so much highlight the difference in the sexes as the difference in the skill-set necessary to do the job. You need relatively little training to work in HR and years and years of training to work as a software developer. Only the HR manager has a degree. The HR staff don't have (and aren't required to have) one. All of our software engineers have to have at least a BSc(Hons), many have an MSc and a few have PHDs.

When I mentioned pay v grade earlier I was talking about the software engineers - 20% of whom are female.

But the Director of HR *is* the manager. That's my point. Oh, and I have all of an associates of science in programming (but with nearly 30 years experience). Of course, I found out the other day that my friend, the former Coporate Controller (top guy in finance, also a 45 year old male) barely made more than me and when I left to go to the new job, it paid more than he made.