Is the gender pay gap a myth? | Richard Reeves

What do you think of this explanation of the gender pay gap?

How is it possible to determine gender pay gap without asking every person its gender ? Lets say all males will declare tomorrow they are females ... then what ? Listen more to COMMIE_PIGS you will get more nonsense and waste your life.

So you're saying men work themselves to death for their family and should be punished for it?

Basically, yes.

wow, what a stupid argument.

Well...I guess the solution is for women to stop having babies. Or force the men to have them.

Forcing women to go into careers that make more so u dont have a " pay gap" is discrimination and hurtfull. Women r more agreeable and nurturing. This leads them away from dangerous jobs that pay more and into fields like teaching and nursing. Its unfair to force them into higher paying jobs that they dont want so u get. 50/50. 😂 Unreal. And paying women more for a job cause they may leave for having children, will just make corporations and small businesses not higher women. 😂😂 gotta love these fools.

Having a baby is career suicide.

Yes. Next question please.

I will refrain from posting the all important "Ai-virtual-girlfriends" comment. Smh. 😤😤

The wage gap is a complete myth. You gotta explain HOW they get the number first. SIMPLIFIED EXPLANATION: 2 men vs 2 woman. Both men and 1 woman are doctors. The other woman is a nurse. The doctors earn 100k and the nurse earns 50k. So in total Men earn 200k and women earn 150k. So the gap is 25% or 75c to the men's whole dollar. As you can see it's flawed math and this is literally how the wage gap is worked out via a nationwide census or polls with x amount of people. So you have to really really simplify it for most people to understand. Talking about choice of industry, kids, hours worked, experience etc is all POINTLESS because you're working off a flawed equation. You're going wayyyyy too meta. But when you simplify it and find out how you get the gap number it's obvious that it's flawed and it's really unethical to push that agenda.

good

Even if the pay gap were real it will have severe consequences against men if it was equalized since women will never date down, period.

In short: no it don’t exist lol. If it did then greedy business owners would only hire women.

Yes, women are more likely to take time off for children or to give up their careers entirely.

And in every single couple I know where this happened, it was the woman who made this decision. Let's face it, most of the time if a man said "could you work more hours and sacrifice your time with the children so you can support me so I can stay home and be with the kids all day?", that man would not be married for very long. But women literally say this to men all the time and men for the most part accept it, because they've been raised to accept the role of provider and that they should take financial care of their children and the mother of their children. People act like this is discrimination against the woman, but it isn't. It's actually the opposite. It's discrimination against the man. Because women can make a choice. They can choose to focus on career or choose to focus on motherhood, and feminism has given them that choice and if you question them on either choice, you're a no good misogynist. But men don't have this choice. Men are expected at the very least to be equal contributors financially. And this is being reinforced even by feminist women, who still continue to say they'll never support a man financially and they'll only date men who are on their level financially or above.

So women choose to stay home and they’d structural inequality? You’re a moron. You spout all these facts BUT miss the entire factual reality that equality of opportunity and freedom of choice means you are going to have disparity. You cannot force 50% quotas and call it equality

I grew up in various factory work. I started in 2015, and up until 2021, men were paid a dollar more than the women. I live in Ga, and the women never complained that they were paid a dollar less, because in factory work, the men were required to do heavy lifting and pull heavy objects with pallet jacks. There were a very few women who wanted equal pay as the men, and they were required to do the same physical lifting and the stacking of 30 lb to 40 pound boxes in a repetitive cycle iver the shift of 9 plus hours. Since most women refused to do that kind of labor, the gap in pay was seemingly justified. Now in 2023 the gap has dissappeared, and women aren't required to do the same physical labor as males: for example the women create boxes and pack lightweight objects, while the men are still required to use their strength to pull heavy objects and stack heavy objects repetitively with no pay increase over the "lightweight material hamdlers". The funny thing is, none of the men complained that they were getting equal pay as the women. The women closed the gap in the factories labor market, and the gap was closed without any furthering expectation of the women's duties. And the men never complained about inequality. They just got the job done and kept it moving. There was a point where there wasnt enough men to do a certain job one day, and the male supervisors had to get their hands dirty and pull the heavy objects because the women weren't capable of doing it.
In factory life, if you're on the line, your pay is divided into two parts: lightweight and heavy lifters. The pay is no longer divided, and the men aren't crying about it. They're simply moving along and getting the job done.

I agree. Another aspect i think is relevent is how gendered stereotypes play a role. Women are generally raised to be more subservient, or to prove their worth through their work. Men are encouraged and raised to be more braisen and to damand more for their work. In otherwords ive noticed that men tend to not have any issues around asking for pay rises and understanding how they need to get a leg up whereas a lot of women get stuck in the entry level postion. Men will request a pay rise and women will hope they get one based off the work they did. ive recently learned that employers will not volunteer to give you more money, unless you request it. My whole attitude has completely changed around this revelation and im really angry by the amount of times i worked by my butt off to prove i deserve more only for them to thank me and not give me more. i feel like such a moron.

You will NEVER have gender equality across the board it is impossible. We are built differently. No one talks about the male side of things but the few things females deal with get blown out of proportion.

Why do women take care of kids... Biology and self choice. Also when you consider most women pick a partner with similar or higher income, it's also an economically smart decision for the mother to raise children to max out household income

Accurate. It seems like its being approached with the goal of equal pay at the cost of cultural/biological preference. Unless the women who choose to work get paid more for the same job, they likely cannot overcompensate the women who choose to drop out or work less hours/less promotions. Of course you can force the women who want time with their kids to work and force men to reduce time. Also, a lot more women will have to take on jobs with decent pay and high workplace fatalities and men would have to take lower pay jobs that women dominate...for equality. Then you can have mathematical equality and almost guaranteed unhappiness.
The Harvard study for mass transit system (V Bolotnyy · 2018) reinforced this cultural decision making between the sexes. Married men worked more then unmarried. Women has opposite effect. Men took more ASAP overtime, but women would take it if they can schedule it in. It's just an interesting subject that explains more about how the sexes work.
Overall, it's just like climate change: very interesting to dive into and see nuances, but ruined by loud activists and politicians.

Also, women decide to spend more time with their children rather than going to work, thats their own desicion, why is that even a problem to begin with

How can i explain to you that not only the majority of the working population are male, but that the majority of people who decides to stay extra hours in their job are also male...
Its just natural for women and men to have differents wages

What if it's not even a problem? What if women are more likely to want lower pay if that means they get to take care of their children and have their husband provide?

There is little to no new idea's or thoughts here.. its just the same arguement reworded.

Families can organise themselves, mothers and fathers will take what ever choice best suits them re working v child raising. On a family level, no decision is made with the gender wage gap in mind, stop the nanny state preaching.

The conspicuous absence of female voices here is proof that they do not seek equality but rather seek to destroy men and boys.

We used to have this simple system where the man would work and have to fight in the everyday rat race, while the women would say at home with the kids. Since that system is gone, society is slowly going down hill

I think a big part of gender pay gap inequality is that women generally don't get into male dominated jobs and universities where they are likely to be harassed (like, engineering for example).

You make it sound like the point at which people move up in management structures is a national policy decision. It isn’t. It is a statistic based on millions of individual decisions by millions of firms. And you are saying ‘we’ should change that? I suppose you mean via government dictate. What an incredibly horrid idea.

well well

So rather than raising the next generation of human beings we should continue to slave away for the financial overlords who don’t give a shit about us and only care about the money you generate for them. Just another cog in the machine. Within a few years , they won’t need men or women with all the AI stuff going around. Pushing women into the work force is what lead to gen Z being so self-districtive and becoming useless tiktokers.

I do not believe that it is correct to define a gap resulting from women taking care of their children as a "problem." There are so many judgemental assumptions you have to make to get there, chief among them that women are helpless and oppressed and don't want to raise their children, or that it's wrong that they want to take that role more frequently than men do.
Even in the attempt to be unbiased, this video can't see its own biases and is stuck supporting the non-factual position that men and women are the same, have the same strengths, weaknesses, desires, instincts, etc. It's not true, never has been true, and trying to enforce it has already resulted in extraordinary social and personal damage, both to men and women.
Stop trying to control everything and let people make their own choices.

Could it be that we shouldn't care about the gap at all? If one parent is staying at home with the children (Mom or Dad) then no shit that person will make less.
Who ever expected both parents to make the same?
Parents are brainwashed (or more likely over financially extended) that they have to produce the same fiscally. So we all dump our kids in daycare as soon as possible and back to the fucking rat race with you. To afford the giant house you don't need and the second car you don't need. Maybe we say its OK to have a bit less and do more for our children, all they really need is our love and attention. Not all this materialistic bull shit.

Women are not attracted to men who earn less than they do. The divorce rate rises to 90% in marriages where the women are the primary breadwinner. And women initiate the vast majority of divorces.

this is pretty much what jordan peterson had said

Mainstream Media finally having balanced discussions on topics they were too scared to have just a couple years ago in fear of offending or getting cancelled.

Nice.

The right says the pay gap is a myth because the right cares about the truth and the facts. They don't say it's a myth because of politics. The right says the death penalty is legal and not at all unconstitutional, not because the right likes killing criminals. They say it because it's the truth. The founders killed people for stealing spoons and no one said that was unconstitutional. The problem is that the left has turned the truth into a political argument. If you care about the truth, you're on the right. If you don't care about the truth, and instead want your desires to be true even when it's not, you're on the left.

What i don't get is this Retarded push for a 50/50 split.
I don't give a fuck if its 10/90 or 90/10 as long as no one got discriminated against.
If it comes down to personal choice thats the end of the road. Do what you want but stop whining about consequences of your own decision.

Same goes for Parental leave, its your home, its your family, cry about it to your Boyfriend and make a decision ( wheter it be something both agree with or as far as divorce).

There is nothing society has to do.

There is no gender pay gap. Occupations that pay more are those with many safety hazards, or require tremendous amounts of IN DEMAND education, over time work and scientific-technical (creative) work experience!

If all these women want to earn more or the same as men, they’d be more miserable than they are now. You really think all these feminist women enjoy maintaining sewage systems? Or they all enjoy building electrical sub-stations? What about trash collection and trash disposal? These are all highly in demand, highly paid jobs that 99.9% of women won’t do!

Women were created to do things that men cannot do, such as giving birth and raising the next generation of people!

I think it may be even less of a problem than he says.

Suppose you have a stable nuclear family with children. Both parents are educated enough to get a well-paying job. But someone has to look after the kids. They could hire a childminder, but it's better to do it themselves. So one of them has to take a career break. It doesn't matter which one - they share a bank account anyway. Why shouldn't it be the mother?

So many people on this earth? That is not true, especially in the West which is suffering from a demographic collapse.

I like that comment "we have to encourage and enable fathers to do more work on the home front"
What would be genious is for Big Think is to allow men to gestate for 9 months, and then breast feed for 12 months - solve that problem and we are home free in resolving this issue!

I'd say the parental gap is a two-parter. It's expected the mother will stay home and take care of the children, yes. But also, as a man, earning income is non-optional, non-negotiable. "If he's at home, he's not making money." Men raise their working hours and overtime during the same period, as people expect him to be AWAY from home and earning money to the same degree they expect the woman to STAY home and tend to the kids.

In fact, in college I once heard "If a man doesn't earn enough money for the two of them, it means his wife must work for them to afford their lifestyle. So if he does not work or does not earn enough money, he is a misogynist because he is infringing on HER right to choose." Which we HAVE to admit is absolutely toxic levels of conspiracy thinking. Otherwise, we can't be surprised when people confuse this BS for women's rights as a whole.

Luckily this particular point seems to be changing quite drastically in younger generations. Though it's unfortunate that some of it comes from boys slipping in education compared to girls. But at least from where I'm sitting, I'm seeing tons more women who are OK with husbands earning less than them, which is an absolutely MANDATORY piece to picking apart the last pieces of the wage gap. Once things get down to personal choices, you have to start assessing the personal choices people make objectively and without judgement or narrative.

In many cases, the man feels useless at home, and the woman only feels useful at home. Other cases, traditional pressures. Other cases, she is home for post-birth recovery and they just kinda get into a flow.

Sweden's solution was parental leave. Either of the parents can use it, and it covers the full paycheck for a year. So it means businesses can't make easy assumptions about who is going to use the time. And THEN we need not just "career women" PSAs or something, but also "fatherhood value" PSAs. If men are working themselves to an irrational level and killing themselves in the process, is mirroring this for women really a good thing? Try to make men and women equal by dumping toxic masculinity on women too? Or should we instead be taking a closer look at the better work-life balance choices women often make since work is more optional for them?

So there is a pay gap, but the perspective that the majority of individuals who see it as a intentional and deconstructive scheme to keep power over women is incorrect. That is the issue.

And the the video presents a way in which the questions can be asked and answered.

Good grief why is it so hard for people to accept there can be natural differences between people without there being a need for discrimination. Also it doesn't suprise me in a hyper-capatlistic society women are being pressured and taught that making money, especially as much or more than a man is the pinnacle success.

Notice how the focus is to get women working, and not the other way around. Which is to get men more involved in child rearing ? That's an obvious signal society is valuing your economic output under the guise of " progressive equality". Also pay attention to how the metric of success conveniently can be measured with your earnings. It's completely void of self-fulfillment, pursuing your purpose, expressing yourself creatively, being a provider and a good human being.

Look at the sum of income for married couples before and after kids and compare that so single men and women. That’s really what this argument is missing: what is the problem with the woman (or man if preferred) staying home to take care of the kid while the man works 40 hrs/week to support the family? His/her success is shared at that point and any disparity in income between the two is irrelevant because it collective.

While I'm glad you acknowledged that a problem is that mothers tend to take on most of the responsibility for childcare, I say as a child free man that I resent the call for men to step up as though many if not most fathers would not want to take more time out to look after and bond with their children. There is a societal problem and an institutional problem.

The societal problem is that we don't value fathers as being as important as mothers at all.this is reflected in all spheres of life from pop culture to family law courts. The institutional problem, which probably stems from the same place, is that in the vast majority of countries, even those with generous maternity leave policies, the paternal leave is basically token (in the UK it's a pathetic max 2 weeks at whichever is lower of £172.48 a week or 90% of what you normally earn).

If fatherhood was valued more, and fathers had statutory paternal leave, more fathers would take it up.

Just stop trying to con women into being shills for the corporate world. Quit making women believe that having a child is such a bad thing and the only way to bring value to her live is being some "CEO boss lady". My wife has made more money after having our baby than she ever did before. Quit lying to women. What you should really be doing is showing how lonely people are who don't have kids later on in life. But with this new push for euthanasia for old people, I guess it all makes sense. Shill for corporations and buy all the useless crap you don't need until you can't work no more and you're given your injection and turned into mulch.