Putting in my 79.6-cents: Gender pay gap doesn’t exist

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Putting in my 79.6-cents: Gender pay gap doesn’t exist
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Tuesday was Equal Pay Day, a day sponsored by the National Committee on Pay Equity to raise awareness of the fact that women make 79.6 cents for every dollar men make. The day was chosen because it represents how far into 2017 women must work in order to make the same amount that men made in 2016. Their website states that “because women earn less, on average, than men, they must work longer for the same amount of pay.” This statement implies some sort of systematic discrimination against female workers, when in fact there are many factors — conveniently omitted from almost all feminist narratives — that contribute to the so-called “wage gap.”

Primarily, women are more likely to take time off work for childcare, leading to less experience and fewer opportunities for career growth later in life. Some blame oppressive societal gender roles for urging women to be the caretakers of the home, but the reality is that women are less likely to devote the majority of their lives to their careers — leading to fewer overall wage earnings. Additionally, women are far more likely to take lower-stress, lower-risk jobs than men — such as secretaries, nursing aides, and primary education teachers—which tend to be lower-paying.  
Data from the Bureau of Labor Services show that men make up 93 percent of high-risk jobs — such as mining, flight engineering, and law enforcement. Consequently, they are far more likely than women to incur serious injuries or be killed on the job, and compensation for these risks helps to account for the existence of a wage gap. In fact, a BLS report on fatal occupational injuries found that of approximately 4,800 people killed as a result of a work-related injury in 2015, almost 4,500 of them were men — a stunning number that receives little attention when comparing the wages of men and women.

Furthermore, the 79-cent figure fails to take into account differences in work experience and particular specializations within any given occupation — a pediatrician makes less than a surgeon, just as an art professor makes less than an engineering professor.
According to the Michigan State University faculty and academic staff salary list for the 2012-2013 school year, eight of the 30 professors of civil and environmental engineering were women, with fourteen professors in the department salaried at over $100,000. In the art, art history, & design department, however, 26 of the 43 professors were female. Despite having more faculty in this department, only three professors had salaries over $100,000. The differences in salary between the departments are explained simply by supply and demand: there is more demand for expertise in engineering outside of academia than there is for expertise in art or art history, so those professors, be they men or women, are able to command higher salaries. The fact that there are more male engineers is not a result of discrimination, it is a result of personal choice.

The truth is, the salaries for the two departments showed no signs of pay discrimination in favor of men. In every instance of a female professor being paid less than a male professor with the same job title, the male professor had more years of experience or some other salary-influencing factor, such as a secondary job at the university. In fact, in the art department, there appeared to be reverse discrimination—there were three unexplained examples of female professors who earned more than their male counterparts with the same job title and years of work experience.

Most differences in the salaries of men and women are easily explained by comparing other factors, such as experience, different levels of specialization in particular fields, and personal choices. So, if an inequitable wage gap exists, and if it as vast as some claim, where is the evidence? Where are the lawsuits? Where are the legal firms representing the victims of wage discrimination, and where are the payroll statistics from companies, universities, and organizations in which women are paid less than men? They do not exist, simply because a gender-based discriminatory wage gap does not exist. I have yet to see a feminist argument, based in facts rather than in generalizations, that proves otherwise.

Ms. Watson is a junior studying politics and journalism.