Competitiveness and Overconfidence Help Explain Why Men Earn More Than Women

Submitted by Mastodon on Wed, 2014-01-08 20:47

Article here. Excerpt:

'The gender wage gap in the United States is one of the biggest problems in the workplace. Despite the fact that women comprise nearly half of the labor force, they earn significantly less than their male counterparts, making about 80 cents for every dollar earned by men. That's true even when you control for demographic differences, such as the income and education of people's parents, and is consistent among high-ability people.
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But women's earnings are lower even within majors, according to the paper, because men are twice as likely as women to overestimate their true ability level, and twice as likely to pick a competitive compensation scheme. Those factors explain between 17 percent and 19 percent of the gap in earnings expectations within majors.
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The findings are based on high ability students from an elite university, who likely have a good chance of getting to the top of their professions, and "provide a possible explanation for the glass ceiling phenomenon," according to the authors.'

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Comments

It doesn't explain the "glass ceiling phenomenon". It describes the just-doesn't-want-to-negotiate phenomenon.

Really, with multiple web sites you can use to determine your market worth before entering into a salary discussion, there's no excuse. Before, you could easily plead ignorance. But nowadays? No.

Oh yeah, and "overconfidence"? It's not "over" unless it actually isn't justified. That is only borne out here if it results in men failing to get the $ they ask for. But b/c they ask for it, they get it-- b/c their employers are ready to pay it. That simple. So it's not "over" anything.

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Submitted by Matt on Fri, 2014-01-10 02:36

pretend: make believe, claim

let's pretend affirmative action was enforced across the board on all things, including sports.

sports announcer #1: its unbelievable lem. this sport gal just can't understand why nobody comes to watch the games anymore. salaries are down to almost nothing.
sports announcer #2: yes sally, the sports world is at a loss to explain it. and no one understands why the u.s. baseball all star team has again lost to the team from yougoslavitania.

now let's pretend this aa crap isn't affecting our military. I mean, we have gotten so good at pretending it is playing no part in education and the work place, it should be a breeze. let's do crazy chit and pretend. that should work, right?

right up until it doesn't. right up until it becomes a stain on a diploma, or a skid mark on a resume. the obvious solution, for pretenders, is to ignore it and pretend some more, all the way to the poor house.

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Submitted by daveinga on Sat, 2014-01-11 01:34