Women pay a steep price for their more flexible work schedules

Submitted by Mastodon on Tue, 2014-02-11 01:12

Article here. Excerpt:

'One big reason women make less than men is because they tend to demand more flexible schedules. And new economic research shows that if more workplaces adopted a more team-oriented, job-sharing approach—like physicians in a group practice—the cost of flexible work would dissipate and the premium for long hours would too.

"That’s how physicians have been able to not be 24/7, not be on call all the time, to have lives of their own,” says Claudia Goldin, a Harvard professor of economics. Her new paper, A Grand Gender Convergence: Its Last Chapter (pdf), is to be published soon in the American Economic Review, and explores the reasons behind pay differential between genders even as women have caught up with men in education, experience, and other measures.
...
She asks: Why should someone who works 80 hours a week be worth more than two people who work 40 hours a week?

“It isn’t quote a women’s issue,” says Goldin in an interview with Quartz. The pay disparity shows up equally when male MBAs need reduced schedules or time off for personal or family needs.'

Like0 Dislike0

Comments

"Why should someone who works 80 hours a week be worth more than two people who work 40 hours a week?"

I can think of a couple. But the problem is that feminists want ppl (women) working 20 hrs./wk. paid like those working 40, provided the 20-hr.-ers are female.

Like0 Dislike0
Submitted by Matt on Tue, 2014-02-11 05:09

Why should someone who works 80 hours a week be worth more than two people who work 40 hours a week?

Well, aside from the fact two employees would then require two peoples worth of non-salaried benefits, like medical, employment insurance (at least in Canada. I suspect the US has some kind of equivalent), CPP (again in Canada. Canadian Pension Plan), vacation pay, etc.There is also the potential that the one working 80 hours is still only being paid a salary, which means they are paid the same whether they work 40 or 80... But they become more valuable to the company, and the company is willing to give them a raise (still not so much of a raise as to cover the costs of an entire second employee... unless those two employees got paid significantly less, and then we have the gender gap again).

And agreed Matt, what's being demanded is for someone doing the work of two people to be paid the same as each of two different people each doing half the work the one is... so it's not the same work at all.

Like0 Dislike0
Submitted by Kratch on Tue, 2014-02-11 09:28