For the middle and working classes do women still make less money than men.

I constantly see the woman make .70 cents for every dollar a man makes statistic. And I am starting to question the validity of that claim in today's economy.

Almost every couple I know where the wife and husband are about the same age the wife makes more money. In fact not does she make more money she tends to have better benefits to boot. Almost all the unemployed I know are men and the majority of the underemployed are men.

The woman also tend to have college degrees while many of the men work in "trades" that have been devastated by the downturn (everything from construction to IT and now on the Gulf Coast fishing)

I am suspicious if the same study was done today and eliminated the outliers (full time house people, prisoners, CEO's and professional baseball players) and instead concentrated on the middle and working classes a picture of females making the same or even more than their male partners would quickly come to the fore.

I'm less interested in stirring up a reactionary hornets nest than seeing if anyone else has had the same observation of income disparity in todays economy particularly among younger couples.

...though the data are elderly <2005>...



Chart from census.

Race is a poor proxy for SES, but it's a place to start.

Many more woman live on fixed incomes in old age than men mostly because the men in question are dead. I wonder if that skews the numbers.

women don't earn close to what men earn

a guy can go right out of school on an oil rig and make good money, a girl has to go to college and now even to teach get a master's degree, so her earning years are cut short, and she starts out behind the 8 ball of lots of education debt, and she pretty much never catches up

plus if she has kids, it's a lost cause, if she ever had a "good" job she pretty much never gets it back

even at the high end -- two young people i knew went to med school and started as ER docs ($400K a year apiece) but at some point she ended up off on the money track and sitting at home and then later working only part time, while he's earning millions -- and that's the comparison of two doctors

i think only women of upper middle class background with good family/college connections end up making on a par with what men can earn, it's just the way it is, why kid yourself?

there are just as many "blue collar" type women as "blue collar" type men -- women who are not going to get anything out of college but debt, the guy with that type of brain and talent can make good money (my husband does), the woman with that type of brain and talent won't even get a job (there are ZERO women working in my husband's business and, as far as i know, in his industry)

they take time off for childbearing. If they take several years off, they tend to fall behind in income and total earnings. I think I read somewhere that if you factor out childbearing (as if the next generation could somehow create and raise itself, LOL) then women make as much as men, on average.

I really am curious about how gender roles and everything will change, how things will play out in the next generation or two.

I do think it is a shame that the stuff that got called "women's work" was ever looked down upon as being worthless. Because I think things like raising children, taking care of the sick and elderly, homemaking, etc. are actually things that do have worth and value. Maybe even more value than what the typical wall street guru does.

I saw someone on TV, possibly a female Dem senator talking about this a few days ago. Statistically, according to her; fewer women than men have been laid off in this recession for the simple reason, they don't make as much as men do in the same position. For that reason, they were kept.

Despite the efforts we have made over the years, there is still a huge discrepancy in salary in most professions. Some have improved but there is a long way to go. I happen to be a human resource person, and I can tell you, I have fought for salary for qualified women who are replacing men. Unfortunately, I didn't always win.

Long way to go but this could change with in ten to fifteen years as more women are attending and graduating from college than me. I hope so.

a quick note about college, yes, women have to go to college to get hired at any job, even picking up a phone in an office or managing some dress shop for little more than min. wage

if you have to go to college just to get a menial job, and a man doesn't, you already start out behind, because you have lost years of work AND you have often incurred debt

i know too many people w. master's degrees who are checking out books at the library, a job where they are actually assisted by and sometimes competing with VOLUNTEERS, needless to say i don't know how they earn enough to put food on their table, the pay is so bad

women have no choice but to invest more and more money in getting an education, used to be a b.a. or a b.s. was needed and now a master's degree is often needed to get a job...is that really an improvement for women? nah, it's just more being victimized, because they are forced to pay for an advanced education whether or not they have the talents/future that will benefit from higher education

education is becoming a bit of a ponzi scheme and women can't opt out, so they're getting squeezed financially in a very harsh manner

three times since 2002.

I have made relatively good money. In my most recent profession, technical writing, for the most part there is industry-wide parity between the sexes. BUT, I personally always earned less, even though my education and experience said that I should be making the average salary around here for that job. (50K+/yr)

So, yes, there is gender discrimination. I've personally been affected by it.

in certain age ranges, usually the years just after college. I think once children enter the picture, though, women are more likely to either stay at home or make compromises with their job, and then men begin to surpass them. I've also seen stats that indicate that, on an hourly basis--for actual hourse worked, women make more, a figure no doubt skewed by salaried men working 80 hour weeks. It is a complicated issue with a lot of variables at play.

http://www.aflcio.org/joinaunion/why/uniondifference/uniondiff4.cfm

Collective Bargaining Raises Wages—Especially for Women and People of Color

By bargaining collectively, union members are able to negotiate higher wages. Union members earn 28 percent more than nonunion members. The union wage benefit is greatest for people of color and women. Latino union workers earn 50 percent more than their nonunion counterparts. Union women earn 34 percent more than nonunion women. For African Americans, the union advantage is 29 percent. The union advantage for white male workers is 21 percent. For Asian American workers the union advantage is 4 percent.

MEDIAN WEEKLY EARNINGS OF FULL-TIME
WAGE AND SALARY WORKERS, 2009


http://www.aflcio.org/joinaunion/why/uniondifference/uniondiff4.cfm

same job,regardless of gender.

Solidarity!

Don

That is the case for the most part. But someone would try to say that not everyone does just because a new hire would receive probationary pay and in the one instance it was just a woman and no men getting probationary.

gender. A man would not be able to bypass a probationary period just because he's a man. I've only ever seen a probation waived when someone is going from one union classification to another.

would be to change the amount from 70% of job 1 to 70% of job 2. I'm not 100% sure as it has been over 30 years but after I got my probation in I received the 30% difference from those 90 days.

why do you think women are still employed? IT is CHEAPER labor...

Connect the freaking dots!

Oh and welcome to DU

The difference has been decreasing over the years but it's still there.
If you would like to read about one government survey used to measure this, read this recent ACS report here:
http://www.census.gov/prod/2009pubs/acsbr08-3.pdf

Women are always last... right down the list.

who work in trades, and the trades have been in trouble. That is true, but that is also not a comparison for whether women make less than men. The comparison is pay disparity in the same jobs. And that is still an issue in most fields. Union workers generally are paid the same for the same job (especially with the same seniority), but many jobs are no longer union. I am a personal example of this, and others at my company are also examples (I do the payroll, I know). And with a college degree, I am working outside my degree with men who have no post-high school education making more than I do. Would love to shove that in my boss's face, but I need the job.

... the unequivocal answer is YES.

I realize my experience is anecdotal but it certainly reflects the prevailing wisdom