I get all that. Here is what my wife and I did: I changed my career so she could succeed.
I was a fleet guy in the Navy on track. It is a hard life but my wife and I were ready to accept that challenge since I was on my way. We evolved a bit and it was apparent that we should husband her career as well as mine. WE made this decision.
My wife is really, really smart, folks.
So we did. I went from a fleet guy to becoming an Aerospace Engineering Duty Officer. This entailed spending time apart, doing the Au Pair thing, managing a lot of added burdens most couples don't face. In total time since we married, including fleet tours, we spent 6 of the first 14 years of our marriage apart so she could stay in one area and further her career unimpeded.
So, given OUR choices, she has matched her male peers step for step and has done spectacularly well.
Again, these were our choices, our puts and takes: Gross measurements of wages between men and women are meaningless and mask the every day decisions that BOTH men and women make together that occasion how we earn.
I don't need a government supporting drone to help me in figuring out the math of life...not you MBA
Quote:
Originally Posted by MBAtarga
There is a Freakonomics podcast on this subject that I listened to recently. They had a guest (female) researcher/professor (Harvard I think) that is THE expert on wage inequality. From the podcast transcript:
The True Story of the Gender Pay Gap - Freakonomics Freakonomics
If you take women who don’t have caregiving obligations, they’re almost equal with men. It’s somewhere in the 95 percent range. But when women then have children, or again are caring for their own parents or other sick family members who need care, then they need to work differently. They need to work flexibly, and often go part-time. They often get less-good assignments because their bosses think that they’re not going to want work that allows them to travel, or they’re not going to be able to stay up all night, or whatever it is. And so then you start — if you’re working part-time, you don’t get the same raises. And if you’re working flexibly your boss very typically thinks that you’re not that committed to your career, so you don’t get promoted. |