newsweek:

equalitymyth:

Jesse’s got a new Newsweek piece about wage disparity in the legal profession—even among the best lawyers at the most elite firms. A new study found those women, within the highest ranks of the most respected firms, make, on average, $66,000 each year less than men.

First of all: ouch, apparently we’re in the wrong field. But second: double ouch, that is totally appalling. As one employment attorney put it:

“The numbers are so stark that it really does call into question whether there is a systemic problem.”

We’d go with yes.

-jessica

Okay, so anyone who knows me knows that I am sympathetic to this kind of story.  I think it’s pretty obvious that there’s a wage gap in just about every industry.  This is not good, and I’m going to spend my career trying to fix this sort of stuff.

That said, I have a bit of a problem with the study.

This study is a survey; I didn’t see a regression of factors that affect wages on wages (aka your best chance at causality doesn’t exist).  The author of the article writes that “The biggest contributing factors, according to the study’s authors, are not nearly as benign: they include stereotyping, gender bias, and even bullying and intimidation.”  This sentence implies that stereotyping and bullying are causing the pay gap, but that’s not what the study says.  The study says that female employees say that’s what causes the pay gap.  From a policy standpoint, these two are completely different.

Anyway, this study is still on the right track.  The problem with talking about equal pay is that it’s kind of a misdirection.  I doubt (hope?) that any major companies pay men and women differently for the same job.  They do, however, perceive the ways in which men and women work differently and make decisions on payment based on these perceptions.  So talking about equal pay doesn’t mean as much as talking about equal opportunity or equal promotion.  This study gets at that difference.

I don’t want to diminish the results of the survey; I think it’s incredibly important to look at a variety of data when creating policy.  But we can’t look at survey data and then decide that there’s some causal relationship.