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Jewish World Review March 22, 1999 /5 Nissan 5759

Mona Charen

Mona Charen
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Return of pay equity?

(JWR) ---- (http://www.jewishworldreview.com)
THEY DESERVE A CERTAIN ADMIRATION, these tireless liberals do, for their ceaseless struggle to right wrongs --- even when the wrongs are all in their heads.

Take equal pay. According to the AFL-CIO, Sen. Tom Daschle and President Bill Clinton, unequal pay continues to beset American women. Columnist Ellen Goodman argues that while women earned 59 cents on the dollar compared with men in 1969, they now earn 74 cents on the dollar compared with men.

President Clinton cites the same figure and hopes for passage of legislation that would permit the Department of Labor to evaluate jobs and tell employers what to pay each employee.

Echoing a thousand campaigns past, the National Committee on Pay Equity (an arm of the AFL-CIO) has issued a handbook for activists that recommends such ideas as "Hold a BBQ or community cookout with food that is reduced in size to reflect the wage gap" or encourage local restaurants to offer "discounts on selected items to highlight the disparity in pay, such as: a drink special, with $0.74 drinks for women and $1.00 drinks for men."

As usual, the zeal of these would-be reformers is inversely proportional to their accuracy.

Ellen Goodman is quite wrong to imagine that little has changed since 1969.

One thing that has changed is that the national debate now profits from the contributions of non-feminist but scholarly women who know how to evaluate data.

A pair of them, Diana Furchtgott-Roth, an economist with the American Enterprise Institute, and Christine Stolba, a doctoral candidate at Emory University, have published (with the help of the Independent Women's Forum) a new edition of their book "Women's Figures: An Illustrated Guide to the Economic Progress of Women in America."

As everyday experience suggests, women have made dramatic economic progress in the past 40 years. In nearly every field of endeavor, from advanced degrees to business ownership, women have made great strides. Women comprised only 12 percent of pharmacists in 1970, compared with 44 percent today. They were only 27 percent of public relations specialists, whereas they now dominate the field with 66 percent. There are five times as many female lawyers today as there were 30 years ago and nearly three times as many doctors.

The wage gap, Furchtgott-Roth and Stolba explain, is a crude comparison of the wages of all men compared with the wages of all women. It does not take into account education, training, time on the job, or full or part-time work. In reality, the most important factor in the wage gap between men and women is probably summed up in one word: children. Women with children tend to take more time off from work, accumulate less seniority and accordingly earn less than men. And the more children a woman has, the more her income is likely to suffer. The National Longitudinal Survey of Youth finds that among workers ages 27 to 33 who have no children, women's earnings are 98 percent of men's.

The president, the AFL-CIO and other organs of the establishment tend to take it on faith that when men's and women's wages differ, discrimination must be at work. They are familiar with the data showing that mothers earn less than childless women but tend to see this as yet further discrimination. Furchtgott-Roth and Stolba respond with an economist's question: If firms can get away with such discrimination, why do we not see employers taking advantage of this by hiring only mothers and pocketing the profits?

This slim volume deserves an award for maximum number of myths shattered per page. Do women enter the work force because they must or because they choose? The latter, in most cases. Does a glass ceiling keep women from the top echelon of business?

No, it takes decades to rack up the education and work experience necessary to become a top CEO. As women move up the pipeline, they are achieving top spots. Though feminists complain of a "pink ghetto," it is men who hold the vast majority of the least desirable and most dangerous jobs such as pest controller and timber cutter. For every woman who is killed on the job, 13 men die.

The Labor Department should look into this. Comparable death, anyone?


Up

03/16/99: St. Hillary
03/10/99: Rodney King in perspective
03/08/99: Monica's story: No morals
03/04/99: Not home but library alone:
3/02/99: Tuning our racial sensitivities
2/27/99: Cease-fire in war between sexes?
2/23/99: Where were the religious voices?
2/19/99: Depends what you mean by "acting"
2/17/99: As Minn., goes so goes the nation?
2/09/99: Prepare for post-impeachment spin
2/03/99: Teaching morality
2/01/99: What did he say?
1/26/99: The truth about the Peace Process
1/22/99: The vulgar decade
1/19/99: Was Jefferson libeled by DNA?
1/13/99: The backlash picks up speed
1/11/99: Who invented politics of personal destruction?
1/07/99: Shall we dance?
1/05/99: Try him!
12/30/98: The price of virtue
12/28/98: The gift of giving
12/22/98: Party of shame, party of shamelessness
12/18/98: Wag the country
12/16/98: Is this impeachment constitutional?
12/14/98: Republicans find courage
12/09/98: Nappy Hair and other racial slurs
12/07/98: Stranger in a strange land
12/02/98: Dangerous ground
11/30/98: Involuntary fatherhood?
11/24/98: Lies, damned lies, and sex lies
11/18/98: Another victory for cowardice
11/16/98: Separatism plus welfarism equals a dead end
11/10/98: Did conservatism lose campaign '98?
11/06/98: Democrat venality, Republican timidity
11/04/98: Are girls being shortchanged?
11/02/98: Believe the children?
10/28/98: What 'Measure 58' would do
10/26/98: The officers are bailing out
10/20/98: Using Matthew Shepard's murder
10/19/98: The school voucher that saved a family
10/14/98: Are powerful women different?
10/09/98: Can just sex be impeachable?
10/07/98: Repeal Miranda
10/02/98: Understanding the polls
10/01/98: What school texts teach about marriage
9/28/98: Fear of choice
9/23/98: A fork in the road: Bubba's fate and ours
9/18/98: Christianity and the Holocaust
9/16/98: The national dirty joke
9/11/98: Are we in crisis?
9/09/98: Does Burton's sin let Clinton off the hook?
9/07/98: Liar's Poker
9/01/98: One, two, three
8/28/98: Fat and folly
8/25/98: When homework is a dirty word
8/21/98: The unravelling
8/18/98: The wages of dishonesty
8/17/98: Sex, honor and the presidency
8/12/98: Pro-choice extremist
8/10/98: Switch illuminates biology's role
8/05/98: The presumption of innocence and the American way
8/03/98: An American hero
7/29/98: Lock up those who need psychiatric care
7/24/98: Making the military more like us
7/22/98: The 'Net sex hoax... and us
7/20/98: Disappointed by Cosbys
7/15/98: Feelings, not morality, rule
7/10/98: Guns as the solution?
7/8/98: Teacher preacher
7/6/98: The China behind the headlines
7/1/98: What is the First Amendment for?
6/26/98: The Republican city
6/24/98: Poison pen
6/22/98: Clinton: inventing his own reality?
6/16/98: Senator mom?
6/12/98: Wisconsin: a trail blazer?
6/9/98: These girls say no to sex, yes to excellence
6/5/98: Lewinsky's ex-lawyer would feel right at home as Springer guest
6/2/98: English? Si; Republican? No!
5/29/98: The truth about women and work
5/27/98: Romance in the '90s
5/25/98:Taxing smokers for fun and profit
5/19/98: China's friend in the White House
5/15/98: Look out feminists: here comes the true backlash
5/12/98: The war process?
5/8/98: Where's daddy?
5/5/98: The joys of boys
5/1/98: Republicans move on education reform
4/28/98: Reagan was right
4/24/98: The key to Pol Pot
4/21/98: The patriot's channel
4/19/98: Child-care day can't replace mom
4/15/98: Tax time
4/10/98: Armey states obvious, gets clobbered
4/7/98: A nation complacent?
4/1/98: Bill Clinton's African adventure
3/27/98: Understanding Arkansas
3/24/98: Jerry Springer's America
3/20/98: A small step for persecuted minorities
3/17/98: Skeletons in every closet?
3/13/98: Clinton's idea of a fine judge
3/10/98: Better than nothing?
3/6/98: Of fingernails and freedom
3/3/98: Read JWR! :0)
2/27/98: Dumb and Dumber
2/24/98: Reagan reduced poverty more than Clinton
2/20/98: Rally Round the United Nations?
2/17/98: In Denial
2/13/98: Reconsidering Theism
2/10/98: Waiting for the facts?
2/8/98: Cat got the GOP's tongue?
2/2/98: Does America care about immorality?
1/30/98: How to judge Clinton's denials
1/27/98: What If It's Just the Sex?
1/23/98: Bill Clinton, Acting Guilty
1/20/98: Arafat and the Holocaust Museum
1/16/98: Child Care or Feminist Agenda?
1/13/98: What We Really Think of Abortion
1/9/98: The Dead Era of Budget Deficits Rises Again?
1/6/98: "Understandable" Murder and Child Custody
1/2/98: Majoring in Sex
12/30/97: The Spirit of Kwanzaa
12/26/97: Food fights (Games children play)
12/23/97: Does Clinton's race panel listen to facts?
12/19/97: Welcome to the Judgeocracy, where the law school elite overrules majority rule
12/16/97: Do America's Jews support Netanyahu?


©1999, Creators Syndicate