Women vs. Men: Women winning

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http://finance.yahoo.com/career-work/article/105040/The-Slump:-It's-a-Guy-Thing

[Joan.of.the.Arch]

The-Slump:-It's-a-Guy-Thing: Personal Finance News from Yahoo! Finance

Meanwhile women are graduating from college at higher rates than men. Some analysts even argue that men are less suited than women to the knowledge economy, which rewards supposedly female traits such as sensitivity, intuition, and a willingness to collaborate.

What? My college studies had little to do with those things, unless by willingness to collaborate one might mean things like willingness to abide by the syllabus and text book assigned, to listen in the classroom, to do the assignments, to write the papers, to show up for and take the tests, etc.

The share of all men aged 20 and over with jobs has fallen since last November, when private-sector employment peaked, going from 72.9% to 72.2% in April. For women the ratio rose, from 58.1% to 58.3%.

That means nearly 1/3 of adult men are not employed. That is huge. I wonder how many are retired, disabled, or stay at home parents rather than wanting employment. That is a lot of non-employed women, too.

even though men have done worse on jobs lately, they continue to earn more than women on average....In fact, although the pay gap between men and women has been gradually narrowing, it actually widened a bit over the past year. Median usual weekly earnings for men grew 4.6% from the first quarter of 2007 through the first quarter of 2008, vs. 3.1% for women.

Same ol' story, eh?--Yet the earnings of women and job status has improved in my life time.

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Meanwhile women are graduating from college at higher rates than men. Some analysts even argue that men are less suited than women to the knowledge economy, which rewards supposedly female traits such as sensitivity, intuition, and a willingness to collaborate.

What? My college studies had little to do with those things, unless by willingness to collaborate one might mean things like willingness to abide by the syllabus and text book assigned, to listen in the classroom, to do the assignments, to write the papers, to show up for and take the tests, etc.

I think you are correct - women just follow directions better, stay more concentrated, are more responsible, whatever. I am trying to raise my sons to buck the trend of "laziness" and be a person who takes their studies seriously and to be industrious.

I figure with those traits, they'll have their choice of women for a mate.

I would have to agree - although it's sexist. . .women just seem to do better in the classroom for whatever reason.

Women want to get things more right, right down to they'll interrupt a professor in lecture and ask,

"How do you spell that?"

Men generally don't do that. It's more like, "Yeah, yeah, I get the idea. . .can we move on here?"



That means nearly 1/3 of adult men are not employed. That is huge. I wonder how many are retired, disabled, or stay at home parents rather than wanting employment. That is a lot of non-employed women, too.

It probably classifies a stay-at-home-mom as unemployed.


Same ol' story, eh?--Yet the earnings of women and job status has improved in my life time.

That probably represents the fact women often just take time off for pregnancy and delay career advancement in exchange for kids. While women may cry, "Unfair!", it's not fair for an employer either to constantly grovel to women just because they want to have babies.

[geojen]

[I]

That probably represents the fact women often just take time off for pregnancy and delay career advancement in exchange for kids. While women may cry, "Unfair!", it's not fair for an employer either to constantly grovel to women just because they want to have babies.

Grovel to women who want to have babies? Are you serious Women aren't the only ones who want to have families, men do as well. They just have to rely on women to have the babies for them. That is a function of biology and shouldn't be held against women.

Employers in this country are far from groveling to women who want babies. Last I checked (which was this morning) the U.S. and Australia are the only industrialized countries that have NO required paid maternity leave for mothers or fathers.

[Joan.of.the.Arch]

Scanner, do you know if women without children have incomes equal to men without children? I mean is that true among 18 year old men and women, 22 y/o m & w, 36 y/o m& w, 48 y/o m & w etc, 59 y/o m & w, etc., none of whom have children?

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Joan,

I confess I don't have a breakdown of the distribution. . .you have a point. . .probably not much difference between an 18 year old woman and a man.

Geogen:

They just have to rely on women to have the babies for them. That is a function of biology and shouldn't be held against women.

Nor should it be held against the employer, right?

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I heard about this on Fast Money, and the female reporter there suggests that part of it is probably because women are statistically paid less than men. So, from a business stand-point, it makes sense to remove those who cost more than those who don't, doing the same work.

[geojen]

Joan,


Geogen:



Nor should it be held against the employer, right?

What are you really referring to here? The six weeks that a woman may take for maternity leave? In the big picture, big deal. Really.

Are you referring to the time that a family may take away from business? What about the improved quality of life that people who want families and have families experience, which one could argue would lead to higher performance in the office?

Not too long ago, there were a series of articles published on MSN that talks about the increased performance and decreased employee turnover that companies are seeing for adopting progressive family policies. For example, companies that have day cares on site, or allow flex-time schedules, etc are all reporting good outcomes from beginning those policies.

[cptacek]

I think that a discussion like this is what made me stumble onto this web site to begin with, oh, about 2 years ago.

Just one question...and don't flame me. Just think about this. If there are two people, one a man and one a woman, and they do the same job, and they do it with the same quality, but the woman will do it for cheaper than the man will do it for, then why wouldn't the employer higher all women so the labor cost would go down?

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Just one question...and don't flame me. Just think about this. If there are two people, one a man and one a woman, and they do the same job, and they do it with the same quality, but the woman will do it for cheaper than the man will do it for, then why wouldn't the employer higher all women so the labor cost would go down?

I don't know who the question is directed towards, but I know I would.

[cptacek]

Just a hypothetical question. It is too easy to manipulate statistics to back up one soap box or another, so I thought I would inject some common sense into the equation.

I guess what I am saying is, this:

even though men have done worse on jobs lately, they continue to earn more than women on average

is either wrong or all the really smart business people out there haven't yet figured out that women will work for less than men will.

[Joan.of.the.Arch]

cptacek, I think the statement you quoted could agree with what you are saying. "Doing worse on jobs" is not meaning performing worse, or being less productive. It means men are becoming unemployed at a greater rate than are women. That could go hand in hand with what you are saying: employers could be holding onto the lesser paid employees, the women, and letting go the higher paid ones, the men.

But I think the bigger part of the GROWTH in the rate of unemployment among men is due to what the article says: Men are the overwhelming majority workers in some in fields that right now are slowed down--like construction.