No matter how much one tries to ignore the above statement, it does hold a lot of credibility,although being a bit of a feminist, this statement seems a bit of an anomaly. People would blame the socio-economic status of women, religion or even politically well-established men behind this anomaly. However, a research paper by renowned professor, Richard Mckenzie, UC Irvine, shows that there are in fact just three simple reasons that lead to the wage gap between men and women.

Average Salary: Men vs. Women(USA)

Bureau of Labor Statistics, “Women’s Earnings and Employment by Industry, 2009,” TED: The Editor’s Desk (February 16, 2011).

1. Mating Psychographics of Men & Women

Eventually it all comes down to sex. The statement couldn’t have been more appropriate here. Since ages, men and women have different strategies for partner selection. Males, being the visual animals that they are(my lady friends will agree with me over that one) find physical attractiveness in females to be their foremost criteria for their ideal partner. Females tend to place a greater weight on their prospective male mates to “have good financial prospects”, for their capability and willingness to provide support to her children and yes, if required themselves .

2. Male-against-male competition

Naturally, males compete to signal females on their relative attractiveness among other males – be it the hunting successes of the early man or financial wealth of an investment banker. Again, not all females need to look for rich & handsome males. If only some women seek males who are capable and willing to provide support, then males have an incentive to compete on income and corporate positions to increase their odds of being selected by females as partners and long-term mates.

3. More risks! More bucks!

Through the ages, with Polygamy being a common practice among human beings, men have had, on an average,greater number of mates & children, when compared to women. This has inculcated a behavior inclining towards risk taking in them – previously hunting now high risks at jobs. The risk taking nature of men can be validated by their shorter life expectancy than females.(There are far more men who die of accidents than women and they blame us for being poor drivers). Increased risk taken by males means more variance i.e. there are more high-earning males (and more low-earning males) than females.If we assume that male and female earnings distributions is the same, the labor market laws and government policies are likely to eliminate the bottom part of the distribution, thereby increasing the male mean. Due to the above factors, the men average salary is any way larger. With risk taking, this difference will be further magnified especially since jobs carrying risks tend to carry a wage premium In conclusion, no matter how many economic & social reforms(education and job for women, women reservation bills) we implement, they cannot completely eliminate the wage difference based on gender without addressing the above three factors.The only way to eliminate the gap is to completely change the psychological makeup of men & women. And changing the innate mating preferences in human beings will take hundreds of years and, until then, men will continue to earn on average more than women…Period.

Share this: Twitter

Facebook

Like this: Like Loading... Related

Posted in Uncategorized