>> The median woman in the labor force earns around $19,000. The median man
>> earns around $30,000 (exact numbers available on request). Medians below
>> means are indicative of inequality and the fact that for women the median
>> is substantially lower than the mean indicates there is greater inequality
>> among women in labor market.
>
>Jim could you provide me with a citation for this so I can use it.
Heather gave you a good site for the CPS and other government surveys about income. My numbers came from my own calculations using CPS source data (I have access to March 1998 CPS raw data and keep a subsection of the data on my computer). The proper way to cite this type of work is to cite the CPS directly (which means you are in sense pretending to do the calculations yourself so you could cite me if you want, but either way is fine). I would need to do a small bit of work to get the exact median's if anyone wants them.
However, note that I selected *people in the labor force*. The official stats often are just everybody over 15 or other finer groupings. I used people in the labor force because that helps me make two points about gender differences in income.
First, women get paid less than men. The best way to make this point is to like at hourly earnings as it does not matter how many hours or weeks a person works. This point is further refined trying to match up people with job titles, experience, and/or education. Then you can make very specific points about women getting paid less for the SAME work.
Second, women's positions in labor markets are more peripheral than men's (work less hours, work less weeks, shorter work lives, entry into labor market later, more career transitions, etc.). I think this is an important point independent of the first point (I wouldn't be surprised if some enterprising statistician someday soon will show that controlling for all kinds of factors women and men get paid the same). While I think wage discrimination continues to exist, the peripheral work lives of women is pretty solid evidence of a wider, more "social" form of discrimination. Women--whether its through coercion, persuasion, seduction, or generosity--factor in more "non-labor market" factors into their work lives. The rearing of children, care of others, etc. clearly penalizes women disproportionately in labor markets. I believe the "ascendancy of women" in the workplace masks the fact that the non-market work of women has not changed that much and undoubtedly patriarchal forces slow that change.
(I realize that everyone on the list knows 99% of the above and I do not intend any of the above to be pedantic. I wanted to clear).
>> A look at people in the labor force reveals there is a lot of income
>> inequality. A fact that surprised me while running my own numbers on the
>> CPS 1998 is that 23.7% of women in the labor force earn less than $10,000
>> (both low pay and part time status factor in here), while for men it was
>> 12.8%. 58.7% of women earn under $23,000 while only 36.3% for men. 9.9% of
>> men earn over $75,000 while 2.6% for women.
>
>And a citation for these figures too!!!
>It is good for the point I am making to show it is worse than expected and
has
>class implications.
These are my calculations as well. I can send an Excel spreadsheet with the numbers to those who would like (although I don't do email on weekends).
Peace,
Jim
"I am sure care's an enemey to life"
--William Shakespeare, *Twelfth Night*