From the nyt: Putting Money on the Table:
For the first time, women in their 20s who work full time in several American cities - New York, Chicago, Boston and Minneapolis - are earning higher wages than men in the same age range, according to a recent analysis of 2005 census data by Andrew Beveridge, a sociology professor at Queens College in New York.
For instance, the median income of women age 21 to 30 in New York who are employed full time was 17 percent higher than that of comparable men.Professor Beveridge said the gap is largely driven by a gulf in education: 53 percent of women employed full time in their 20s were college graduates, compared with 38 percent of men. Women are also more likely to have graduate degrees. “They have more of everything,” Professor Beveridge said.
Why those cities? What makes Chicago different from Portland? Why not Denver?
What I find most interesting is the (apparent) correlation all of this has with delayed procreation. Women might not be getting as much education and disparities in compensation among peers may be more pronounced in a society where baby-making still starts at or around 18. I notice this article doesn’t really address PEER incomes (the women are more highly educated and have more high-powered jobs than the men), so I would also like to know how that compares to see if it is the case that younger women and men are more equal and older women and men (where family starts to change the dynamic) are more disparate. And then the question is do older women get paid less because their focus on family really does drive their value down at work, or do they get paid less because the workplace assumes they will be less reliable or valuable, even if that is not the case?
yeah good question. the trend i see with men is more of their lifetime earning potential in their youth… working for startups, hedge funds or elsewhere. i think people in general are getting paid more for productivity and less for experience/longevity at a company.
I wonder what all those underemployed and undereducated men are going to do.