Hi! This is Jen penning a quick post to let you know that I'm buttoning up the details of a gender wage gap presentation. Interested in learning more? Come to Pinedale Thursday at noon at the Sublette County Library and join their annual Women's History Month event - and you, too, can hear more about the four biggest myths related to the gender wage gap. (Feel free to leave any guesses about those myths - or your data that debunks them - in the comments. After the presentation on Thursday, you can find the slides and notes posted on the website and see if you were right.)
In the meantime, Nat and I are taking a good, long, last look at the research, data, and studies. Our favorite comes from Claudia Goldin, often considered the leading expert on the economics of the gender wage gap. She writes:
"The converging roles of men and women are among the grandest advances in society and the economy in the last century. These aspects of the grand gender convergence are figurative chapters in a history of gender roles. But what must the “last” chapter contain for there to be equality in the labor market? The answer may come as a surprise. The solution does not (necessarily) have to involve government intervention and it need not make men more responsible in the home (although that wouldn’t hurt). But it must involve changes in the labor market, especially how jobs are structured and remunerated to enhance temporal flexibility. The gender gap in pay would be considerably reduced and might vanish altogether if firms did not have an incentive to disproportionately reward individuals who labored long hours and worked particular hours. Such change has taken off in various sectors, such as technology, science, and health, but is less apparent in the corporate, financial, and legal worlds."
Read more from Goldin's paper, "A Grand Gender Convergence: Its Last Chapter."
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