The 15 Most Sexist Jobs In America

The 15 Most Sexist Jobs In America

The article is misleading. Some of the jobs listed are pure commission positions, which means that if women make less, it is simply because they are selling less.

It may also be possible to ascribe some of the discrepancies to longevity. People in the education field tend to get paid more if they have been around longer, for example, so it may be that female administrators make less because, on the average, they entered the workplace more recently.

Maybe.

Anyway, the point is that the comparison is not apples-to-apples. In order to make this case persuasively, one needs to establish that women make less than men at the same performance levels, and/or with the same credentials, and/or with the same longevity, and/or working the same hours (depending on how salaries how determined in that field).

Such studies do exist. The 2012 report by the American Association of University Women found, "After we control for hours, occupation, college major, employment sector, and other factors associated with pay, the pay gap shrinks but does not disappear. About one-third of the gap cannot be explained by any of the factors commonly understood to affect earnings."

That study found the overall gap to be 18%, one third of which could not be explained by the factors detailed above. In other words, the "sexist" portion of the gap is 6%. A woman who is exactly identical to a man in all respects is likely to earn 94% as much. Any difference is still bad, of course, since the gap should be zero, but the situation is nowhere near as bad as some uncontrolled and unscientific studies would lead you to believe.

(Note that the AAUW study looked only at recent college graduates, does not represent the workplace in general, and especially does not address the vast apparent gap in the low-level McJob market.)