Remember "The End of Men," the concept that the future belongs to women, because women are more prepared for today's economy? Well, it hasn't hit us yet. Even when women are better educated, men earn more, at least in most parts of the workforce. As Motoko Rich reports at The New York Times,
Even with the same college and professional degrees, men earn more than women. And among so-called creative class workers like architects, teachers, artists, engineers, bankers and journalists, men earn much more than women, even though more women hold such jobs.
It's similar at the bottom end of the scale. According to a report issued Thursday by the United States Government Accountability Office, a higher proportion of women finish high school than men, a milestone that is a minimum requirement for any job mobility. Women - especially younger women - are also completing bachelor's degrees at higher rates than men. Yet they represent a higher proportion of low-wage workers, defined in the report as those who earn hourly wage rates that put them in the bottom 20 percent of the work force.
Think that wage gap might have anything to do with sex discrimination, including that portion of sex discrimination called "sexual harassment"-by which a woman loses months or a year to facing a personally hostile workplace? Or with the fact that, in a society with so few social supports, women end up with more of the unpaid "care" work for children and relatives? Or with ... oh, you've heard me on this before.