The NYT notes that Germany has one of the highest gender pay gaps across Europe telling readers: ""while the wage gap between women and men is narrowing across the European Union and in the United States, it is stagnant in Germany." The numbers it presents don't quite support this case. The NYT reports that from 2000 to 2006 (the most recent year for which data is available) "German working women on average have gone from earning 26 percent less than men to making 24 percent less than men." By comparison, in the United States "the number has bounced between 23 percent and 24.5 percent" over the same period. (The gap dropped by a percentage point in 2007.) The article discussed the difficultly that German women face in dealing with the demands of their jobs and family and also in getting access to child care. While these are undoubtedly serious problems for German women, they are also serious problems for U.S. women. Unlike their counterparts in Germany, working mothers in the United States have no guarantee of paid time off when they have a child, and many cannot even count on receiving unpaid leave. While Germany ranks behind many other European countries in promoting family friendly work policies, it does not rank behind the United States. It is ridiculous to portray Germany's policies in this area as being uniquely dysfunctional.
--Dean Baker
