Gender and Pay

A CNN article is reporting that yet-another-study has found that men get paid more than women, even when normalizing for field, time off for parenting, part-time vs. full time, and other factors. They say about 25% of the pay discrepancy is accounted for by gender, rather than other factors. A timely statistic:

One year out of college, men and women should arguably be the least likely to show a gender pay gap, the study said, since neither tend to be parents yet and they enter the work force without significant experience.

"It surprised me that it was already apparent one year out of college, and that it widens over the first 10 years," Catherine Hill, AAUW director of research, told Reuters.

Women make 80% of what men do after being just one year out of college. I'll be one year out of college in about a month.

Not to say women can't 'make it': check out the CNN Money slide show of Fortune 500 Women CEOs. I also heard from some fabulous women business leaders at the Michigan Women in Computing conference. CNN does point out, however, "10 Best-paid executives: They're all men And they're making about 2 to 3 times what the 10 top-earning women executives do."

So what? I don't know. I don't really aspire to be a "top-paid executive" - I just care to do what is in front of me and enjoy myself in the meantime. I could write another whole post on the other factors that make for a 'good job', that I value as more important than salary. Right now, I'm happy in all areas. No complaints at all. Just observations.

In other, unrelated business news (except perhaps for the fact the article is about some of the richest male businessmen out there), there's an interesting article on the growth plan of Google vs. what Microsoft did.. Worth a read.