OFFICIAL SILENCE ON GENDER PAY GAP FOR YOUNG MEN

Really sorry everyone for a lack of recent posts - work.

Last week, the Office of National Statistics  published the latest gender pay gap figures. The median gap is now 9.1% and helped by women's wages increasing by 1.9% as opposed to 0.9% for men. The gap for part-time workers favours women (-4.3%).

A subject well covered for years on this site.

Anlaysing the figures more deeply there is clear evidence of the way the figures are manipulated half truths and myths are spread by organisations such as the Equalities and Human Rights Commission, the Guardian and the Fawcett Society  as well as government equalities department and a number of MP's.

Figures on Page 19 show that men between 22 and 29 earn 3.6% less than women an issue that has been a trend for some time now and is clearly due to the educational underachievement and the continuation, despite the clear evidence now, of the need for positive discrimination for women. The gap which starts the other way we all now is done to lifestyle choice where many men as part of the family unit decide to take time off work to bring up their children.

The key thing is the policy response. As well as the continuation of the positive discrimination courses and training for women when they are already doing better than men under 29, is the fact that the usual suspects mentioned before, ignore the fact that younger women earn more than younger men. It is almost as though this figure does not exist. They continue therefore to call for more special treatment for women but also do not even mention the boys figure and therefore are not prepared to do anything about it.

As we know the cause is a function of boys underachievement, so you would expect there to be a positive policy response to this but instead there is silence. This silence is discriminatory and other example of the discrimination men face in Britain.

The Equalities and Human Rights Commission does not mention it and the Home Office in this quote from the Press Association still welcome it and want to challenge gender stereotypes for girls even though girls are earning more than boys!! The unions do not care about men either bearing in mind Brendan Barber's quote. The Government's Equalities Department don't care they are used to it.

The only real analysis of this comes in the Telegrpah which predicts that women's pay will overtake men's by 2020 which will be true and the Daily Mail covers this as the main issue. Jill Kirby makes the point that Dr Catherine Hakim has often made -

A family expert and author of The Price of Parenthood, Kirby said "the pay gap between the sexes had ‘nothing to do with discrimination’. It is the fact that women become less committed to the workplace at the point in their lives when they have children. They want to spend more time with their children, and regard lower pay as a trade-off for family time. The pay gap we should be worrying about is the one that shows young men in their 20s falling behind."

Another issue is the fact that considering men who work longer and in more dangerous jobs which comes with a premium (an issue the anti-male feminists never mention), then if this was taken out it would be expect the overall gap would be even smaller overall and larger at the 22-29 age level.

What can be seen is that the betrayal of an education system not suited to boys has now fed through to pay and the silence of those who supposedly believe in equality is sickeningly quiet.

Posted by Skimmington

Comments

[mananon]

I quit my union years ago because I got sick of their obsession with women. And that's the truth of it - the unions care only about women nowadays.

As for women earning more than men well we'll see what happens if that becomes true. But I somehow doubt Harriet Cooper or Yvette Harman will be too bothered.

And welcome back after that hiatus Skimmington! I was starting to think this was the end of the blog - you had me worried for a bit there.

[Bob]

The gender pay gap between men and women working part-time is far far greater than 3.6% because the vast majority of women who work part-time do it soley to claim Child Tax Credits, which are by law always paid to the woman.

The pay gap is probably more likely to be at least 100% and probably much more.

Child Tax Credits are the replacement for the role of breadwinner in the family, usually the father.

Of course that was the whole idea when the last Labour govt brought them in.

[Glen Poole]

It's a year old now but it's still a fine post from The Men's Network:

http://brightonmanplan.wordpress.com/2010/12/24/do-men-really-cause-the-pay-gap/

Well done for highlighting this

Glen

[Groan]

An excellent examination of this issue. The failures of the education and training services in attracting and motivating boys should form a core issue . It demonstrates that there isn't discrimination against women, confirms differences later in the lifecycle are driven by women 's choices(as few men choose to "work life balance") and that the jobs women get are still with rising wages. I do wonder if the figures may slow as this data is really prior to the falls in public sector employment. In Northern Ireland this pay gap pattern was seen years ago because the public sector is a large part of that economy. National pay scales and the largely female public sector means that for some years in the former industrial regions of the UK young women have pulled ahead of young men mainly seeking work on the less unionised private sector.

P

[Groan]

http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/media-centre/speeches/lynne-f-women-speech

Another speech in which Lynne lies. As it is now clear that Girl's better performance in education is a factor in their higher earnings.The Gender pay gap being so clear for the age cohorts recently leaving education. The rest of course seems to be oblivious to the obvious contradiction in advocating "family friendly" flexible work at a time when economic necessity will drive leaps upward in productivity in Uk industry. Sadly these dramatic increases will mean more hours worked rather than less in all productive parts of the economy. As positive snippit it at least equal rights to request such leave.

[Groan]

And another story. Despite the headline is just reinforces that the "pay gaps" are really a function of fairly mundain economic factors rather than any sex discrimination.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2118538/Part-time-jobs-better-paid-women.html