Pakistan’s first female truck driver
19 Sep 2015 Leave a comment
in development economics, discrimination, growth disasters, labour economics, occupational choice Tags: gender wage gap, Pakistan, sex discrimination
Minimum salaries of American professional sports players and media coverage
13 Jul 2015 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, discrimination, economics of media and culture, entrepreneurship, gender, industrial organisation, labour economics, occupational choice, sports economics, survivor principle Tags: gender wage gap, media bias, sex discrimination, superstar wages, superstars
The market erodes discrimination
01 Jun 2015 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, discrimination, economic history, entrepreneurship, international economics Tags: entrepreneurial alertness, racial discrimination, sex discrimination
Great excerpt on #immigration as #development from @bill_easterly's Tyranny of Experts @AlexNowrasteh @m_clem http://t.co/5eruOdEcGm—
David Bier (@myfreesociety) May 09, 2014
Why is the gender wage gap so big in the public sector that the unions invoiced the government for it?
12 May 2015 1 Comment
in discrimination, gender, human capital, labour economics, politics - New Zealand, unions Tags: employer discrimination, gender wage gap, gender wage gap discrimination, government discrimination, New Zealand Greens, sex discrimination
The unions representing public servants and the Green Party are very excited about the gender wage gap this week. So much so that the public service union presented the Treasury with an invoice for that wage gap in the public sector of 14.1%.
Women in the public service are paid 14.1% less than men. We've invoiced @honbillenglish for the missing $294,827,136 http://t.co/QW5z4tU7bv—
(@NZPSA) May 11, 2015
Oddly enough, despite their concerns with the gender wage gap in the public service, the public service unions are stridently against both privatisation and contracting out.
It is almost trite to note is that one of the earliest analytical results in the labour economics of discrimination was that profit maximising employers are much less likely to discriminate than firms that are not subject to a profit and loss constraint and the discipline of bankruptcy.
A prejudiced employer pays a wage above the competitive wage to attract the particular recruits he or she is prejudiced in favour of and does not hire enough workers because he must pay higher wages. This results in lower output and profits than without discrimination.
@greencatherine Unadjusted NZ gender pay gap is 6%, the best in world. http://t.co/2fYuVbJg9E—
Jim Rose (@JimRose69872629) March 19, 2015
Bureaucrats can indulge their prejudices without putting the survival of their business in jeopardy. Entrepreneurs who don’t hire on merit risk running out of going out of business because their costs are hire and their businesses less productive.
…market mechanisms impose inescapable penalties on profits whenever for-profit enterprises discriminate against individuals on any basis other than productivity. Though bigoted managers may hold sway for a time, in the long run the profit penalty makes profit-seeking enterprises tenacious champions of fair treatment.
Early examples of the greater propensity for discrimination in the public sector and non-profit organisations are by Armen Alchian and Ruben Kessel in Competition, Monopoly, and the Pursuit of Money in 1962 and Gary Becker’s pioneering The Economics of Discrimination in 1957.
Labour stays silent over gender segregation at party rally
05 May 2015 Leave a comment
in discrimination, election campaigns, gender Tags: British general election, Left-wing hypocrisy, sex discrimination, UK politics
Labour stays silent over gender segregation at party rally specc.ie/1QcJHJf via @spectator http://t.co/Qs2FZV9Z7e—
Steerpike (@MrSteerpike) May 03, 2015
Up to a thousand expected at the great Labour Rally tomorrow at 4.00 being organised by @ansar_ali_khan http://t.co/Paec01bT8c—
Jack Dromey (@JackDromeyMP) May 01, 2015
The reversing gender gap
19 Mar 2015 Leave a comment
in discrimination, gender, human capital, labour economics, labour supply, occupational choice, poverty and inequality, welfare reform Tags: gender wage, reversing gender gap, sex discrimination
Should young women pay the same car insurance premiums as young men?
28 Feb 2015 Leave a comment
in applied welfare economics, economics of regulation, rentseeking, transport economics Tags: gender neutral insurance premiums, offsetting behaviour, sex discrimination
Thrill-seeking young men are prone to drive too fast, late at night, and cause horrific fatalities. Young males are 10 times more likely to be killed or injured than a driver aged over 35.
Young women’s car insurance premiums increased by 50% after insurers adjust their prices to comply with new European "gender neutral" rules on premiums.
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Concerned about labour market discrimination?
27 Feb 2015 Leave a comment
in discrimination, gender, human capital, labour economics, poverty and inequality Tags: labour market discrimination, racial discrimination, sex discrimination
Where women fare worst and best in the labour market in terms of cash wages
25 Feb 2015 Leave a comment
in discrimination, gender, human capital, labour economics Tags: compensating differences, gender wage gap, sex discrimination
Occupations that most value long hours, face time at the office and being on call — like business, law and surgery — tend to have the widest pay gaps. That is because those employers pay people who spend longer hours at the office disproportionately more than they pay people who don’t, Dr. Goldin found. A lawyer who works 80 hours a week at a big corporate law firm is paid more than double one who works 40 hours a week as an in-house counsel at a small business.
Jobs in which employees can easily substitute for one another have the slimmest pay gaps, and those workers are paid in proportion to the hours they work.
Pharmacy is Dr. Goldin’s favorite example. A pharmacist who works 40 hours a week generally earns double the salary of a pharmacist who works 20 hours a week, and as a result, the pay gap for pharmacists is one of the smallest.
via artdiamondblog.com.
Richard Posner on libertarian scepticism about law as an engine of women’s liberation
25 Feb 2015 Leave a comment
The labour force participation of mothers in the 20th century
30 Jan 2015 Leave a comment
in gender, labour economics, labour supply Tags: engines of liberation, female labour force participation, gender wage gap, sex discrimination
First, work changed to offer more jobs to women. Farming declined sharply; industrial jobs peaked and then declined. Brawn became less important; precise skills, learning, and personal service became more important.
The new economy generated millions of white-collar and “pink-collar” jobs that seemed “suited” to women. That cannot be the full story, of course; women also took over many jobs that had once been men’s, such as teaching and secretarial work.
Second, mothers responded to those job opportunities. Some took jobs because the extra income could help families buy cars, homes, furnishings, and so on. Some took jobs because the family needed their income to make up for husbands’ stagnating wages (a noteworthy trend after the 1970s). And some took jobs because they sought personal fulfilment in the world of work.
via Why Did Married Mothers Go To Work? » Sociological Images.
The Bechdel Test: whether women are in a movie as fully human characters, or as plot devices for the male characters
27 Jan 2015 Leave a comment
in discrimination, economics of media and culture, gender, industrial organisation, movies, occupational choice, survivor principle Tags: co-worker discrimination, consumer sovereignty, customer discrimination, employer discrimination, Hollywood economics, sex discrimination, The meaning of competition
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Hollywood is a slave to the box office on the most cutthroat industry there is. Film producers and screenwriters will portray men and women in whatever roles and whatever extent sells tickets.
How women are represented in the movies is determined solely by the preferences of the audiences willing to buy tickets. It’s a buyers market out there. Film producers would do whatever it takes to finance films that sell tickets, as even Five Thirty-Eight realised:
“Movies that are female-driven do not travel,” said Krista Smith, West Coast editor of Vanity Fair, describing the broader sentiment in Hollywood. There are almost no women who have sales value in multiple international territories, maybe with the exception of Sandra Bullock, she said.
Times change, and film producers change with the times. Consumers are both sovereign and change their minds, and in the case of movie audiences, constantly demand novelty and surprises, as even Five Thirty-Eight picked up on:
Hollywood is the business of making money. Since our data demonstrates that films containing meaningful interactions between women do better at the box office than movies that don’t, it may be only a matter of time before the data of dollars and cents overcomes the rumours and prejudices defining the budgeting process of films for, by and about women.
This moral panic over gender wage gaps between millionaire actresses and actresses dare not say that for want of offending the audience that is actually the main driver of any gender gap in movies.
Hollywood activists complaining about the gender wage are to business minded to dare insult the audiences that pay their wages.
Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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