Am finishing off the book The Millionaire Mind, and came across these facts on pages 265 and 266:
- For every 5 men who earn a 6-figure income, there is 1 woman
- Fewer than 10% of those earning 7-figures are women
- Women even in top paying professions earn about 55% of a man’s wage
- 90% of millionaires in America are married households and 5% are widows and widowers
- But in more than 80% of the households, the breadwinner is the husband
I know we keep flogging a dead horse here, but I really do find it fascinating.
I’m under no illusions that we need to work towards equality in wages, not just for women, but for minorities as well.
But I’m also a realist.
Women don’t make more because of other factors that cannot be fixed by passing a law asking employers to be fairer!
Reasons why I think women don’t make more money than men:
- They don’t ask for it and aren’t trained for it like men are (negotiations)*
- They don’t go into the industries that make money (sciences, math, technology, etc)
- They don’t want to (always a choice to NOT earn more money!)
- They may not get the same educational opportunities as men (a money problem, or culture clash)
- They are more naturally inclined to not want to be a breadwinner (myself included)**
- They have to take the lumps of halting their career if they decide to have children***
- ..or they just want to stay at home as stay at home moms
- Old corporate habits die hard.****
*Girls are taught at a young age (myself included) to be nice. Kind, polite, sweet and a peacekeeper. These are not qualities that are well suited to asking for more money.
**I want to pay my fair share, and to share my money, but not to be taken advantage of. I do see that a lot of men have pride in caring for their family and making more money than their spouse, so all the more power to them 🙂
Update: Women who don’t want to, or feel the responsibility to be a breadwinner (this may not apply to YOU but it is a general culture thing), so they don’t fight as hard or do the things it takes to get to higher positions where there is more money. Men feel the pressure to work harder because they are the one providing for the family, so they stay late at the office, give up weekends and are glued to their laptops all to become THE breadwinner.
***Men aren’t expected to take paternal leave. Women are. Women are also expected to stay at home and raise their kids and some want to do it as well (see reader comment below). Some of this is changing like in Sweden with men taking more parental leave, but not in North America.
****Discrimination, of course.
Update: Of course, it isn’t ONLY corporations but when I say ‘corporate habits’ I mean in general. It isn’t meant to be specific or just applying to corporations.
By discrimination I mean that sometimes people think a girl can’t do the job as well as a guy. I encounter that quite a bit, being a young girl in an older male-dominated industry.
People think I’m an air-headed assistant, secretary, student…. anything but the actual person in charge. It can be hard to change people’s minds when they see you and immediately ask you to go get coffee for everyone. It’s changing somewhat, but I still haven’t met a girl my age working in my niche and loving it rather than plotting how to leave.
As for being taught how to be a girl, in my situation, apparently I was a very strong-willed child who was “too fierce for a girl and would never catch a man“.
I laugh at this now, but it sort of hurt when I was a kid. I wasn’t lady-like enough, or girlish enough for my family.
That said, they never tried to control me or force me into some pre-determined gender role. Personally, I’m thrilled about how I turned out.
Of course, now they’re happy with their finished product :P, but when I was a kid, I must have given them hell. They’re happy now, but I think they were clueless and had no idea how to change who I was becoming. If they had changed me, I wonder what I would have become.
My mother for instance, is a lot softer and more passive than I am when it comes to fighting. She shies away from conflict.
But when push comes to shove, she has a backbone, she is one hell of a tenacious fighter. She grips on and doesn’t let go until the job is done. She just has an issue with conflict to begin with, and feels she isn’t “quick enough to think about what to say back to these people”.
I always tell her things she should say back to these people, but she says she gets tongue-tied and can’t remember them.
Anyway. 🙂
Just a girl trying to find a balance between being a Shopaholic and a Saver.
I cleared $60,000 in 18 months earning $65,000 gross/year.
Now I am self-employed, and you can read more about 
Not very scientific but more from my own experience. I’m a cpa, married a cpa and we knew other couples that were also both cpas or both in the finance industry. Many of the couples that we knew that started having kids at a younger age (mid 20s), the woman left public accounting earlier to work better hours to balance taking care of the family. Their husbands often rose to higher levels (cfo/controller) because they did not leave the firm as early to accept a lower level position (acctg manager/assistant controller). Those of us (incl myself) that didn’t have kids or had kids later also rose to those higher levels. Those women who had a husband with a less demanding job also rose to higher levels, the woman partner that I knew, her husband worked in sales and had a flexible schedule to pick up the kids.
Another thing I noticed during my career is many of the men seemed better at networking within the firm, with other managers/partners. The women often did seek networking support outside the firm in the form of women’s associations or charitable organizations but in general did less of the golf and after work socializing with co-workers.
That’s an interesting point — networking with other managers/partners.
Perhaps that’s the “ambitious” trait? I don’t really like networking or
hobnobbing but I’ve noticed that attitude in a LOT of other men (more men
than women).
They make comments like — “Oh he’s a director. It’s good to know who he is
and for him to know us..”
Me: “Eh?…..”
🙂
I think it has to do with the fact that men exhibit more risk-taking behavior.. and you can’t get more risky than starting your own business.
I read an article during IWD that the goal should be x% of women in whatever level jobs, but x% of stay at home partners or parents being men. It makes a lot of sense to me. Unless every last business person ceases and desists from taking a competitive edge, the person who has strongly competing outside commitments will lose out. Running a home with children in it successfully is probably akin to running a small business, managing staff, inventory, overheads, travel, etc. No one would expect an executive to do that on top of their paid role.
I am fortunate to work for the government where minorities are seeked. I have never run into a wage issue due to my gender. I have however seen “the boys club” mentality in numerous roles I have had. Sometimes you can’t change an organization’s culture but you can at least try. I say if you think you are worth X amount, then don’t settle until you get it.
Very interesting post. You covered a lot of ground, and truth be told, there are a lot of reasons why women are paid less than men.
I would say that in my position, I am fairly well paid, and in the past, I’ve made equal to (or more than) men I have worked with. I could be doing better. I had 4 opportunities in the last 9 months to get promoted. Engineering manager, Production manager, I turned both down because I have a small child, and I know that those jobs require 50-60 hrs/week. I’ve done those hours (it’s why I am paid as well as I am), but I can’t do that now, especially since my spouse makes $15/hr more than I do. It doesn’t make financial sense for me to work more. And I don’t want to.
I am still paid about $12k a year below the median for my position (just made the 6 fig club!) I am at a startup company, however, and have a good deal of stock. I took a pay cut to come to my company and asked for more stock. In the end, I would MUCH rather be paid a little less than I’m worth and have a more stable job. In general, if Jane makes X amount a year and gets Y amount done, and John gets paid 1.2 times X and gets Y amount done, who has the job security?
I’ve always been drawn to math and science, which helps with the income. But I was very shy until age 16 and was probably close to 30 before I really got good about arguing my point at work. I still have issues because occasionally, a man won’t listen to me. It tends to be men who don’t listen to most people. I just give up and quietly mention my ideas to the 2-3 people who really WILL listen to me (one of which is the CEO). My direct supervisor in a previous life would make a comment “you need to fight harder”. My point then (and now) is that I am trying to get 50 hours of work done in 40 hours. I will argue only so long, and then it’s not worth my time. You don’t want to listen…your fault if I turn out to be right.
My supervisors now really like women because we tend to be more cooperative and can get a LOT done this way.
This is why I’m glad that my company is very open about their pay structure – everyone is on the same scale so there is no discrepancy between genders. Differences in pay are the result of differences in how many hours are worked. Of course though, some women in the office work less because they have to take time off to deal with kids (taking sick days when the kids are sick, picking up kids, running kids around etc.) which in the end will effect their earning ability.
Hmm. I have almost all the traditional, (and disadvantageous) female traits. I hate conflict, I’m shy, get tonguetied, and I’m not an ideas person. (Although I do wear the pants in my relationship).
My talents also lie in poor-paying creative fields, and personal time/balance is more important to me than working all hours to get ahead.
I also am starting to see/hear more about discrimination in other departments, even within my company, where it’s definitely a boys club. Not so much in my area, (after online is a newish and growing area and, by nature, more progressive) which i’m grateful for. It’s still a shock, though to hear about in this day and age.
It makes me sad that so many years after women were campaigning for equal rights we are still getting paid less than men. I agree with you that both men and women are to blame for this.
I think that from birth men and women are put into gender specific roles which starts the wheels in motion for the place in society that they will usually end up in.
I have no problem with taking charge and asking what I want, does that make me a confident go-getter? Or a bitch? Depends on who you ask I guess.
I hope we can see more female millionaires and CEOs (some inspiring role models for young girls would make a nice change) but I think society has a long way to go first.
I also feel that there is a major problem with differeng wages: Should a nurse get paid less than someone in banking or insurance (or a sports player) ? It is a topic I often ponder but a topic for another day I guess.
You don’t really understand economics very well, do you?
I like your post. I am a man and I saw my mother when I was growing up raise my sister and I on her own and work her butt off. When I ask her today if she has any regrets about working, she says that she feels she wished she would have been at home and women should be there.
Now I think it is wrong to tell people what they SHOULD be doing, however, I never here anyone during these debates ask the question, “What is wrong with women staying home?” I do not believe that men can do things better than women, with the exception of some manual labor jobs that are just a simple matter of physical strength. But intelligence is on equal footing to me. In fact, I think women are often able to think clearer then men, even though people claim that not to be true.
It has always made me scratch my head when the statistics come out on women and their lack of pay compared to men because I have had many boss’s who have been women. In fact, 90 percent have been women. I have worked in the banking field, teaching, security, and now I own my own business. So it makes me wonder if this number includes business owners.
Clearly the numbers don’t lie about the difference between men and women but I am just saying that “Where are these people that are making so much more money than women and does these numbers include actual people or just large amounts of money?”
For example, the richest people in the world are men. The handful at top make up some insane amount of the worlds wealth. Does that mean that those guys overweight the numbers? Are they counted in the equation? Because if they are, that number will always be bad until women get into the top tier of super rich.
As for the rest of us, I have not seen that big of a difference. Anyways, I just say that because, including my mother and my wife, women in my life have always made more money than me.
Your thoughts?
I think this is very interesting indeed but not at all surprising. I work in a male dominated field and am paid less than others with less education/experience. I’m a very hard worker but also require that I keep a balance whereas some people don’t seem to want that.
I also know that I am trying to get pregnant and that will stunt my earning potential for a long time. Heres to hoping my entrepreneurial ideas work out!
I’m a woman and I work in science (computer programmer) and have a quite a few female colleagues. I almost certain that there are more men in our company, but it’s not like you’ll have to consciously search for women in there either.
As for the breadwinner part, I have the exact same mentality. I WANT to pay my share, and will not let anyone pay for me, unless it’s a promise that next time I get to do it. On the other hand, the idea of ending up being the primary bread-winner of a family freaks me out.
I read that book and I remember almost everyone interviewed in the book was male, and they almost all had stay-at-home wives. I thought that was interesting. I also read “The Millionaire Next Door” which was quite similar.
I’m going to go into a male dominated field. Something I never thought I would EVER do. I definitely am going to fight for what I’m worth. Every woman should. My reason for going into the male dominated field is because a certain career interests me more and it just happens that a lot of guys major in this subject.
Here are a few more reasons I have observed as someone working in the sciences:
-Women are discouraged from pursuing mathematics, science, etc. I cannot begin to count the number of times I ran into this in college, and that was only a few years ago. One of my math professor was shocked whenever I solved a complicated proof even though as was doing as well, if not better, than all the males in my class. (Heck, one time I completed a proof he couldn’t solve.)
-In a number of careers, the most critical years correspond with a woman’s reproductive years, such as when someone seeks tenure in academia. Women feel much greater pressure to decide between having children vs having a career than men in these fields.
-Women face a lot of structural and societal discrimination that is hard to detect or address effectively. These are tiny, nit-picky things that on their own are pretty meaningless, but their sum keeps women from wanting to commit to that job or field. Like a minor change to the health care plan that is supposed to even out costs but effectively reduces coverage for women a tad bit more than for men. Sure you can protest these things, but are you really going to complain to the higher ups over ~$40/yr discrepancy in health costs? So many of these issues stem from the lack women in higher positions so when policies and decisions are made, they are done in ignorance of how they would effect female employees.
There is one that I think you’ve missed. Though it is encompassed in the old boys club I think. There is still a large population of 50-70 year old male bosses that do not understand the worth of a female in the workplace. They believe that paying them an equal salary to their male counter parts is blasphemy, simply because one person is female, and one is male. I work in such an industry. I perform the tasks of at least 4 people during a day. My male co-workers perform one. The difference – one of us drives a truck, on of us drives a desk. Until this year, when I was compensated slightly more than I was making before – the gap between myself and my nearest male co-worker was about $14,000. I have been with the company longer. I wear 5 hats on a daily basis. They wear one. They start at 5am and finish at between 2 and 4 pm. I start at 8am and finish between 4 and 5 pm. They get paid overtime, holiday, and weekend hours when they work them. I have to pre-negotiate my wage for a weekend, holiday or overtime based on the reason I have to be/stay. I still do the same jobs as always – though the gap between me and my co-workers has lessened to $9,775. Still a large gap.
It took an outside worker discussing with my bosses to get them to see that my value as a worker is actually more than my male counterparts. I didn’t matter how often I discussed it with them. While I’m grateful to the outside contractor for the aid on this matter, I’m still extremely angry that it took that to get them to even consider it. And since the only difference between me and the guys is that I do not hold a DZ license…it’s looking a lot more like I should look into getting one. Then there is no reason to not be matched to their salary.
I’m not sure how to get the salary gap between men and women to get closer. Even those of us that ask for the money we are deserving of, still have to jump that hoop repeatedly to get it.
As a female student planning on entering a technological field full of men, I would be completely insulted if I got paid only 60% of what the majority of peers paid to do the same work. Whether I’m a breadwinner or not, I’m certainly willing to negotiate to get my fair pay.
I agree! I too am a female in engineering, and it’s up to us to make sure things are equitable. There is a strong dichotomy in our company (civil – water/wastewater) that I expect corresponds to most engineering companies. Nearly 100% of the admin people are female, and about 90% of the engineering/technical staff are male.
Sometimes people who walk into the office without seeing my email tagline or business card just assume I’m an administrative staff. I don’t particularly fault them for this, since it is a reasonable assumption based on the gender of staff, but it frustrates me!
That said, I haven’t been afraid to ask for raises, and 2/3 times I’ve asked, I’ve gotten what I’ve asked for.
I haven’t yet had to worry about work-life balance, because I’ve been getting a Master’s degree while also working full time, and there’s no time left over to put in more hours. Also, the market is so terrible in Phoenix right now that even if I wanted to put in more hours, I wouldn’t have anything to do to keep me busy!
I LOVE hearing that you fight for a raise 🙂 Totally made my day.
I am also not surprised to hear the gender split in jobs. I see that a lot, myself. People can’t believe I’m doing the job I’m doing and it’s doubly hard to prove that though I am young and female, I know what I am talking about.
I would add one thing: They don’t want to do what it takes to earn the big money. It’s not quite the same thing as your third point, although it’s very close. I think it’s sort of how I’m feeling lately – I can see a work/life balance on the one hand, or a big fat paycheck on the other. I suspect more women than men would choose the work/life balance option.
I read a study once that found that women don’t occupy as many top-level management positions as men because they simply don’t want one. The theory was that boys, from an early age, are pressured to be the best, be at the top, etc. and this pressure leads them to become VERY focused on being in a position of money and power (i.e., going into fields where the earning is high, setting sights on promotions). Girls, on the other hand, tend to be taught that balance is a virtue, and strive for a better work-life balance. Almost every top-level management job pretty much requires the worker to be married to the job and work, so the thinking is that men are willing to work 70+ hours, weekends, etc. in exchange for money and power, and women, though qualified, just aren’t.
I don’t know how accurate this is for men and women as a whole, but for me it absolutely rings true. I would (and plan to) happily sacrifice earning power if it means I’m home by six every day and can have an active and fulfilling social/family life. I’m great at my job and fully confident that I could be at the top one day (I’m very early in my career) if I wanted to, but I just don’t. I’ll rise to the middle, and the maintain the balance. Many of my female friends feel the same way.
Very interesting. I wish that my husband made more money than me, however not the case nor will it ever be unless he changes jobs. I am at the top of my payscale and he is about halfway. He will still be 20k less than me at his top wage. Such are jobs in the public sector.
Taking time off for pregnancy/mat leave cost me financially big time. But it was a choice that I made and do not regret.
All interesting and, I think, very valid points. For me personally, I don’t negotiate like I should, and I know that I’m less interested in having a “career” and making tons of money than I am in having a job to do (and do well) and be able to come home at the end of the day and have a personal life. So in both of those respects, I do fit that mold pretty well.
I’m definitely going to add the Millionaire Mind to my reading list! 🙂
I’m honestly not all that surprised by the 5:1 ratio. And I completely agree with you that women sometimes just don’t go into fields that pay a lot of money. When I started college I went to a private engineering school and the ratio of guys to girls was something around 13:1. With all things being equal, there are 12 more men than women who have the potential to pull in high wages and someday be considered a millionaire.
I had this discussion with a friend recently and we also thought of another reason: the fact that it takes time to get to a position that pays a 6- or 7-figure salary, you don’t get that coming out of high school or college (I guess some people do but we’re talking averages here). And since historically men were the ones to have careers at all (not counting nursing and a few others, which was traditionally a predominantly female profession) and only relatively recently women began to enter that part of the workforce (law, business, medical doctor, etc), just by the sheer fact that not enough time passed, there aren’t as many women up top as men.
What happens is that women need to work their way up as a group, in addition to changing general society’s views on a working woman (that it’s “okay” for a woman to go that route in life if she wants to and that she is capable of doing it physically/mentally/professionally). So it will take time before both can grow and evolve far enough to make statistics more equal.
The other reasons you listed are all part of the equation too but I think this one is usually overlooked since we as a society tend to like and expect immediate results in anything we do. 🙂
Oh, and I’m in the USA currently. Countries like Russia don’t have this problem as much because during the Soviet Union everyone was expected to work, male or female, and education was available. So kids were generally raised by the elderly population while the parents went to work and made careers (or at least made enough money to survive).
I’m half-Russian I disagree, while equality is strongly encourage like it is in most affluent countries there are a lot of Russian parents whom raise their children. My mom’s Russian and there was no way I was going to be raised by my grandmother. My grandmother was a good woman but my mom wanted to raise me. My cousins were all raised by their moms too.
Oh, well I guess I shouldn’t have written “generally.” My parents (who are both Russian, by the way, as am I) also raised me and my sister themselves, the closest relatives were always at least 1000 miles away (not due to avoidance but just the work location). And they all worked at all times. I spent a lot of time with friends and in after-school activities when I was little.
I was trying to say that during the Soviet Union people were expected to work no matter the gender and if you didn’t, you were persecuted (for not being a good little worker bee and not contributing to your fellow “comrades”). My grandpa, for example, grew up during and after WWII, his dad having died in the war and his mom raising her two sons by herself. The boys spent a lot of time on the streets when she was at work.
And this continues on today (as is the case at least with my relatives and people I know still in the country), where women don’t think it’s strange to work but just another option. Yeah, plenty of them want to spend more time with their children and at home but they aren’t paid less due to their gender. My aunt, for the last 10-15 years made a lot more than my uncle (he is a businessman and she was a hairdresser; she changed careers since then and went into psychiatry, and makes a decent amount but less than before due to only a few years experience.).
The general attitude toward working women is different in Russia than in the USA. This was my point. But I guess it’s all changing here too. It’s just that change like this is slow sometimes.
You’re saying that women sometimes don’t want to make more money, but when it comes to staying at home for the kids, you only mention that women are expected to do so – many women (me included) simply *want* to stay at home for a few (some less, some more, of course) years.
I don’t see what not caring about being the breadwinner has to do with salary, nor what discrimination has to do with corporations.
This article makes a very interesting point that I think is missing here: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-science-success/201101/the-trouble-bright-girls.
1. Women don’t want to make more money sometimes. Read: Jenny from Minimalism Defined who turned down a $80k job
http://www.minimalismdefined.com/turning-my-back-on-a-80000-job/
Women make a choice to balance their life more, I think, than men. Men just go for the money. I can see myself more laissez-faire than my brother, who is all about $$$$$$$$ all the time. I’d rather enjoy myself than work myself to death.
2. I’m sorry! I forgot to mention that sometimes women WANT to stay at home. I’ll add that.
3. None of the points are directly related to each other, they’re just points about the general situation.
If you don’t want to be a breadwinner, you don’t go for the highest salary so that the pressure is put on you to provide for the family. Women tend to self-sabotage themselves without knowing it. Sure, they could earn more money but they also don’t want to fight for it, stay late at the office and do all the things that men seem to do to become the breadwinner of the family and to secure the position.
Women just simply work hard but they don’t sacrifice their life.
Corporations discriminate against women because of the nature of the industry, old boy’s club etc. I have definitely had to fight against by being a young woman in a male-dominated industry to gain respect.
A lot of times, people think I’m a student, an intern, the secretary, an assistant when I show up. Not the person doing the actual job and directing others because it is really rare to find someone at my age as a girl working where I am.
Hope that clarifies!
I think the key thing you put there is “women just simply work hard but they don’t sacrifice their life”.
I personally completely agree with that statement. I like free time! I don’t want an enormously high paying job because with it comes further expectations that you’re available at all hours of the day, you’ll put in the late hours, come in on the weekends when needed (frequently), and you also take on more and more responsibility. That’s not to say I shy away from responsibility, but I DO shy away from taking on responsibility that I don’t feel I can handle.
Also, taking time off for a pregnancy (regardless of whether you take the entire time off or not) does impact your earning potential. I have seen how exhausted new parents look. You can’t take a magic pill to change that – you’re still going to come to work tired and your performance is likely going to take a hit.
If a woman wants kids, I think there can be that thought in the back of her mind about whether or not she will eventually stop working to raise the kids. Not knowing if you can commit your life to your job has to be very career limiting. I think guys just know they will be working from about 20 to 65, so they strive for upward mobility and pay increases.