DEFINITION: "gender pay gap" (Cambridge English Dictionary)
noun, also "gender wage gap"
...the difference between the amounts of money paid to women and men, often for doing the same work:
The Government's aim is to enable women to know whether or not their employer has a gender pay gap.
An interesting new study offers compelling evidence that the choices and priorities of women account for much of the pay gap disparity. Information for this article comes largely from the Wall Street Journal article cited immediately below:
ARTICLE: Wall Street Journal - "Parsing the Gender Pay Gap"
https://www.wsj.com/articles/parsing-the-gender-pay-gap-1542917969
Appeared in the November 23, 2018, Wall Street Journal print edition.
The study examined data from the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) union shop. The MBTA has uniform hourly wages in which men and women adhere to the exact same rules and enjoy the exact same benefits. Workers are promoted based on seniority, not performance. Male and female workers of the same seniority have the same options for scheduling, routes, vacation and overtime. These rigid work rules would appear to give little to no latitude in providing men preferential treatment.
Nonetheless, in the MBTA study, female train and bus operators earned LESS than men. Harvard economists looked at time cards and scheduling from 2011 to 2017, factoring in sex, age, date of hire, tenure, and whether an employee was married or had dependents.
SOME OF THEIR FINDINGS:
• Male train and bus operators worked about 83% more overtime hours than their female colleagues.
• Men were twice as likely to accept an overtime shift on short notice.
• Twice as many women as men NEVER took overtime, which pays time-and-a-half.
• Male bus and train operators also took 48% fewer unpaid hours off under the Family Medical Leave Act each year.
• Female employees were far more willing to take less preferable routes if it meant working fewer nights, weekends and holidays.
MARITAL STATUS FINDINGS:
• Married fathers wanted more overtime cash.
• Married mothers wanted more time off.
• Single mothers took 59% fewer last-minute overtime hours than did single fathers.
