The rage right now: lots of numbers and no one has a clue what they actually mean or say, and everyone wants their spin on them.
There are a shit load of erroneous assumptions in there and I expected better from that quality of researcher, starting with the assumptions about age groups. There's a generational break involved in this, which goes back to previous arguments I've made about the breakdown of how you analyze the progress being based on age categories. She's lumping men and then trying to break the women down to give an excuse as to why they'll fail. She's not looking at the corresponding reports that have come out which have male income stagnant since the 1970's. Nope, all men versus segments of women. Bad stats and regularly used by a lot of "women are still mired in 1960" arguments I see out there.
The "numbers" she's citing are mostly the same ones used in the HDI, which are estimates (.75 assumed number, not based on any statistical reality for the US), and the presumption that men are almost universally all full employment, which is blatantly not true. More to the point the HDI points out that the US does NOT keep such data. The part time issue is there, but what isn't mentioned right now is that more women are in the workforce than men. Another discussion which is NEVER had, has to do with how many multiple part time workers there are. Those jobs wouldn't be any higher paying if they were men. For the roughly 9 million part time employed men? They suffer just like their female counterparts.
Let's add to that the heavy tail men have (Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, Tiger Woods, etc.) and the old money, and yes we have a significant monetary advantage, I don't dispute that. Hell, it's why I argue for removing lagging tails from statistical analysis of the mean. But it does mean that you're not getting a clear image of where the money is flowing. The money, the bulk of the top 10% in this nation, is in the hands of our grandparents and parents (depending on your age). They have most of it, despite the cries of elderly fixed incomes there are people doing very, very well in that generation to a level that our generations will probably never see.
What I dispute is that my age group and younger will reach the same levels of monetary dominance that previous generations have, and that this trend is somehow a fluke. I don't think it is, and I don't think this author understand that. Particularly since the BLS doesn't like to keep separate records for men suffering from under-employment (it extrapolates from the female numbers), hell they have to be forced to do it for women, and then there's the presumption that all those women want to work full time. Do I need to get into the societal bias that presumes that I, as a male, want to spend 60+ hours of my week in the office?
Men also no longer dominate the workforce, women took that spot last year. There are now more unemployed men than women. So start factoring in those unemployed and seeking work, or even the disillusioned who have stopped looking but would like it, and you've got a very different picture of the American Male worker than this over-hyped stereotype that she seems to be putting up against the downtrodden female worker.
The problem is vastly more complex than the light she puts it in, and it is not nearly so harrowing once you look at it from a dissected standpoint which breaks down age categories, which have systematically made near or above the male counterparts (BTW the stat is 98% as far back as 2002 for the under 28 group, not 90%). As for the two major blockages in the road ahead? Birth and the ceiling, those will only be verified or dismissed as this generation moves toward them, but at this point it is not strictly in male hands, because even now women are moving into the middle and upper management, and I've already posted about the rise in female executive pay over male executive pay. Women make more when they get there, the question is only about getting there, and that takes time. If not this generation, then the next.
Did I forget to mention that the wage income also eliminates agricultural earnings from the numbers? Yeah, another error in the system.
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Date: 2010-09-07 05:10 am (UTC)There are a shit load of erroneous assumptions in there and I expected better from that quality of researcher, starting with the assumptions about age groups. There's a generational break involved in this, which goes back to previous arguments I've made about the breakdown of how you analyze the progress being based on age categories. She's lumping men and then trying to break the women down to give an excuse as to why they'll fail. She's not looking at the corresponding reports that have come out which have male income stagnant since the 1970's. Nope, all men versus segments of women. Bad stats and regularly used by a lot of "women are still mired in 1960" arguments I see out there.
The "numbers" she's citing are mostly the same ones used in the HDI, which are estimates (.75 assumed number, not based on any statistical reality for the US), and the presumption that men are almost universally all full employment, which is blatantly not true. More to the point the HDI points out that the US does NOT keep such data. The part time issue is there, but what isn't mentioned right now is that more women are in the workforce than men. Another discussion which is NEVER had, has to do with how many multiple part time workers there are. Those jobs wouldn't be any higher paying if they were men. For the roughly 9 million part time employed men? They suffer just like their female counterparts.
Let's add to that the heavy tail men have (Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, Tiger Woods, etc.) and the old money, and yes we have a significant monetary advantage, I don't dispute that. Hell, it's why I argue for removing lagging tails from statistical analysis of the mean. But it does mean that you're not getting a clear image of where the money is flowing. The money, the bulk of the top 10% in this nation, is in the hands of our grandparents and parents (depending on your age). They have most of it, despite the cries of elderly fixed incomes there are people doing very, very well in that generation to a level that our generations will probably never see.
What I dispute is that my age group and younger will reach the same levels of monetary dominance that previous generations have, and that this trend is somehow a fluke. I don't think it is, and I don't think this author understand that. Particularly since the BLS doesn't like to keep separate records for men suffering from under-employment (it extrapolates from the female numbers), hell they have to be forced to do it for women, and then there's the presumption that all those women want to work full time. Do I need to get into the societal bias that presumes that I, as a male, want to spend 60+ hours of my week in the office?
Men also no longer dominate the workforce, women took that spot last year. There are now more unemployed men than women. So start factoring in those unemployed and seeking work, or even the disillusioned who have stopped looking but would like it, and you've got a very different picture of the American Male worker than this over-hyped stereotype that she seems to be putting up against the downtrodden female worker.
The problem is vastly more complex than the light she puts it in, and it is not nearly so harrowing once you look at it from a dissected standpoint which breaks down age categories, which have systematically made near or above the male counterparts (BTW the stat is 98% as far back as 2002 for the under 28 group, not 90%). As for the two major blockages in the road ahead? Birth and the ceiling, those will only be verified or dismissed as this generation moves toward them, but at this point it is not strictly in male hands, because even now women are moving into the middle and upper management, and I've already posted about the rise in female executive pay over male executive pay. Women make more when they get there, the question is only about getting there, and that takes time. If not this generation, then the next.
Did I forget to mention that the wage income also eliminates agricultural earnings from the numbers? Yeah, another error in the system.