Male CEOs With Daughters Place Higher Value on Female Employees
Over the years, I've heard explanations and justifications for the phenomenon known as the gender wage gap. One popular explanation revolves around the argument that men are much more likely to negotiate their starting salaries, and to ask for pay raises more aggressively than women. Additionally, it is argued that the risks and costs associated with female employees who may at some point seek temporary or permanent maternity leave, justify paying women less than men. Whatever the case may be, worldwide, women earn salaries that are between 9 and 18 percent less than their male counterparts who have the same job descriptions and possess identical qualifications.
So what's a professional woman's best bet for avoiding the gender wage gap in her own career? According to a new study out of Columbia Business School, male CEOs who have daughters are more likely to pay their female employees more. The study, which examined the salaries of 734,200 workers at 6,320 firms, from 1995 through 2006 in Denmark, found that:
[A] short time after male CEOs had daughters, women’s wages rose relative to men’s, shrinking the gender wage gap at their firms. The birth of a son, in contrast, had no effect on the wage gap. First daughters who were also the firstborn children of a CEO had a bigger effect than subsequent daughters, decreasing the gap by almost 3 percent. First daughters who were not the firstborn children of the CEOs had a less dramatic but still significant effect, closing the gap by 0.8 percent. The overall reduction in the gender wage gap was 0.5 percent.
[...]
The researchers also found that these effects were strongest at firms with 50 or fewer employees, which they attribute to the fact that CEOs at smaller firms are typically more directly involved in making decisions that affect the pay of individual workers than CEOs at much larger firms.
The effects were even stronger for employees with more education. “You would expect this given the potential for vicarious identification. Most CEOs went to college and have more formal education than the average person; they also expect their daughters to be educated,” Ross explains. It follows that CEOs may be more apt to see their more educated women employees as resembling a possible future incarnation of their daughters.
(h/t WSJ's Ideas Market)
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Re: Male CEOs With Daughters Place Higher Value on Female Employees
TeeJaw
There is simply no gender salary gap that favors men, if there is one it favors women, and you should know that. You’re completely off base here. · Mar 3 at 2:15pm
Would be delighted to look at the data you're looking at.
I've linked to one Blau and Kahn paper that shows otherwise.
Others that I intend to read up on in my spare time include:
Evidence on Sex Segregation and Sex Differences in Wages from Matched
Employer-Employee Data,” Journal of Labor Economics, 21 (2003), 887-922.
Re: Male CEOs With Daughters Place Higher Value on Female Employees
Here's another interesting chart from the Blau & Kahn paper that shows the female to male earning ratio among workers of other advanced countries. How do we explain why U.S. women do not rank higher relative to their counterparts in these other countries?
Jul '10
Re: Male CEOs With Daughters Place Higher Value on Female Employees
Diane Ellis, Ed.: Here's another interesting chart from the Blau & Kahn paper that shows the female to male earning ratio among workers of other advanced countries. How do we explain why U.S. women do not rank higher relative to their counterparts in these other countries? · Mar 3 at 2:46pm
Perhaps by the fact that we have higher fertility rates than most of the countries above us on the chart.
Jul '10
Re: Male CEOs With Daughters Place Higher Value on Female Employees
Diane Ellis, Ed.: How do we explain why U.S. women do not rank higher relative to their counterparts in these other countries? · Mar 3 at 2:46pm
Looking at that table I suspect American women currently rank quite well.
In the late 70's it's clear that U.S. women were well behind the other countries' average. But over the period American women closed the gap at more than twice the rate of their counterparts' average and at higher rate than any other country. If the trend held up at all, American women probably exceed the average by a good bit today.
A couple of points:
1) The U.S. has a higher fertility rate (# of births per woman) than most of the OECD countries. Presumably more women have to make accommodations at or leave jobs.
2) Higher fertility OECD countries positively correlate with higher female employment. Seems bizarre, but this study takes the risk of unemployment into account. It seems that labor markets with consistently lower unemployment encourage women to take the chance on kids, and leave the labor market temporarily. Thus, the relative wage gap for American women may seem artificially high compared with Europe's.
May '10
Re: Male CEOs With Daughters Place Higher Value on Female Employees
Why have only men commented on your thread, Diane? (assuming Pseudo and Paleo are both male)
Re: Male CEOs With Daughters Place Higher Value on Female Employees
Mark Wilson: Why have only men commented on your thread, Diane? (assuming Pseudo and Paleo are both male) · Mar 3 at 6:29pm
I wondered the same thing myself. Mention a "gender gap" and men get worked up!
Jul '10
Re: Male CEOs With Daughters Place Higher Value on Female Employees
Diane Ellis, Ed.
Mark Wilson: Why have only men commented on your thread, Diane? (assuming Pseudo and Paleo are both male) · Mar 3 at 6:29pm
I wondered the same thing myself. Mention a "gender gap" and men get worked up! · Mar 3 at 6:43pm
Because most conservative women realize that the gender gap is a canard. If this were a liberal site, the thread would have 300 comments by now - most of them from women bemoaning their oppression.
Nov '10
Re: Male CEOs With Daughters Place Higher Value on Female Employees
Diane Ellis, Ed.
Mark Wilson: Why have only men commented on your thread, Diane? (assuming Pseudo and Paleo are both male) · Mar 3 at 6:29pm
I wondered the same thing myself. Mention a "gender gap" and men get worked up! · Mar 3 at 6:43pm
They get worked up because they know what you are saying isn’t true.
Jul '10
Re: Male CEOs With Daughters Place Higher Value on Female Employees
Diane Ellis, Ed.
Mark Wilson: Why have only men commented on your thread, Diane? (assuming Pseudo and Paleo are both male) · Mar 3 at 6:29pm
I wondered the same thing myself. Mention a "gender gap" and men get worked up! · Mar 3 at 6:43pm
Well, Mark's two for two unless the kitty's lying.
At my itty-bitty corp, we pay our regular female employee triple what we pay our regular male employee. Who is her husband!
'Course he's part time, so maybe that skews the data.
Seriously, I just don't buy that the gender gap for wages among those under 50 is due to sexist discrimination. It just doesn't square with my experience.
Of course I get worked up about this Diane. It's a crock, and an insulting crock at that.
Who would want to hear that he's unjustly overcompensated? I'd bet that if I started a thread about how Ricochet favored women for editorial gigs (which it doesn't) you'd be irritated.
Jul '10
Re: Male CEOs With Daughters Place Higher Value on Female Employees
BTW, as far as I'm concerned, the "wage gap" is a topic that should be explored, regardless of conclusions. It's an odd dynamic and I'm not suggesting that you are insulting men.
I was only noting why the push-back was guy-driven.
Dec '10
Re: Male CEOs With Daughters Place Higher Value on Female Employees
The "gender wage gap" is a myth. What you have to remember is that with studies like this, you're looking at averages. Far more women work for some years and then drop out entirely, or cut back on their hours, etc., for child-rearing, and this drags the average earnings for the population of women downward. If you look at individual women doing the same job as individual men, I don't believe you will see a disparity like this.
Honestly, we should be WAY past the point of worrying about this. Women far outpace men in graduating from colleges across the country, and you never hear complaints of sexism about all-women's colleges, just all-men's colleges. Women have come from behind and are in positions of power in great numbers. My own wife has out-earned me by almost double for most of our 18-year marriage. Cry me a river.
Dec '10
Re: Male CEOs With Daughters Place Higher Value on Female Employees
TeeJaw
Diane Ellis, Ed.
Mark Wilson: Why have only men commented on your thread, Diane? (assuming Pseudo and Paleo are both male) · Mar 3 at 6:29pm
I wondered the same thing myself. Mention a "gender gap" and men get worked up! · Mar 3 at 6:43pm
They get worked up because they know what you are saying isn’t true. · Mar 3 at 7:27pm
It's worse than that. With the quote Diane provided in her original post, she's not just saying women are underpaid. She's also saying that these pig-men executives only clue in that they're doing something unfair after they have daughters because their sexism is only obvious after that new perspective is laid onto them. Further, that the light is more likely to shine on the smart, educated pig-men, not the uneducated ones.
May '10
Re: Male CEOs With Daughters Place Higher Value on Female Employees
Why do women get better grades and score higher on standardized tests? Even when you adjust for income, marital status, number of children, and employment history, there is still a huge Gender Grade Gap among 6th graders!
Only when teachers have a son do they finally start treating the boys fairly.
Re: Male CEOs With Daughters Place Higher Value on Female Employees
Palaeologus
Diane Ellis, Ed.: How do we explain why U.S. women do not rank higher relative to their counterparts in these other countries? · Mar 3 at 2:46pm
Looking at that table I suspect American women currently rank quite well.
In the late 70's it's clear that U.S. women were well behind the other countries' average. But over the period American women closed the gap at more than twice the rate of their counterparts' average and at higher rate than any other country. If the trend held up at all, American women probably exceed the average by a good bit today.
The paper whence the table came explained that the convergence of wages occurred at an accelerated pace throughout the 70s and 80s, but plateaued in the 90s with a stubborn 9 to 18 percent gap that women have been unable to close.
Re: Male CEOs With Daughters Place Higher Value on Female Employees
Mark Wilson: Why do women get better grades and score higher on standardized tests? Even when you adjust for income, marital status, number of children, and employment history, there is still a huge Gender Grade Gap among 6th graders!
Only when teachers have a son do they finally start treating the boys fairly. · Mar 4 at 1:24am
In a recent post, Paul Rahe (I think) excerpted an article that talked about the feminization of education. Teachers in the younger grades gear their teaching toward girl students. So you may have something there, in your tongue in cheek analysis.
Jul '10
Re: Male CEOs With Daughters Place Higher Value on Female Employees
Some plateauing seemed evident, largely due to smaller reductions in occupational segregation, (pp 5-6) but it was still shrinking, and that paper was written in 2000. Even modest gains since could've made a difference.
But I think we may be talking past each other Diane, because I was unclear. I wasn't arguing that American women on average currently exceed American men in compensation. Rather, that the trends suggested that American women make a higher percentage of American men's wages than the average of women from non-U.S. OECD countries. It was table #3 in your comment #22 that I was referencing.
In 79-81 U.S. women made 62.5% of American men while the average of women from the other OECD countries made 71.2% of the men in their countries. By the mid 90's U.S. women made 76.3% of American men while the average of non-U.S. OECD women made 77.8% of the men in their countries. That trendline suggests that if the numbers were taken today American women's earnings as a percentage of American men's would be higher than the non-U.S. OECD average.
Sep '10
Re: Male CEOs With Daughters Place Higher Value on Female Employees
The gender gap is a popular subject IMHO because it is easy to beat up on men in this way. Similarly, it is much easier for "artist and intellectuals" to mock Christianity than it is to mock Islam. Presumably this is not because Christians are more desrving of mockery. It is just that there is no cost and there are benefits, however diffuse.
As I understand it there is a gap between single and married women, a gap between single and married men, and there is a broad distribution of pay for men with similar qualifications within a company. Why not post on that?
And in the end, assuming you have made the argument that corporate America is discrimiating against women, do we need national pay scales to right this great wrong? That is the opposite of what we need to do, regardless of what I can assume are good intentions.
Sep '10
Re: Male CEOs With Daughters Place Higher Value on Female Employees
assuming Pseudo and Paleo are both male
I am actually a member of soon to be identified third gender. Stay tuned!
Re: Male CEOs With Daughters Place Higher Value on Female Employees
Palaeologus:
But I think we may be talking past each other Diane, because I was unclear. I wasn't arguing that American women on average currently exceed American men in compensation. Rather, that the trends suggested that American women make a higher percentage of American men's wages than the average of women from non-U.S. OECD countries. It was table #3 in your comment #22 that I was referencing.
In 79-81 U.S. women made 62.5% of American men while the average of women from the other OECD countries made 71.2% of the men in their countries. By the mid 90's U.S. women made 76.3% of American men while the average of non-U.S. OECD women made 77.8% of the men in their countries. That trendline suggests that if the numbers were taken today American women's earnings as a percentage of American men's would be higher than the non-U.S. OECD average. · Mar 4 at 9:50am
Thanks for the clarification. Your hypothesis seems plausible, if not probable.
Re: Male CEOs With Daughters Place Higher Value on Female Employees
Ross Conatser: The gender gap is a popular subject IMHO because it is easy to beat up on men in this way. Similarly, it is much easier for "artist and intellectuals" to mock Christianity than it is to mock Islam. Presumably this is not because Christians are more desrving of mockery. It is just that there is no cost and there are benefits, however diffuse.
As I understand it there is a gap between single and married women, a gap between single and married men, and there is a broad distribution of pay for men with similar qualifications within a company. Why not post on that?
in the end, assuming you have made the argument that corporate America is discrimiating against women, do we need national pay scales to right this great wrong? That is the opposite of what we need to do, regardless of what I can assume are good intentions.
Really? The post was about the findings of a study of the specific effect of CEOs in Denmark having daughters. The study concluded that male parents of female children paid female employees better. Not sure how that can be misconstrued as "beating up on men"...