I was recently reminded that I was attacked at a candidates’ event several years ago for telling the truth about the so-called “gender gap.” You can’t just divide the total number of women working by their salary and compare that to the total number of men working divided by theirs.
You have to compare within job types and adjust for work experience.
I dug my hole deeper by saying studies show women on the whole prefer jobs with less travel and more regular hours. Worst of all, I said, women tend to take time off after having a baby and still are mostly the ones to stay home when a child is sick or school closes unexpectedly. Not all do, I added, I was self-employed when I had my daughter and had to work, but it didn’t matter. My words were twisted and I became a sexist who thought “women didn’t work hard,” “women shouldn’t work at all”—and that was the polite stuff.
More studies have since backed up what I said that day.
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Indeed, companies don’t just pay women and men basically the same for the same job/experience, the reality is women on the whole cost companies more, especially for larger companies that now offer generous benefits such as family leave (companies have to pay an employee on leave plus a replacement), child care, flexible schedules, and more.
With the recent rebranding of “maternity” leave as “parental” leave, employers sometimes pay for two people not to work for three months or more, even if neither “birthed” anything (our current Transportation Secretary and his hubcap come to mind). Also, some moms want to extend their leave and/or have a reduced work schedule when they return. And we all know women who stay home beyond their paid leave because they don’t want to “miss a moment” of the baby’s first year. Fair enough—but I’ve never heard a man say that.
Small wonder then that large companies are now trying to attract employees who don’t want children by offering a new benefit: paid travel to a neighboring state to abort babies (“Abortion Tourism”).
Five thousand dollars is nothing compared to the costs of parental leave and snow days—employers could pay for both parents and still save a bundle. Anyone who thinks I’m wearing my tinfoil hat should listen to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, a formerly respected economist, who just this week testified that abortions are good for the economy and restricting them will limit women’s career opportunities. She probably thinks abortions are a killer solution for inflation.
So in just a few years, employers went from over-compensating for any remnants of the gender gap to encouraging “birthing people” to take advantage of a funded junket to an abortion hotspot. A win for corporate bottom lines but a big loss for the country—and for the voiceless babies who will never be born.
