Men's wages have been stagnating for the past decade or two, while women's have increased. It's not surprising to see that women are now out-earning men in big cities.

The article also says that women in their 30s now make just as much as men. So let's put the pieces of the trend together...

If you're in your 40s, men make more.
If you're in your 30s, men and women make the same.
If you're in your 20s, women make more.

The pessimism seems uncalled for when the article clearly states: Though Dr. Beveridge’s analysis showed women making strides, it also showed that men were in some ways moving backward. Among all men — including those with college degrees — real wages, adjusted for inflation, have declined since 1970. And among full-time workers with advanced degrees, wages for men increased only marginally even as they soared for women. Nationally, men’s wages in general declined while women’s remained the same.

Slightly off from the main topic of the article/post, but I find it interesting that the article conflates the status of being married with the status of having children. It acts as if there are two states for a woman to be in: married with children, or unmarried without children. This strikes me in two ways: it is assumed that (1) if you are unmarried, you don't have children and are therefore focused on career, and (2) if you are married then you do or will soon have children and stop focusing on career.

First of all, there are plently of unmarried women in their 20s with children, although perhaps it is true that there are fewer among the "professional" women with college degrees.

Second of all, many women do not have kids the second they get married! I got married a year out of college but there are definitely no thoughts of kids yet (or possibly ever). So I could be considered a career-focused woman in my 20s, with a relatively high salary, and yet I am married.

Not to mention that it totally ignores those who are in long-term relationships but who are not able to (if they are lesbian) or choose not to get married (but may still have children).

As someone who married and had children in her 20's and is now in her late 30's I'm finding that most women do eventually have children. Sure that's not everyone, but it is the majority. And as a policy issue, childbearing/raising is still really important for women because even the possibility that they could have children (ie since all women "should" be mothers) is enough to mess things up with salaries in the future.

Remember even if you say you'll never have kids--people won't believe you.

The other issue for me is not that women are mommy-tracked but that employers expect more from their staff than they used to (ie we work more) and those who choose to work a standard week are viewed as underperforming. So women who work full time and have kids may not work overtime and weekends so they're denied promotions etc. So how much is enough?

Alex,

The study does not say that between men and women with the same credentials, women earn more than men. The article seems to suggest that in big cities, working women are more likely to have degrees than working men. Also, if men's wages are stagnating and women's increasing, that also does not tell us that women are earning as much as men, merely that they are no longer earning as little as they once did, and that men's wages are not increasing in line with inflation.

So I think you (and Ann) are misreading the study a bit to conclude that women are doing 'better' than men, at least if you think that equally credentialed women are earning more than men. I so wish I could access Echidne at work. (Blast you, firewall!)

Ismone

Isomone-

From the article:
And women in their 20s now make more than men in a wide variety of other jobs: as doctors, personnel managers, architects, economists, lawyers, stock clerks, customer service representatives, editors and reporters.

These positions require degrees, regardless of gender, so it's safe to assume that if we have a male lawyer and a female laywer, they probably have both passed the BAR. And if the woman is making more than the man (which the article states), then that means that women with degrees are out-earning men with the same degrees.

Right, Alex, but I don't know if they're controlling for years of experience. So if a woman attorney with 3 years experience outearns a male attorney with 2, no big shock there. I want to see the data, b/c most big firms have lock step salaries (and they are the ones paying the big bucks, if you are in your 20's), and women are more likely to go straight from college to grad. school, as a poster above mentioned. Being a lawyer, I am particularly skeptical because women tend to dominate public interest law, which pays significantly less than firms.

Steph, I agree completely that childbearing/raising is an important policy issue and I feel strongly that it should be an issue for MEN as well. Our culture should encourage men to take on an equal burden of raising kids, but it obviously does not right now. Anyway, that aside, yes I realize that mommy-tracking is a big issue. But my problem with the article was simply the conflation of the two states of "married" and "with children". These two states are NOT one and the same in spite of the fact that many actual and de facto policies want to ignore that. Luckily I am in a very good work environment. I would be MAD if I got mommy-tracked the second I got married!

Alex, also note this sentence from the article: "Nationwide, that group of women made much less: 89 percent of the average full-time pay for men." (that group of women is referring to 21-30 year-olds). That combined with the known mommy-tracking that occurs and I think a little pessimism is justified.

Alex,

Here is an article written by Beveridge himself, in March 2007, stating that except for women authors, secretaries and designers, men outearn women.

http://www.gothamgazette.com/article/Demographics/20070320/5/2126

Looks like the NY Times looked at overall salary data, or narrower age ranges than Beveridge did in his earlier article.

Izzy

sbasnon-

Don't worry, I didn't miss that crucial sentence. There are still plenty of imbalances- which is exactly the point I was illustrating.

The problem is when an imbalance for one gender is interpreted differently than the same problem for the other gender- which is exactly the sort of thinking that's etched our society into a patriarchy.

Izzy-

I've read that article, but it encompasses all age groups. It shows how (already stated in the NYTimes article) that when it comes to the big money, men outnumber the women and earn much more. I think that the NYTimes article was mainly showing how the college degree gender gap is playing out in 20-30 year olds wages- with women, predictably, doing a bit better.

Sorry for the off-topic comment but I wanted to make sure people got this.
searchkindly.org is a search engine that donates proceeds to whichever charity gets the most user votes for the month. This month one of the charities is equality now, a group that works to end violence toward women and girls all over the world. You can go to searchkindly.org and vote for Equality Now every eight hours.

Got it--so we agree--I think that the NY Times article is somewhat misleading and thought that you had been perhaps misled. My bad.

I kind of wonder what is going to happen with the college gap--are more young men going to end up going to college later in life? Or will more women than men continue to earn credentials? Do we need this many college graduates? (Since the data reflects that a larger percentage of men and women are graduating college, although the increase is larger among women than among men.)

Ismone-

Year of experience? To be honest, I think you're grasping at straws now. Why, for instance, would women consistently have an extra year of experience, if the study covers all 20-30 year olds? Why, for instance, would that experience gap lead to a 20% wage gap?

I would love to see all the data, too, but it sounds as if you're not too interested in looking at this data as it goes against what you previously believed. That's how Bill O'Reilly might approach a new story that goes against his ideology, but not me, thank you very much.

Izzy-

I have no idea how this will play out- if only we had a time machine! My worry is that it's the start of a much larger trend- since metropolitan areas tend to reflect the progressive direction of the nation- because it seems to be largely linked to the college degree gap, which is nationwide. Since people in the city tend to be more career-oriented, it might be a reflection of the workforce of tomorrow. Who knows? We'll see.

Ismone... Izzy.... time to dunk my head in a bucket of cold water.

I always think it's weird when something jumps out on the CHART but isn't discussed in the article. The chart shows that WHITE MEN still outpace white women and everyone else in earnings. Unless I'm reading it wrong, it would mean that the overall average figure is being driven by the large number of black and hispanic men, whose earning are outpaced by women.

Damn, Alex, I get compared to Bill O'Reilly? WTF, mate? I looked for the data, couldn't find it, and emailed Beveridge. If he writes to me, I'll let you and everyone else know what he has to say. In biglaw (which is what I know) associates get a $5-$15k raise each year, depending on firm. (Check above the law, or NALP, or whatever.) So years of experience are everything.

Based on what I know about lockstep salaries in biglaw, which is where new attorneys (in their 20's) are paid the most, women could only outearn men (or men outearn women) based on being more advanced associates, or billing more and getting bonuses, or getting more merit based bonuses. I would be really surprised if women associates were routinely outearning men associates, since historically the reverse has been true. It isn't impossible, but it would be a HUGE CHANGE. Which is why I am skeptical of the data.

At the time I wrote that, I hadn't read Beveridge's gazette article, which shows that male attorneys on the whole vastly outearn female attorneys, although I don't quite know what to make of that data because it also doesn't discuss years of experience, blah, blah. (In the oldest, highest tiers of partnership, there are a lot more men. That doesn't mean that the women who have attained those ranks, or the more junior women partners, aren't making as much as men. We just don't know from the existing data.)

So no O'Reilly here. Maybe I should sign off as 'Izzy' because you seem to like her more. ;)

I think Ismone's basically right - young women outearn young men in certain cities because of differing educational levels.

So we're really comparing apples and oranges, and noone could reasonably conclude this indicates discrimination against young men.

But, the same claim could be made against the national surveys showing men outpacing women of the same age. You need to control for factors like education, and experience before you can make conclusions about the relative effect of gender discrimination.

I'm sure that's been done, but I haven't seen it myself.

Damn, I knew I should have been a lawyer. $5-$15K a year? *shakes fist* I mean, that's great. That's really, really gr-... man, fuck my job!

I understand the skepticism a bit better now that I have a better idea of how crazy lawyers wages are (my previous understanding being based primarily off John Grisham). While it would be a HUGE CHANGE from the past... seeing articles like this is already a huge enough change in my mind to force me to look at the entire issue again. What makes me really scratch my head is that I'm in the age group, earn slightly more than the "average 20-30 male" but less than the "average 20-30 woman".

It's a strange feeling to realize you're sitting in the middle of a shattered wage gap. It's also a strange feeling to realize that I don't have a college degree. Help, I'm a statistic!

Oh, and Izzy carries too many yummy drink connotations in my mind to ever compare it to a fascist demagogue to spark the ultimate reaction. =)

At the risk of getting jealousy tomatoes lobbed in my general direction (in fairness to me, I have no life and I earn every penny I make in terms of stress and years off my life), I'll chime in that Ismone is exactly right -- and, in fact, in most large firms the raises (after the step from first to second year attorney) are even more than 15K. Factor in bonuses, which also increase as you gain seniority, and you are talking a serious, SERIOUS experiential wage gap between, say, a first and fourth year attorney. In some cases the salary differential is upwards of 60% higher.

In the world of big law firms, at least, having finished law school a couple years sooner makes you infinitely richer at the same age as a slightly-later-bloomer.

Anecdotally, the supposition that women finish school earlier seems to hold in my experience. Most of the women I work with (and went to law school with) went straight through from undergrad to law school, but a lot of the men took a year or two (or more) off in between. I and a handful of other women in my class had finished high school and/or college early, and so on top of being on the young side by virtue of not taking time off, we were *even younger* because we had finished college earlier than normal. One woman in my law school class didn't turn 21 until after classes had started. That means she was a practicing attorney at *twenty-three*. First-year attorneys make a ridiculous amount of money, so as a twenty-three-year-old, she was making a higher salary than most men EVER make. Conversely, I cannot think of a single guy in my class who was younger than almost-22 our first year (and most of them were a bit older than that).

So, factoring in experience and educational level is hugely important. We're talking HUGE salary differences in industries like law and banking. Literally tens of thousands of dollars due to a couple years' difference. I actually find it incredibly frustrating that the study didn't bother controlling for this very obvious, important factor.

A lot of the reason that women take time off to raise the kids is that men make more. If one person's career is to be sacrificed, it shouldn't be the one who earns more money. The couple, as whole, benefits when the one who earns less takes time off.

As women marry slightly older men, often, the woman will be earning less. (See LawFairy's post.)

I imagine, though, if this trend continues, it will be men who stay at home.

In relation to this article, I read a comment today on the NY Times from a woman that said society devalues women's jobs, and she was speaking from her job as a social worker.

However, I don't agree with this type of reasoning. In fact, it's not a man-woman thing. Jobs in engineering and computer science pay more than the social sciences because they're more beneficial to society.

Who would you rather have stranded with you in a city? A political scientist or an electrical engineer? A social worker or a physicist? An engineer is in more demand to the city of Minneapolis right now than a social scientist. See my point?

Painting everything in male female terms will ultimately lead to the collapse of this society. As we focus more and more on women and less and less on men, we will upset the balance in society. It's great that women go to college, but on the other hand, it's not great that now there are less than 45% of men getting degrees.

Speaking from the POV of a woman in a 90% male dominated field, I believe alot of these "studies" are hogwash and that in order to realize feminism one should act to break down barriers, instead of focusing on silly studies that can be recast in a different light by a social "scientist."

Who would you rather have stranded with you in a city? A political scientist or an electrical engineer? A social worker or a physicist? An engineer is in more demand to the city of Minneapolis right now than a social scientist. See my point?

I would have had a hell of a lot more fun in college had I been on a social worker track and not a chemical engineer.

(I double-majored; second one in liberal arts. The latter was several orders of magnitude easier than the former.)

"However, I don't agree with this type of reasoning. In fact, it's not a man-woman thing. Jobs in engineering and computer science pay more than the social sciences because they're more beneficial to society."

Doesn't supply and demand also have something to do with what people will pay other people for different kinds of labor?

I mean, look at the prices of other goods and services. Rice and bread are more important to society than emeralds and rubies, driving buses and sewing clothes are more important to society than playing baseball or singing operas...

I'm really confused by the once a woman becomes a mom she is putting her career aside and with the second child she puts her career on hold completely. My sister has 6 children and is planning on going to law school (graduating from Penn State next fall and applying to law school after that), a friend of mine has two children and recently graduated from college. Having a child myself got me more focused on college and my future career. Women with children these days often do not have a choice to put their careers aside because of the simple reality that costs of living are increasing much faster then incomes are. Also because so many women are single, more women these days are single then married and even married couples now are often choosing not to have children, the prospects for women in our society earning the same amount or more then men looks promising to me, at least for college educated women who can negotiate their salaries. I think women with less education will still face the same amount of pay discrimination because they have no way of defending themselves against their bosses who have more education and more power.

I just wrote a long, thoughtful reply to this and it got axed somehow. ARGH!!!

Anyway, I looked this over and the author of the "study" is a demographer who does not do most of his work on gender wage gaps. There are tried and true standard ways to decompose these gaps and it's not clear to me that he's done that (or decomposed the gap at all).

What the figures reflect is the demographic composition of the city. As in education, the "reversing" of the gap is among poor people and people of color. White, middle class men are not in danger of being outearned by their female cohorts. As the article points out, women attorneys still earn less than men, etc. The dept of labor earlier in the year put out figures that showed the gap exists even among new college grads and only grows as they get older. At any rate, the sensational stat is a type of statistical artifact and not indicative of a reversal of gender privilege. Sorry to disappoint.

Having said that, the fact that some poor women or women of color may earn more than men in their demographic categories is simply reflective of a race to the bottom. These were the men hit hardest by deindustrialization. So what appears to be good news for women was actually mostly bad news for men.

Most of the gender pay gap is still due to gender segregation in jobs and occupations - i.e. "women's fields" are devalued compared with comparable "men's fields."

Something to consider in addition to the question of educational differences is that young people are much more likely to be working entry-level positions or only be one or two steps above that, so it will be interesting to see whether this trend continues as current 20 somethings move up the ladder.

And for those going on about how sciences, law, and the like are more difficult/important than arts, humanities, and social work, let me just say:

It is hard to get the news from poetry
but men die everyday
from lack of what is found there

I would go one better than William Carlos Williams and add women to that number.

Who would you rather have stranded with you in a city? A political scientist or an electrical engineer? A social worker or a physicist? An engineer is in more demand to the city of Minneapolis right now than a social scientist. See my point?

In terms of whom I'd like to have with me were I stranded in a city, it depends on the context. A social worker, for example, is likely to be familiar with the city's neighborhoods and services, so the social worker could either provide the help I needed or tell me where I could get it. A physicist in that same city? Not as likely.

I cross-posted this comment at Pandagon too:

I know I'm late to comment here (I was away!), but did anyone look at the full study:

http://www.gothamgazette.com/article/demographics/20070619/5/2208

I did, and it's even less thrilling than the media would have us believe (shocker, I know). I wrote about this in detail at my own site (click on my name above), but essentially, it's women with advanced degrees that are pushing our wages past men's. For college educated, in NY and nationwide, the women:men gap is still 89% and 82%, respectively. And that's only a reduction of 6% and 10% since 1980, when we surpassed men in college attendance.

Given that less than 30% of Americans have a college degree, and that women by now really outpace men in college attendance (in NY, by ~16%, and nationwide, by ~13%), it's actually pretty abysmal that this particularly urban and generational niche has anyone excited.

Not to mention that higher ed is so expensive and thus exclusive, and that rising income inequality trends are immediately apparent even among this group under study, and well, we've got very little to celebrate about here.

Though it's still cool, I know.