We like to argue.  “Here are the numbers – here are the facts.”  — “No, I disagree.  Your numbers, your facts, are wrong.”

We even now have people who say that “fact-checkers” are not to be trusted.  And we see this at work in politics, science, issues of political polling, climate change…  The list is long, and growing.

But, when a set of numbers keeps being affirmed, in study after study, time and again, maybe we should pay attention.  And one of those numbers is this number:  women get paid less than men when they are as qualified, as experienced, and as trained and educated, and as productive as men.

Here’s the latest, summarized on Andrew Sullivan’s blog:

A recent report from the American Association of University Women shows a 7% pay advantage for men after controlling for GPA, college major, occupation and other factors. Nancy Folbre has more:
[The study] shows that, on average, the female college graduates in the sample earn only about 82 percent of what the male college graduates earn, largely because they chose different college majors or decided to work for nonprofit organizations. As the study notes, women might make different choices if they knew just how costly their preferences turn out to be. One serious consequence is that young women devote a larger share of their earnings to repayment of their college loans, even though they borrowed about the same amount…. In sum, while young women are more likely than young men to graduate from college, their diplomas don’t generate equally rich rewards.

I read this as I prepared to again present my synopsis of the Mika Brzezenski book, Knowing Your Value:  Women, Money, and Getting What You’re Worth.  (This time, for the Urban Engagement Book Club).  I have presented a number of books that deal with this issue at the First Friday Book Synopsis.  These include:  Womenomics; Women Don’t Ask; Ask for It (this book was presented by my colleague, Karl Krayer).  This is a big issue, and one that does not go away.

Some say that if you consider every factor (time away after the birth of a child, for instance) then there is no gap.  But the studies really, really do refute this.  Women actually are paid less than men, pretty much across the board…

There are a lot of suggestions on how to deal with this.  In Women Don’t Ask, and Ask for It, Linda C. Babcock and Sara Laschever  (two highly qualified teachers/researchers; read about them here) argue that women start out on their career path at a lower level of pay because women do not ask for a higher starting pay, which men ask for at a far higher percentage than women.  And then for the rest of their career, their raises are “behind” raises for people that started at a higher number.

But, recently, research has shown that even when women do ask for that higher starting pay, or when they do ask for raises and promotions, they still do not get as much as the men get.

Here’s a brief excerpt from Knowing Your Value:

If you don’t demand what you’re worth and if you don’t communicate it well, you won’t be treated fairly, and the relationship will ultimately die.  And if you don’t ask for what you deserve, you won’t ever find out what you’re made of, and what you truly can do.  You undermine yourself by not developing your tools and learning what to do with them and what not to do with them; how to use your voice, your brain, your words, your style, your approach, your finesse, everything in your power to get your value.

The issue of equal pay, the gender wage gap, knowing your value – these are perennially important issues that affect women everywhere.

I think this:  the “powers that be” that decide how much to pay find every way they can to keep that “expense” down, and thus women receive less because the “powers that be” can get away with it.

But I don’t think it is right, and I definitely think it ought to change.  “Equal pay for equal work” seems like a pretty fair idea…  From Wikipedia:

Equal pay for equal work is the concept of labour rights that individuals doing the same work should receive the same remuneration. Among international human rights law, the Article 7 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the Article 15 of African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights ensure the “equal pay for equal work”. In America, for example, the law states that “employers may not pay unequal wages to men and women who perform jobs that require substantially equal skill, effort and responsibility, and that are performed under similar working conditions within the same establishment.”