If more men take time off to take care of their children, will their pay be reduced like women's?

Question

Since society expects women to take time off of work to caretake children--it is acceptable to pay women less when they return to work, since they have lost 3, 6, 9, 12 or 24 months of work experience. If more men take time off to caretake children, will they also be expected to accept lower wages as well when they return to work? Will men have to accept a "fatherhood" penalty, like women have to accept a "motherhood" penalty?

Answer 1

Is there any significant data to support your assertion?

If men take a leave of absence for the time you've listed, do you know that they return to "lower wages"?

The evolution may not be as fast as you or I would like but there are changes being made in the workplace.

I agree it isn't fair to have the salary discrimination that exists.

I would also like to be certain that there isn't any "confirmation bias" in the gathering of information and presentation of the issue.

Answer 2

I don't think pay discrimination of women fit such neat categories. Because women have only been "allowed" in the workplace in the last 100 years or so. Much of the lower pay has been "women's work", which still retains low pay relative to jobs men do. Where discrimination is most obvious is jobs that have been historically male that employers were allowed to put women in at lower pay. The excuse(and it was only that)was that they might leave the workplace at any time to have children. Instead of asking that men also take lower pay for these jobs It should be recognized that either parent could leave the workplace to raise children so no one should receive lower pay. I doubt very much that employers will look at this way since they will prefer to give lower pay to as many employees as they can,

Before I get negative comments. I put women's work in parenthesis because I do not agree with that classification.

Answer 3

___Men and women who work fewer hours both earn lower pay than their peers who work longer hours. Already. The question above seems to confuse aggregates with individuals. The wage-gap that feminists complain about is an aggregate phenomenon, and they too often translate women's lower average pay, due to the many women who work relatively few hours, into implications that individual women are underpaid hour-by-hour. A similar confusion arises with regard to women's lower numbers in high risk jobs, and the way this lowers women's average pay. There's no discrimination when women choose not to take these higher-risk, higher-pay jobs.
___Considering only the women in the work force, the ones who work longer hours or in riskier jobs than their female peers are going to want more money for their added time and risk. People resent mandatory overtime even when they get paid time-&-a-half for it. Who'd want to work longer hours without added compensation? And for similar reasons, social workers aren't asked to walk along bridge girders 150 feet in the air.
___How can this be made any simpler? Take a sample of 10 men and 10 women; 6 of each work as production managers on fixed 40-hour schedules, and are paid the same (40k). Three of the 10 women work part time, and earn part time pay (20k). Four men and one woman work in bridge construction, and all receive higher pay because of the risk (50k). The women's average pay is 35k, and the men's is 44k, but there's no discrimination.
___Feminist whining about the wage-gap suggests that the tuition money spent on feminists' educations has somehow been wasted. How can one get out of college and not grasp the difference between averages and individuals?!? And if it's not stupidity, it would seem to be bad faith and dishonesty, and one might wonder why the society spends so much money to educate dishonest people. If not dishonesty, then delusion, which, considering feminist theory's embrace of intellectual methods that resemble a handbook for how to delude oneself, is a very plausible explanation.
___Fortunately, not all women are persuaded by feminism.

Answer 4

No. At most employers, men completely run the show so to speak. That includes setting the wages. They would always pay men more just "because they are men." Most men truly believe they are superior in every way, and should be paid accordingly. It is just another way for them to keep women "down" and assert their "superiority." Until more women are in these key positions, things will remain the same. Men feel "threatened" that women will "rise" and will do whatever they can to prevent that. They fear women will take their jobs.

Answer 5

The outdated notion of women earning less stems from the "male bread winner" ideal which doesn't exist anymore.

It is strange that there are more and more single parent households (read female) and using the logic that the man is the breadwinner and needs to provide for his family, wouldn't it make more sense for women to earn more money than men across the board?

It is logical instead of trying to hang onto a world that no longer exists.

Answer 6

stale white male, you do sound like your avatar. I agree that women have to be more assertive but i disagree that assertive women get the same results as assertive men because they are seen as being the b word. Also women are more educated than men, look at the college demographics. Just because males like to discuss some topics like sports etc does not mean that they define education. For some reason (reason being that we are in a slowly changing patriarchial society), issues that female enjoy are considered trivial and less educational than issues that males enjoy because of the stereotype of the weaker sex.

Answer 7

Yes, I believe that in today's corporate world, men would be penalized MORE than women for taking time off to care for children. I blame this more on corporate greed than the women's movement though.

Answer 8

Sure - but only by 5/10ts of what a woman's pay is- since they don't have as many prenatal appointments

Answer 9

if men actually did that, then yes they probably would have to accept the same treatment women do in the situation. in fact, it might would be worse because that's just something a "real man" wouldn't do. this is just my opinion, not based in fact.

Answer 10

no, but it will make children loved them more than before