Dr. Warren Farrell, the only man ever elected three
times to the Board of the National Organization for Women in NYC,
once asked, “If men are paid more for the same work, why
would anyone hire a man?”
He may be sorry he asked. But during the years of
research that followed, the answer evolved: Men earn more than
women, but not for the same work—for 25 different workplace
choices. Men’s choices lead to men earning more money; women’s
choices lead to women having better lives.
Men’s trade-offs include working more hours
(women typically work more at home); taking more-hazardous assignments
(cab-driving; construction; trucking); moving overseas or to an
undesirable location on-demand (women’s greater family obligations
inhibit this); and training for more-technical jobs with less
people contact (e.g., engineering).
Women’s choices appear more likely to involve
a balance between work and the rest of life. Women are more likely
to balance income with a desire for safety, fulfillment, potential
for personal growth, flexibility and proximity-to-home. These
lifestyle advantages lead to more people competing for these jobs
and thus lower pay.
Only when Dr. Farrell’s research journey
uncovered these 25 differences, did the “holy grail”
become visible: women now earn more money for the same work—that
is, women earn more when they work equal hours at the same job
with the same size of responsibility for the same length of time
with equal productivity, etc. The women’s movement can celebrate
its greatest single triumph—exceeding its goal of equal
pay for equal work. A triumph that frees women to enter the next
level of progress...
Since men still earn more money, Why Men
Earn More introduces to women the 25 ways to higher pay, showing
which trade-offs lead to how much increase in pay, creating for
women an opportunity to decide which trade-offs are worth it given
her individual personality and current goals.
Intro
Dr. Farrell shares his journey with us—how
he saw his wife, a business owner, responding to employees who
wanted a balanced life with equal pay. What he was being told
by CEOs “in private” that they were unwilling to say
in public. Warren shares how his discovery that never-married
women have long out-earned never-married men led him on the search
for factors other than the male-female factor that accounted for
the pay gap, and helped him understand that men’s workplace
choices were not “choices” per se, but the married
man’s fulfillment of his financial responsibilities.
In the Intro, Why Men Earn More stuns
us with some current data on how both part-time working women
now earn more than men when they work equal hours, as well as
how much more than men full-time working women make if they have
never been married. He introduces us to the sources of his data
(usually the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics) and his research
methods. But at every moment, as our sensibilities of political
correctness are being shattered, we feel Dr. Farrell reconstructing
our vision, allowing the discovery of opportunities for women
that were missed when our binoculars were focused on discrimination
against women. Thus the twenty-five opportunities to higher pay
that are Part I.
Part I
Chapters One, Two & Three: Field of Dreams:
Choose the Right Field and Higher Pay Will Come
Dr. Farrell begins with the first ten ways
to higher pay—ten ways to choose both a field and sub-field
that pay well: the “Field-with-Higher-Yield Formula.”
He explains how almost every field has high-paying sub-fields;
which fields and sub-fields are “fields of the future;”
which are becoming more user-friendly to women due to changes
in technology.
Did you know that no woman has died in the Marines
or Air Force in the War in Iraq? Findings like this allow Dr.
Farrell to guide women safely where most fear to tread—into
the two secrets of hazardous occupations: first, where women can
get equal pay with much less-than-equal danger; and second, how,
for example, running a construction company allows a woman all
the affirmative action benefits for women-owned construction companies
with none of the hazards of being a construction worker.
Each approach of Dr. Farrell’s offers
creative, win-win solutions. While on the one hand he explains
the money we miss when we follow our bliss, he offers creative
ways to earn the money to securely pursue what we love to do.
In this chapter Dr. Farrell begins his push to get both sexes
to look at each other and their work-family lives more creatively.
Chapter Four: Doing Time
This chapter looks at the average benefit of each contribution
of “Doing Time” in the workplace—from hours
worked to uninterrupted work experience with the same employer,
to commuting time. For example, if someone works 13% more hours
in the workplace, should they expect 13% more pay? No. They should
expect 44% more pay. Once we know the pay-off and the trade-off,
we look at the implications of these for planning a family, or
following your bliss; for traditional roles, or a reversal of
roles. Do top executive women wish they had put in more hours,
or fewer hours, or do they look at work time differently? Cross-culturally,
which women and men are the happiest—those who work overtime
or part time? And finally, what are the male-female differences
in each of these areas, and how much of the pay gap is accounted
for by men’s tendency to work that extra 13%, have more
uninterrupted experience, and so on?
Chapter Five: On the Move
In “On the Move” we discover that people
who get higher pay are more willing to move to undesirable locations
at the company’s behest, and, once on the job, are more
willing to travel extensively (be an international sales rep versus
a local sales rep). We get advice from top female executives on
the importance of international experience at an early age, and
how companies are developing more flexible, short-term ways for
women to get that experience. We are introduced to “Carpe
Diem Moving” such as construction workers and nurses moving
where they’re needed when they’re needed. Since only
16% of “frequent flyers” are women, special emphasis
is placed on what needs to happen for a woman who wishes to travel
for the family to benefit emotionally.
Chapter Six: Responsibility, Training and Ambition
We begin this chapter by discovering “You
Can’t Tell a Salary by its Title”—why, for example,
a Corporate Vice President of Finance is likely to make more and
be promoted more quickly than a Corporate Vice President for Human
Resources. And why we can’t say “male Corporate Vice
Presidents of Finance earn more than female Corporate Vice Presidents
of Finance, therefore women are discriminated against” until
we determine whether the men have more financial responsibilities
(larger international companies, etc.) . Perhaps the most intriguing
part of the chapter is the differences between the goals of men
and women at every stage of life, leading to men earning more
money and women having more balanced lives, to women’s visible
juggling acts and men men’s invisible juggling acts.
Part I Conclusion
Part One’s goals include creating a different
attitude toward the workplace—so that when we hear, “men
earn a dollar for each 80 cents women earn” it will trigger
for women 25 paths to higher pay rather than one path to victimhood.
It hopefully uncovered not just twenty-five—but hundreds--
of little pay-offs such as the dozens of ways to be a nurse, engineer
or computer specialist--with a choice tailored to each personality
at every time of life. It introduces new methods of looking at
the workplace—of looking not just at field of choice, but
subfield; not just a field as it was or is, but a field as technology
will create it to be; a field transformed by the evolution of
men caring more for children and women creating more money; of
how fields will adjust to economic hard times and easy times;
of the importance of assessing not just pay but the trade-offs
of hours invested, moves required, risks taken, so each man and
woman can live a life of genuine power—the power that comes
from the knowledge that leads to control of our lives.
Part II
Chapter Seven: What Women Contribute to the
Workplace
Drawing from his corporate workshops, Dr. Farrell
tells us what men love about working with women, and why it is
important to not pressure women into becoming “imitation
men”. He gives many examples of how women’s and men’s
differences create workplace synergy—from good cop/bad cop
roles in domestic violence work to the creativity of female funeral
directors to the greater family focus of female legislators. He
concludes with what makes men feel threatened by some women and
what both sexes can do to reduce that feeling.
Chapter Eight: Why Women and Men Approach Work
So Differently, Yet So Similarly
When women and men can be their own bosses,
they are free to approach work by priorities that are theirs,
thus a look at the differences between men-owned and women-owned
businesses creates a purer picture of their priorities. For starters,
female-owned businesses earn only 47% of what male-owned businesses
earn. Why? The twenty-five male-female differences are not tempered
by either corporate requirements or corporate egalitarianism.
Pay is measured by raw productivity. But also we see how more
subtle influences of female and male socialization, such as men’s
tendency to pay for women, may influence men’s greater willingness
to pay for employees. This chapter introduces “focused responsibilities”
and “divided responsibilities” and explains how women’s
tendency toward divided responsibilities will be especially viable
in the 21st Century.
Chapter Nine: The Myths that Prevent Women
from Knowing Why Men Earn More When women
believe they earn less than men for the same work, it makes sense
for their husbands to work and women to care for the children,
and thus we create a self-fulfilling prophecy of women leaving
the workplace, justifying lower pay. The belief also spawns many
corollary myths that breed contempt for men, such as “women
are collaborative, men are hierarhical,” or “women
make better managers.” Dr. Farrell shows how each of these
beliefs are not only myths, but hurts women’s careers, poisons
love and divides families. Other than that, they’re great!
Chapter Ten: Discrimination Against Women
Does this mean there’s no discrimination
against women? No. There is. Dr. Farrell demonstrates the subtle
ways in which, when a mother works, we unwittingly “guilt
trip da mama;” he explains to men the unconscious mechanisms
of the buddy-boy network, and explores how women’s mentorship
advantage is backfiring as today’s climate of women suing
men has turned men’s instinct to protect women into the
need to protect themselves. A chapter rich with solutions to these
discriminations.
Chapter 11: Discrimination In Favor of Women:
Why Women Are Now Paid More Than Men for the Same Work
If women are now paid more than men for the same
work, why is that? Dr. Farrell begins with the legal mechanisms
of discrimination in favor of women: the “affirmative action
tax” and “psychological affirmative action”
that together make it possible to pay a woman more even if she
produces less. Warren then looks at the social mechanisms—contrasting
“female comfort power” that works for women with the
fear of male sexuality that works against men; together, they
create the “caste system” of the touchable and untouchable
male. He concludes with some of the ways this discrimination in
favor of women forces men to develop skills to be paid equally,
which skills eventually lead men earning more (for different work).
Chapter 12: The Genetic Celebrity Pay Gap
When a woman’s genes offer her enough beauty
that men who know nothing about her except her beauty nevertheless
follow her—as we might follow a celebrity—Dr. Farrell
calls her a genetic celebrity. In this chapter, we discover the
“genetic celebrity pay gap”—how the man “earns”
his way to her attention by paying for dinners, drinks, dates
and diamonds; by creating career opportunities and sharing his
future earnings with her in marriage. We are introduced to “Genetic
Celebrity Hiring Discrimination” and “Access Discrimination”
as well as myriad forms of “invisible income” the
genetic celebrity generates, such as her power as a tip magnet.
The results? The man earns more money; the genetic celebrity often
has more money, has more time to spend it, and lives longer. But
all is not roses as the pedals of her genetic celebrity power
wilts...
Chapter 13. Some Nagging Questions....
This brief chapter deals with two nagging questions:
“When women enter men’s occupations, doesn’t
the pay go down?” and “Isn’t the issue more
than equal pay—isn’t it comparable worth?” In
a sense, the lessons of the entire book are the answer to both
questions, and Dr. Farrell concludes this chapter with a humorous
view of what comparable worth might look like were it proposed
by men.
Chapter 14. Conclusion
Why Men Earn More concludes by connecting the
dots between the goals it hopes it fulfilled and the changes that
we need to make if the future is to be better for both ourselves
and our children; between our monetary futures and our emotional
future; and between our personal futures and our future within
a global economy.
|
©2005 Warren Farrell, Ph.D
