Gender pay gap
This has been raised once again and I feel it's time to have a close look at what exactly constitutes a gender pay gap. We keep getting percentages thrown up which claim that women are paid less than men and the inference is that women are being discriminated against.
The first thing that I feel is necessary is to examine the method of calculating the gender pay gap. Before any calculations are made, public servants are excluded. Why 16% of the workforce are excluded is not explained. Next, casual workers are included with their income being extrapolated to create a weekly rate. Then all of the income earned by women and men are averaged from tax returns and that shows that women earn less than men. I note that averaging a weekly wage from annual tax returns is considered illegal when used to recover overpayments for welfare recipients.
I see flaws in this method. Casual workers are generally low paid workers so including them as fulltime workers must skew the final result. 72.7% of women work in clerical and administrative, 70.3% of women work in community and personal service. 89.3% of men work as machinery operators and drivers, 83.8% of men are technicians and trades workers. All of these occupations are necessary and worthy but there has always been a disparity between clerks and tradespeople.
The only true test of a gender pay gap is when each and every occupation is comprised of 50% male and 50% female. The ACTU has expressed a desire to have a 50/50 participation in the trades but refuses to look at nursing (92.1% female) and teaching (73.8% female). Obviously we can never expect a 50/50 equality in occupations so why do we accept that there is a gender pay gap when the method of calculation is not comparing like with like.
The number of men in teaching has gone down over the last decade or so. Not because men have less desire to go into teaching, but because men don't stand a chance against vexatious claims of inappropriate behaviour. Likewise with kindy teachers, child care and nursing. Men simply cannot risk their reputations on spurious allegations that don't even need to be proven. After all women/girls must be believed unconditionally regardless of truth or circumstances - right!
And before the haters start, no I am not defending real sex offenders or child abusers. But those labels do NOT belong on the vast majority of men. It is disgraceful that men have to be very careful in all situations for no other reason than they identify as male.
And they are further persecuted because they have more 'super' than women or earn more albeit in completely different occupations. I am sick of hearing how hard done by women are. For the last 20 years at least girls have had far more advantages in education than boys. So much so girls do better in school and outnumber boys in tertiary education. If these well-educated women cannot negotiate their own salaries maybe they shouldn't be in those jobs. And if they are not in a position to negotiate it's because they are on an industry reward and those are not gender-based! They are set by the UNIONS!