Over the last few years women’s pay in the workplace compared to that of men has been cited as typically only 77¢ for every man’s dollar.  There exists a small minority who have cast doubt on the accuracy of this figure, objecting to the statistical methods used to arrive at it. As a number that has been used to inform national policy in the western world’s most powerful economy, I fully expected further research to debunk the objections made. However, I was profoundly shocked to discover the quoted 77¢ figure is not only inaccurate, but wildly misleading.  Following exhaustive research into this scandal, I discovered the astounding truth:

 

We start with the ‘Male Dollar’: 100¢

Research has shown that women will speak around 20,000 words per day compared to a typical man’s 7,000. Relevant to this is the content of speech, and studies have shown that women’s speech contains substantially more gossip and complaining than that of men, i.e. non-productive communication. Any time spent not directly focussed on production is time wasted, and should not be paid for. This is true equality: parity of effort and results. Given on-the-job communication directly relates to productivity and, therefore, is the only communication deserving of remuneration, we quickly see their inefficient communication styles reduce women’s relative economic worth to 35¢ for every man’s dollar.

It should be obvious that the type of work undertaken should be considered and, again, here we can see profound differences between the sexes. For physical jobs, where lifting objects down from shelves and others onto high places is a component, height becomes a significant factor. We will take statistics from the USA (the home of MacDonalds’, and so the most normative culture in the world) where average male height is 178.2cm vs 164.1cm for females. This equates to a Vertical Productivity Loss (VPL) of 7.9%, further reducing women’s relative gainful pay to 32.2¢.

When factoring in the ability to lift and carry loads, (averaging upper and lower body strength) we find that women, on average only 59% as strong as men, would be expected to be paid  around 19¢ vs every man’s dollar for physical labour.

Finally, we move onto the most obvious factor: sick leave. Women have periods, men don’t, so women take more sick leave than men: 42% more, in fact. This leaves us with rather damning figures — based on actual Physical Resilience and Blood Loss Indices  (PRBLI) —  not of a pay-for-productivity gap but a women’s work deficit.

 

We end with ‘Female Cents’: In real terms womens’ work is worth only 14.7¢ per male dollar for non-physical work and 7.9¢ per male dollar for physical work.

That there are such clear discrepancies in worker productivity between the sexes, rather than rounding up women’s average 77¢ on the dollar to match an average man’s one, we should seriously consider revising women’s pay downward significantly to accurately reflect their workplace performance. For the economic health of western civilisation,’Work done and a dollar won!’ needs to be our new cultural mantra. There needs to be radical change if we genuinely care about the future prosperity of our children. They should not be required to shoulder the burden of the Gender Work Deficit.

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