BYU grads number 1 in gender wage gap

[VideoGameJunkie]

That can't be good for making women in the church feel equal to men. Although women having children instead of working does seem like the biggest factor.BYU-I, Utah Valley University, Utah State, the University of Utah and Weber State come in at 2nd, 4th, 5th, 6th, and 7th, respectively. http://universe.byu.edu/2016/01/05/byu-grads-no-1-in-gender-wage-gap/

The College Scorecard report by the U.S. Department of Education found BYU graduates’ earnings beat out the national mean. However, BYU also tops the chart for the largest gender wage gap, according to TIME Magazine’s breakdown of the College Scorecard report.

According to the TIME report, men on average earn nearly 30 percent more than women 10 years after entering college. The average income for women nationally is $39,157 compared to $50,033 for men, according to The Catalyst. However, BYU is an outlier to the average. BYU men make almost three times more than BYU women 10 years after entering college; the average for BYU women is $29,500 and the average for BYU men is $84,500.

BYU spokesman Todd Hollingshead said although BYU graduates may have the largest gender wage gap, the university “supports all students, both men and women without discrimination, in whatever field they choose.”

“The students make their own career choices after graduation and those greatly affect the statistics of income,” Hollingshead said. “But we encourage our students to be successful and that includes in career and in family.”

Religious affiliation is the main contributing factor to the gender wage gap among graduates at all universities according to the TIME report. However, the gap widens at colleges with a high Mormon population. BYU sits in the No. 1 spot nationally, and BYU-Idaho follows in a close second.

Although Utah Valley University, Utah State, the University of Utah and Weber State do not have an official Mormon affiliation, these colleges also come in at fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh for widest gender wage gap 10 years after entering college.

Consequently, the Beehive State has the fourth largest gender wage gap in the U.S., and the wage in Utah is closing in at the second slowest rate according a report conducted by the advocacy group Voices for Utah Children.

“The income gender gap is a very real problem here in Utah,” Director of Voices for Utah Children Matthew Weinstein said. “We found that the wage gap between men and women in Utah is projected to close in 2087, 40 years behind the nation.”

Nationally, women who worked full-time in 2014 were typically paid 79 cents for every dollar paid to their male counterparts. However in Utah, women are only paid 70 cents for every dollar, according to the Voices of Utah Children report.

A Stanford University study suggests women receive lower compensation because of discrimination, job fields, lack of union status and less work experience and salary negotiation.

Women in Utah — a state whose population is 58 percent Mormon, according to the Pew Research Center — may have reasons of their own.

“Mormons marry younger and have more children than people elsewhere in the country,” said Tim Heaton, co-author of the sociological essay book “Contemporary Mormonism: Social Science Perspectives.” “When mothers, Mormons are less likely to have full-time employment outside of the home … this puts additional pressure on the husbands to be breadwinners.”

Another reason for income gender inequality in Utah is that a high number of women are willing to give up their education to raise their children, according to Susan Madsen, UVU’s Woodbury Professor of Leadership & Ethics.

Utah universities have an enrollment of 51 percent male and 49 female, but only 30.3 percent of Utah women age 25 to 64 complete a bachelor’s degree or more, compared to 32.7 percent of women nationally, according to the Voices of Utah Children report. Meanwhile, 32.5 percent of Utah men age 25 to 64 earned a bachelor’s degree and more, compared to 29.5 percent of men nationally.

“LDS doctrine supports women being educated, but some LDS women feel pressure culturally to give up or sacrifice college once they have children,” Madsen said.

These cultural pressures affect Utah’s female graduation rates. Utah has the largest gap in the nation between male and female college graduation rates, according to the Utah Department of Workforce Services.

Another reason for the gap is because of the different degrees Utah men and women choose.

“Women in Utah colleges are much more likely to study things such as education, social work and nursing, while men in Utah get degrees more in business, STEM and medical tracks,” Madsen said. “The degrees women choose just do not pay as much.”

According to Madsen, it is also important to Mormon women to have a flexible work schedule so they can balance work and family.

“I would take a pay cut so that I could go to my daughter’s ballet performance or see her Young Women’s recognition,” said BYU alumni and mother Marilyn Kiene, who is a working ballet and piano teacher.

Weinstein and Curtis Miller, an economics student from the University of Utah, authored the Voices for Utah Children’s report about the gender income inequality. In their report, they concluded that only a quarter of the gender wage gap was because of factors such as differences in education and that the majority of the gap was due to discrimination in the workplace.

According to Weinstein, this discrimination is caused by “unconscious bias against women and mothers in the workplace.” Current theory on unconscious bias holds that everyone, even the women themselves, may exhibit discriminatory behavior. Weinstein concluded that this bias may even steer women to lower-paying, traditionally female employment.

Weinstein and Miller proposed solutions to diminish the gap in their report. These solutions included the promotion of higher education and encouragement of nontraditional fields of study for women, reducing the cost of childcare, raising take-home pay for low-income Utahns and increasing public awareness of the earnings gap.

“If we close the gap then it will help Utah,” Miller said. “Our research shows that if Utah’s wage gap were no larger than the nation’s, there would be additional $1.6 billion in personal income added to Utah’s economy each year.”

A large part of Miller and Weinstein’s report discussed discrimination against women in the workplace, and they, along with Madsen, believe this is where women could make the most improvements.

“We need to help women understand their choices and their worth,” Madsen said. “Men are four times more likely to negotiate their salary and campaign for leadership positions, so we need to provide women with more leadership development and teach them negotiation.”

Madsen suggested the gender wage gap may be traced back to the upbringing of boys and girls, which needs to be remedied to develop more women leaders.

“Boys in school get in trouble and criticized, which teaches them to stand up for themselves. On the other hand, girls are praised for being quiet and raising their hands,” Madsen said. “Women, globally, just need better practices to teach them to be strong and to be leaders.”

- See more at: http://universe.byu.edu/2016/01/05/byu-grads-no-1-in-gender-wage-gap/#sthash.v0zr040E.dpuf

Edited January 6, 2016 by VideoGameJunkie

[canard78]

"That can't be good for making women in the church feel equal to men. Although women having children instead of working does seem like the biggest factor."

You answered your own criticism. This is a nonsense. The wage gap has nothing to do with being a BYU grad. Correlation is not causality. 

[Calm]

If someone has the time, it would be interesting to see the Weinstein and Miller report and to have someone experienced in research and statistical analysis (cough...canard...cough) look at it to see if they sucessfully eliminate childcare as a factor as it appears they are claiming.  Got to go hit the treadmill before it gets too late.  New year's resolution (actually I made it back in Sept but decent access to the treadmill just became available).

[strappinglad]

Yes, it is important that children be turned over to nannies or daycare workers , or the State to raise and nurture and indoctrinate. That way the State can benefit from the added income and taxes so as to have the resources to address the problems that come because of scattered and rootless families. 

And ,as it happens,the way boys are raised in school today is to be drugged into quiet submission. Heaven forbid they roughhouse and play in the dirt. 

This article continues the narrative that women are too weak and confused to make progress. Instead they need a constant guiding hand of society and particularly government to help them achieve. It never occurs to these authors that many if not most women are doing want they want to do or feel that they should do. It also never occurs to these authors that men are not necessarily thrilled to go into the mines or office cubicles or factories every day , but do so to feed themselves and their families because that is of great importance to them. 

[smac97]

I just celebrated by 19th anniversary in December.  I met my wife at BYU, and she had 2 years to go when we married.  By the time baby no. 1 came around she was one year from graduation, at which point she told me she did not want to go back to school, as she could not bear the prospect of leaving our son for an entire year to be raised in a daycare while she finished school.  I counseled with her quite a bit on this point, as I felt very strongly that she needed to finish her degree.  After much discussion, prayer, etc., and after I promised to find a night job so that I could be at home caring for our son during the day while she finished her degree, she relented.

That year was the hardest thing I have ever done.  Harder than serving in the Army.  Harder than serving mission in Taiwan.  Harder than studying for the LSAT or attending law school or taking the bar exam.  Harder than anything I have done in more than a decade as an attorney.  It was physically and emotionally the most exhausting year of my life.  I don't remember very much of it.  But my wife finished her degree (which is what I wanted), and our son was raised in our home with ample help from family and kind neighbors (which is what my wife wanted), so it was a win-win decision.

Now, many years later, my wife and I have six children.  My wife has contributed a grand total of $0.00 income to our home since the birth of our first child.  I have been the sole breadwinner for our family the entire time.  I can attest to effect this has had on me, which is to be much more ambitious and hard-working than I probably would have been had I not been married, or if my wife had been contributing to the family income.  Knowing that breadwinning is my responsibility (at least while we are raising kids) has materially affected the career decisions I have made, including going to law school and working at a job that is stressful but pays fairly well.

I don't think I'm in a unique situation.  I know plenty of couples where the wife is well-educated but who does not bring in an income, and where the husband is also well-educated, well-employed, and ambitious in terms of earning income, all related to his decision to get married and start a family and assume the role of sole (or primary) breadwinner.  Put another way, the "Mormon Effect" can drastically reduce a married woman's income, while simultaneously spurring and increasing a married man's income.  And if this Effect is concentrated and manifested in heavily LDS areas in and around Utah, then the cumulative effect of this Effect will become more apparent.

I am glad my wife obtained her degree.  She is now contemplating pursuing a master's degree in the near future.  My two daughters have both indicated that completing college is, for them, an assumed step in their future plans, even though both want to follow in their mother's footsteps and be at-home mothers to their children.

Thanks,

-Smac

Edited January 6, 2016 by smac97

[Calm]

We need to have studies that include quality of life of women, men and children in various stages of life correlated to income level.  What holds in some cases (lower income for women means more poverty for women and children) may not hold in other cases, such as LDS where higher levels of longterm marriage/stable family relationships are present.  Also studies of preferences and  happiness, are higher wage women happier than all other cases including stay at home moms who have some college and whose spouse brings in enough money for a comfortable lifestyle overall, for example.

Too many studies focus on certain aspects and then others use assumptions to tie the results to perceived quality of life when the jump may be inappropriate.

[Scott Lloyd]

If the "gender wage gap" is due to the fact that Mormon women are more apt to value the role of the stay-at-home mom, I don't think that's anything to be ashamed of.

 

[Zakuska]

My wife is a stay at home Mom.  As of late though we have a mound of medical bills staking up and she has been voicing the desire to go back to school and/or work to help diminish the stress I'm under.  Our youngest starts Jr. high next year.  She is a college grad but has been out of the work force so long that she cant get anything that pays better than $12 an hr.

Shes frustrated.

Edited January 6, 2016 by Zakuska

[VideoGameJunkie]

I've always worried that I won't have a job that pays enough if I have to be the sole breadwinner and my future wife is a stay at home mom. Finances can make a marriage shaky.

[Calm]

If you don't, chances are she won't be a stay at home mom.  But that doesn't mean either she or the family will be significantly harmed.  Depending on how well a couple works together, a family with a working mother can be more supportive of children than a stay at home mom (though I do think stay at home mom families can have an edge as long as the parents work together to make full use of the opportunities provided).

[carbon dioxide]

The gender wage gap is meaningless unless one is comparing the same job with the same experience.  If a lot of men go into higher paying professions then women, then of course men are going to make more money on average than women.  To expect all professions to pay the same wage is absurd. 

[carbon dioxide]

I make a lot more than my wife but often I would rather change places.  Going to work is not my favorite thing to do.  Taking a few years off to be an at home dad would be appealing to me. 

[Traela]

Oh, brother.  Let's look at the gap: the female BYU grads make approximately 25% less than average.  But the men make over 60% MORE than the average.  Just maybe, Mormons place a high priority on mothers staying at home, so both men and women work to make that happen.