The Disparity between Men & Women at Work

[Jayce]

That's funny Jayce.  My sister was a team truck driver and now drives a school bus.  My friend (a woman) works for the phone company and is doing pole climbing training next week so I helped her pick out steel toed boots last night.

There are exceptions to every rule but come on, honestly what's the percentage? It's very low. My brother just started working for edison, yes there's a few women but uh not a large number % wise at all.

From my experience, I have had many many employees over the years.  I have had good and bad from both sexes.  I have also realized that pregnancy leave is no big deal in the long run. 

It is a big deal because in the mindset of a business owner who would you employ and pay more? A single guy that will stay late, work weekends, smooze clients? Or someone that is married, has kids and is always taking time off when they get sick. Late to work frequently for child care/sick issues (happens here all the time with multiple people in my dept btw and company wide it's much larger) not willing to stay late (have to pick up kid(s) from school/daycare), not willing to come in on weekends as much etc (wow that's a run on sentence).

You see my point though, yes there are exceptions to EVERY rule and everybody's personal experience is different but by and large that's why salary differences exist. In a company like the one where I work pay is equal.
Depending on your position and what you do.

[CC]

I agree Jayce.  There are exceptions.  However, the statistics show that women work harder.  Now there may be some standard deviation, but overall, this has been the trend for many years despite the personal feelings of posters on this board.

[Phil Ellis]

Can you give some examples and statistics to support your statement or is that just a personal opinion?  Showing more pructivity in certain fields may support that they are worker smarter and not harder than men.  Some people can get done in 8 hours what other take ten.  I would not conclude that the ten hour worker works any harder.  If productivity is the same, then I would suggest that the 8 hour worker just works smarter.

[LivingntheSCV]

I can only tell you CC that at my firm, women lawyers, accountants and sales people make the same as their male peers.

I think the real issue is that female careers typically paid less than male careers.  Thus you would have teachers (a "female" job) paying less than a janitor (a "male" job).  Similarly the enormous pay gap between nurses ("female") and doctors ("male").

I think over time that's eroding as jobs are no longer viewed as the province of one sex.  But unfortunately it will take a long time for there to be parity in some of the fields as no one's going to jump the "male" job down 30% or the "female" job up 40%.

[Phil Ellis]

Living, I think that you are on the right track, but I think that this shift is going faster than you might see.  I still read about retiring lawyers who were the first woman at their law school, at their firm, etc., but my law school class in the late 70's was more than 50% women.  So absent women who may have left the practice of law for whatever reason, all but the more senior (in age) ranks should be closing in on 50%.