- My use of “biological” is as it relates to the fact women in our species are the sex that bear children, and that there is a time limit for their fertility, not a position on the biological female being better suited or predispositioned for work, or certain types of work. The significant negative career/pay effects of having or (until recently) even being perceived as potentially having a child is well covered. Labor law has focused more on reducing the latter (e.g. it’s illegal to not hire marsha because she’s pregnant, or not promote Jenny because she has 3 kids) while the former has been nearly ignored until recently, but COVID lockdown showed companies can fix this if they wish. The host, Dubner has covered that significant early & mid-career movements often come at terrible time for women who have a child(ren, which completely alters their career & pay trajectories downward.
- The rapid change discussed in the (several year-old) source was due to optimism of change due to the massive improvement women saw in the first few years of the panedmic in pay and workforce participation in jobs and industries where they have traditionally been limited access to due to social norms or pressures of child rearing, workplace physical presence, and working hours. Essentially lockdown and the rapid change to remote work leveled the playing field for many mothers who otherwise might have had to take days off to care for their sick kids, attend events, miss worksite meetings or conferences, and not be able to work on their own schedule. Despite the data being fairly quickly and easily avaialble at the time of this incredible improvement in the “pay gap”, many companies completely ignored it and launched “Return to Office” programs of different sorts–which had the predictable effect of immediately reversing this trend in companies that removed remote work. There is still much more remote work, and hybrid work available than pre-pandemic and in some cases that will remain a permanent improvement in pay data between sexes. It’s challenging to level the euphoria of productivity around remote work by 2021 that was being reported and all it’s positive effects on pay equity and poverty yet the surprising launch of return to office initiatives will mute improvements discussed. The gap will be decreasing but probably not as much as they may have suspected when they had this conversation, though I’m still hopeful companies dig into the data and continue to understand how much talent they’re leaving on the sidelines by operating like it’s 1947.
- Another reason not mentioned that gives me optimism for future improvements in general perceptions of pay equity is that with reduced birthrates (it’s own discussion!), there will be the positive effect of improving even macro, almost useless-without-nuance statistics like $0.80/$1.00. If women are having far fewer children, they may be able to be less or even unaffected by the employment and social decisions, pressures and norms that have seen their careers not develop as they would have without a child(ren).