Tuesday, April 19, 2005
Women, Work and Wages by Hans F. Sennholz
Women, Work and Wages by Hans F. Sennholz
Sennholz writes some standard economic arguments for the income differential between men and women and on the reasons why affirmative action causes unemployment. It is as convincing as it has been in the past to me, but, it seems to be cavalier to dismiss the possibility that bias accentuates the gap. Why, I wonder, can't the arguments continue to be true that refute the benevolence of legal actions that tend to cause unemployment, even as the presence of bias makes for a tragic situation in which women earn less than their marginal productivity. Granted, of course, the argument that competition serves to bid up labor to its marginal productivity; but does this account for a possible society-wide bias against women, wherein no or few employers are willing to overcome their bias in favor of the profits that come from the mutual benefits of exchange of labor for wages in the bidding up of factor prices toward their marginal productivity?
I feel stupid, and contagious.
Link
Sennholz writes some standard economic arguments for the income differential between men and women and on the reasons why affirmative action causes unemployment. It is as convincing as it has been in the past to me, but, it seems to be cavalier to dismiss the possibility that bias accentuates the gap. Why, I wonder, can't the arguments continue to be true that refute the benevolence of legal actions that tend to cause unemployment, even as the presence of bias makes for a tragic situation in which women earn less than their marginal productivity. Granted, of course, the argument that competition serves to bid up labor to its marginal productivity; but does this account for a possible society-wide bias against women, wherein no or few employers are willing to overcome their bias in favor of the profits that come from the mutual benefits of exchange of labor for wages in the bidding up of factor prices toward their marginal productivity?
I feel stupid, and contagious.
Comments:
Sennholz wants to rest an awful lot on the opportunites for professional advancement that are missed during pregnancy ("nursing" is not an issue, as technology has long ago obviated the need for the mother to be physically present during a child's nursing). If the average woman has 2.3 children, that's a scant 20 or so months of non-advancement, and they are likely not contiguous.
Whatever "natural" income disparity is implied by this is certainly orders of magnitudes smaller than what we observe; I wouldn't expect the frightening vision of all those unemployable women to kick in until we've gotten a lot closer to eliminating employer sex bias.
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Whatever "natural" income disparity is implied by this is certainly orders of magnitudes smaller than what we observe; I wouldn't expect the frightening vision of all those unemployable women to kick in until we've gotten a lot closer to eliminating employer sex bias.
