I submit that the gender pay-gap, even if it exists, is either (a) not a problem in any sense, or (b) a problem in an incidental sense, that may be resolved by addressing a yet more pressing problem related to inadequate pay. Therefore, we should not consider the gender pay-gap as a problem to be solved in any sense. — SynodOfDordt
I do not see how you might become the victim of an injustice if you should later discover that our employer has decided to engage in an arbitrary and unprofitable act of charity towards me, your colleague. — SynodOfDordt
First of all the (b) is the case, which is a statistically verifiable fact. In that the women are on average paid less than men the problem is, of course, that the women are paid too little - something which you used quite a bit of text to state (which is not a problem as much as it is rather amusing). The problem is caused by inequality, which is a problem in itself, although not in this context, where it merely causes the problem. — BlueBanana
But second, you've at least partly misunderstood the pay-gap. It's also, you see, a fact that pay-gap is almost non-existent when experience, career, profession, work-quality, etc. are considered. The issue is the culture and the gender roles defined by it that push men and women to different careers with different wages (maybe coincidentally, perhaps because the patriarchal society prefers the male-dominated careers). For example, teachers, most of whom are female, are underpaid considering the importance and influence of their jobs. — BlueBanana
No, that the gender-pay gap does exist is not contentious. It's more or less accepted that it does. What is controversial is why the gender-pay gap exist. Is it because simply because women freely choose less lucrative careers? Or is it because of sexism within higher paying industries (e.g. STEM) and "boy's club" mentality? Is it because women naturally tend to sacrifice careers over family? Or is it because there is societal pressure for women to choose the latter over the former? — Maw
Your arguments ignore the central issue, which is that I was offered a contract with a lower wage because I'm a woman. — Michael
Discrimination based on sex is illegal and unethical. Illegal and unethical practices ought be abolished and, where possible, rectified. — Michael
Although there may be problems regarding how to go about rectifying existing contracts – do we raise women's wages, lower men's wages, or both? – at the very least it should be ensured that in the future the sex of the applicant does not determine the wage they're offered. — Michael
This is a red herring. In the case of there being a gender pay gap, the decision to pay me less (or you more) isn't arbitrary. The decision was made on the basis of our sex. It isn't just a case of one person who happens to be a man being paid more than another person who happens to be a woman but a case of women systematically being paid less than men (all other things being equal, as your own argument assumes). That's an injustice. — Michael
I ignored the question of sexist employers for the simple reason that it is irrelevant to the philosophical substance of the argument I presented. I presented three variations of the one thought experiment, which, I believe, collectively covered every permutation of events as regards pay-disparity situations. In each case, you may insert the additional stipulation that the reason for the disparity in the first place was due to a sexist prejudice on the part of the employer, but it does not make any philosophical difference to the argument. — SynodOfDordt
It does make a difference. The ethical concern isn't simply with paying one person more than another for the same job but with paying one person more than another for the same job because of their sex. It's the sexual discrimination that's the injustice, not the inequality, which is why your argument is a red herring. — Michael
then the fact of inequality is entirely a secondary issue, one that is resolved incidentally by tackling the more pressing problem of inadequate pay. — SynodOfDordt
I agree in principle but the choice of words seems perplexing. How can the cause of something be secondary to that something it causes? — BlueBanana
Granting that your earning an inadequate wage, where I am receiving my due, is an injustice, what is the nature of this injustice? It seems to me that the problem here is not a problem of inequality first and foremost. This may be seen clearly enough. We established earlier that rectifying a disparity in pay does not necessarily achieve a positive outcome. Indeed, to bring my adequate wage down to the level of your inadequate wage serves only to make the both of us underpaid. But we may go further still. Suppose that I, and all other employees, are made unemployed, so that you are the only employee left. Such would remove the inequality problem entirely. You now have no colleagues relative to whom you are unequal. And yet the principle problem – the fact that you are being underpaid – remains.
Therefore, even granting that there is an injustice here, the injustice is not one of inequality first and foremost. The principle injustice is not the fact that you are being paid less than I, but the fact that you are being less than what you are worth in yourself. Supposing that this is rectified, that your wage is improved, by whatever means, so that your pay is brought up to what it should be, the inequality problem is solved incidentally. The gap between your inadequate wage and my adequate wage is closed, not by addressing the inequality directly, but by addressing the fact that you are not being paid as much as you can reasonably demand in the market, relative to the value of your labour. As such, even conceding the fact that the inequality here is indeed a problem, we may see that it is a problem in a secondary, incidental sense, and one that is solved by addressing the more pressing problem. — SynodOfDordt
Let's get practical, by returning to a specific example. In the first example I presented, equality was achieved by lowering my wage to equal yours. In so doing, this created a situation which was, on the whole, worse. Therefore, achieving equality by any means necessary is not desirable. That is the argument. Now suppose that, in addition to the terms of this thought experiment, we make the additional stipulation that the employer is sexist, and that it is his prejudice which is responsible for the disparity in the first place. Is this ethically significant? Sure. But the conclusion remains unaltered. It is still the case that reducing my wage to equal yours generates a negative net effect. I can give similar explanations for each of the other thought experiments I provided in my original post.
What you need to do here, it seems, is to take one of my thought experiments, and modify it with the stipulation that the employer in question is acting out of a sexist impulse. Then you must show that this alters the conclusion, and explain how it does so. — SynodOfDordt
I have argued that nothing should be done about it by force of law.
Well, I did not make any statement about the causal relationship between the fact of inadequate pay and the fact of pay inequality. But, supposing that that causal relationship is as you describe, I use the word "secondary" in the sense of importance. — SynodOfDordt
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