If women are supposed to be less rational and more emotional at the beginning of our menstrual cycle when the female hormone is at its lowest level, then why isn't it logical to say that, in those few days, women behave the most like the way men behave all month long?
Gloria Steinem
Former President of Harvard University Larry Summers created controversy in 2005 when in a speech he suggested that the under-representation of women in science and engineering could be due to a "different availability of aptitude at the high end," and less to patterns of discrimination and socialization. The subsequent uproar forced his eventual resignation.
New Zealand is having a superficially similar outcry over comments made by EMA CEO Alasdair Thompson. Mr Thompson’s contention is that the pay equity gap between men and women is due to differing patterns of sick leave: "Look at who takes the most sick leave," said Mr Thompson. "Because you know, once a month they have a sick problem. Not all women, but some do. They have children and they have to take leave off."
Before looking at the implications of Mr Thompson’s statement, let’s see if there is any evidential support for his assertion.
The evidence
We know there is a pay equity gap. Pay equity is a different concept to pay equality, which is the requirement to pay equal pay for equal work regardless of gender, and is a legal requirement under the Equal Pay Act 1972. Prior to April 1973 it was quite legal to pay a woman less for doing the same job as a man. Despite this requirement, women’s average earnings in NZ in 2009 were still around 12% less than men’s average earnings. Effectively women’s work is valued less than men’s i.e. there is gender based inequity in pay rates.
There is evidence that women on average take more sick leave than men. Although there are no NZ wide statistics, there are some from the public service, which the PSA has obtained through an Official Information Act request. On average women took 8.4 days per annum and men 6.8, but these figures don’t show how much overlap there is between the two populations.
Brenda Pilott from the PSA stated of the difference: “Given that the majority of responsibility for children and other family members falls on women, I’m surprised there isn’t a larger difference in the amount of days taken”. So the PSA agree with the last part of Mr Thomson’s statement “They have children and they have to take leave off".
He also stated that women take more sick leave because of “monthly sick problems”. The National Business Review has cited a study published in American Economic Journal: Applied Economics in support: “Using the personnel dataset of a large Italian bank, we show that the probability of an absence due to illness increases for females, relative to males, approximately 28 days after a previous illness. This difference disappears for workers age 45 or older. We interpret this as evidence that the menstrual cycle raises female absenteeism. Absences with a 28-day cycle explain a significant fraction of the male-female absenteeism gap.”
Non cause for cause
Cartoon from NZ Herald
Although he may have been factually correct about the difference in leave use he went further, drawing a causal relationship between these facts and pay equity;
Menstruation & family commitments cause higher sick leave use causes lower productivity causing lower average rates of pay.
Has he fallen into a logical fallacy non causa pro causa?
The American Economic Journal study tried to model this and calculated that the earning cost associated with menstruation to women accounted for just under 12% of the earning gap between men and women. This is a single study, and the result was arrived at by modelling – so it isn’t a compelling conclusion. It provides both some support for Mr Thompson’s statement and undermines it, because it states menstruation only accounts for 12% of the difference, not 100% of it. At the very least his statement is a causal oversimplification, ascribing a single cause rather than taking account of all contributing factors. And that’s just one of its many problems.
By focussing on an inalterable physical characteristic as the cause, rather than addressable social factors, Mr Thompson – in the words of Mai Chen in the New Zealand Herald “tacitly endorsed paying women less because they, unlike men, have periods which makes them less productive.”
The Department of Labour suggests the three main mechanisms for the gender pay difference are;
- the jobs women do; New Zealand has a relatively high level of concentration of women workers in female-dominated occupations, with 47% of women working in occupations where 80% or more of employees are women. Women are more likely to be found at the bottom or middle of an organisation and find it difficult to move up into higher-level positions.
- the value put on women’s jobs; the skills and knowledge that women bring to the work in female-dominated occupations may not be recognised and therefore not valued appropriately in comparison to other jobs i.e. discriminatory stereotyping.
- the work arrangements and caring responsibilities; more women than men combine primary care giving with part-time work. This limits women’s access to better paying jobs and positions, since part-time work is more readily available in lower-paid occupations and positions.
There are studies showing evidence for unconscious discriminatory stereotyping – for example white male doctors being rated as more approachable and competent than equally-well performing women or minority doctors.
Another issue is his choice of words in describing menstruation as a monthly sick problem. The daughter of Gichin Funakoshi, the founder of Karate in Japan, described how as a traditional gentleman her father refused to say certain words (socks being the example used). Let’s charitably assume that Mr Thompson is of a similar ilk. The euphemism he has chosen though is inappropriate; while symptoms such as nausea or queasiness can technically be described as sickness, the word also carries a connotation of disease and an undesirable or disordered condition. This concept can be traced back to a number of primitive cultural traditions and is prevalent in Christian writing and texts from other religions, and it’s unfortunate that it continues to be perpetuated: naturalia non sunt turpia - what is natural is not dirty.
In her article Ms Chen focuses on what is important in an employee; to look at their ability, work ethic, and other productivity factors as an individual, and ignore irrelevant group stereotyping that may lead to the devaluing of otherwise superior employees - the antithesis of the generalisation inherent in Mr Thompson’s statement.
In conclusion
There is evidence that women take more sick leave than men, and weaker evidence that some of that is due to menstruation. If you accept that second piece of evidence, then Mr Thompson is guilty of a single cause fallacy, oversimplifying an issue that has complex causes. If you don’t accept that evidence then he has committed a false cause fallacy – assuming correlation implies causation.
Implying that because women have more sick leave they have lower productivity is a false inference, as there is no evidence that their productivity is lower, and if it is in specific cases then to assume it is for all women is a faulty generalisation leading to stereotyping. In this instance is his thinking lazy, confused or devious?
Focusing on menstruation, a natural, gender specific phenomenon rather than social causes is an argument by innuendo – implying there is nothing we can do about the gender wage gap. There is plenty of evidence that the gap has at least some cause in discriminatory stereotyping and in social norms.
His use of words with a negative connotation shows his prejudice, not only his use of the term “sick problem”, but his characterisation of time off to look after dependents as “they have children and they have to take leave off". Most people in New Zealand would consider putting family before work a good and socially acceptable thing, as is perpetuating the species through having children. Mr Thompson however implies at best it’s a bit of an inconvenience and at worst quite undesirable.
What makes Mr Thompson’s statements damaging is that the weight of the statement is proportional to the influence of the speaker; and as CEO of the EMA he is perceived as having influence with employers – the people who currently pay a premium for male employees. Whatever the outcome from his statements, one thing we can say for certain – logic and reason were the losers on the day.
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