What are some of the other important
differences in the
differences between male and female
earnings you make some very pointed
observations about the differences
and experience. Oh, well for one thing
women of a given age tend to have fewer
years of consecutive employment than men
of the same age. I mean, the most obvious
difference between men and women is that
women have babies and men don't, and
that's not a small thing, and it's not of small
importance otherwise the human race
would die out. It's one of the rare empirical
observations that I think is pretty ironclad; it's hard
to argue with that one. Yes, but
it's very different from
understanding a particular fact and
understanding the implications of the
fact. Someone pointed out, you know
Newton wasn't the first man who saw an apple fall. He was just the first man
who understood the implications of it.
It's a great point. So in the case of women, what I like is that you don't just make
that observation, that women have
different experience patterns, you show
that the gaps between male and female
earnings are much smaller when women
are quote, "more like men and their experience
patterns," correct? Oh, absolutely. In fact
there's really very little income
difference today between men and women
who are comparable, and of course the whole range of things that
matter, for example, education, meaning not
only the number of years but also the
fields of specialization, years of
consecutive employment, and many
women take out some years, after they have children, before they
return full-time to the labor force.
Well that has an impact. The choice of
fields matters also because if
women know that they're going to have
to stay out of the labor force a few
years then it matters whether you're an
occupation where you can stay out a few
years, come back in and resume or you're
in occupation where the occupation
itself is changing so profoundly and so
fast that when you come back five years
later you're at a huge
disadvantage, where there's been, for example
technological change or in the law where the
laws on taxes or whatever have changed tremendously
since the last time you practiced law and are going to keep on changing and so now
you've got to step in, catch up with
everything that happened during those
five years and then still keep up with the new changes that are  going on.
Military technology, computer technology and so
forth, all those things make make it
rational for women to pick an entirely
different mix of occupations than
those that men pick. My wife took time off
from work to be at home with our four
kids and is there an older there she's
starting to get back into the labor
force and she is a math teacher and
geometry and algebra haven't changed
much
that's right the last eight to ten years
although their fans and how they're
taught I have to say which she's gonna
have to reacquaint yourself with I
suspect she gets more and more involved
but presumably women who choose fields
that are more dynamic such as medicine
or the technological fields you
mentioned presumably they spend alone
they choose to spend less time out of
the labor force when they do have
children or they choose not to have
children that's right that's right but
the point you're making which i think is
the profound one is that what we observe
as some something that looks like
occupational segregation which has a
pejorative sound to it need not be part
of it could merely be the choices that
people make for really there's also the
question of hours of work as well and
the predictability of the work I missed
in the book
lawyers for example if Europe Europe
attorney for some major national or
international law firm
and this suddenly a multi-billion dollar
lawsuit bringing up when it one of the
branches you know five thousand miles
away and you are the expert on that
field there you have to go five thousand
miles away on short notice and stay
there until such time that that lawsuit
get settle if you if you're an attorney
who's defending someone who is about to
be executed a week from now you know and
and the judges allows you to have a
last-ditch meeting in three days to say
why he should stay the execution I mean
you you can go home at five o'clock you
know take the kids out playing soccer on
a weekend you gotta start suddenly
finding 16 hours a day or whatever
putting together the best case you
possibly can so if your child doesn't
get executed and so those are very tough
things to do
444 a mother who has children I have
some personal experience along these
lines and that I was single parent
between marriages and you know the
longest period between two of my books
occurred during that period on it was
five years between book because I add
all the things to do was a good
investment anyone but I didn't get you
closer to that Hasselblad I can see them
now that I have a Hasselblad debate what
about discrimination lot of people look
at the disparate outcomes for different
groups men and women blacks and whites
other comparisons and they conclude
discrimination is there anything to them
discrimination is one of a number of
factors which which can explain
differences in a particular case but of
course the case has to be the the
analysis has to be without particular
case you can't just make a blanket
assumption that that's what it is my
gosh what one of the things that really
annoys because he's black white
comparison and sometimes black white
Hispanic comparison
is that so often by I would say most of
the ones I've seen they believe out
asian-americans even when there are data
on asian-americans and we're from
wherever they're fighting that date on
blacks and whites and and and if you
include the date or asian-american would
really make the case collapsed like a
house of cards a lot of cases for
example there's been a lot of talk about
how blacks don't get approved for
conventional mortgage loan officers
whites blacks have to resort to for
prime loan more often than whites blacks
were more likely to be laid off during a
downturn in white that sounds very
persuasive until you throw in the date
on asian-americans whites get turned out
for conventional loans more off that
asian-americans of whites have to resort
to subprime loans more often than
asian-americans whites get laid off
during a downturn more off that
asian-americans now if you took
seriously the argument that use racial
disparities show discrimination you
would end up with the upsurge of
delusion that the white employers in the
white lenders are all discriminating
against white workers and Y consumers
but you can't just pick and choose when
you're gonna considered evidence
seriously and when you're not going to
consider it a lot of people attribute
the progress of of black Americans and
and women as well to various
antidiscrimination laws is that is that
a good idea is that true
day doesn't feel real history of the
economics if you if you trade with women
the period in which they were doing well
with it when i doing well most people
are unaware that women in the first
couple of decades of the 20th century or
doing much better
relatives have been than they were in
the middle of the 20th century and and
business no red mystery as to how that
came about that as women age of marriage
began coming down and they started
having children earlier at earlier ages
particularly the baby boom being a
climate
that obviously they weren't able to get
post-graduate education Holiday
education in many cases and therefore
they were not always go for higher level
jobs they held an earlier time so if you
compare a number of fields including
economics one person is that people were
women in 1930 as compared to nineteen
fifties it was more 1930 interest law
other fields and what well as they age
of marriage came down has had more
children they declined now the people
who are the other way
avoid all that but a simple practice of
storing their discussion in the 1960's
of the world were created in nineteen
sixties and then they show that women
rowers were actually women's dollar
rising around the middle of the nineteen
fifties the age of marriage to a rising
yen around that time and you can just
plug this monograph and you can see the
almost mirror images when you compare it
where the age of first marriage and the
level of women and professional
occupations and so as women began to
arise Rob 1972 and professional fields
they got back to where they had been in
1932 and then as the age of marriage
bureaus the unprecedented levels of 11
women didn't get married then you begin
to see women rise in these areas but has
little correlation with affirmative
action all with anti-discrimination laws
why should age of marriage be so
important
overgrowth age of marriage are usually
also ties in with the age at which women
start having children so be it might be
better to have children young and then
you could have an interrupted period of
investment in human capital but it's not
the case with the different women make
different decisions on this was the
point is that they that they married
lady in the child-bearing age have a
profound effect on if you look at those
women who never married and that's
that's where it's that's one affected by
the academic world they were doing
better than
of thirty years ago and what about for
the racial differences a lot of people
attribute the progress of black
Americans to Civil Rights Act other end
and I discrimination laws where you can
make that case when it comes to elected
officials that after the voting rights
act of 1965 that number of black elected
officials were just skyrocketed but when
you move into other things in common
occupations the proposed that the
percentage of blacks who were in poverty
declined from 87% back in nineteen 4232
a 47% 9060 and I was before there are
any sore right laws of any consequence
of a long-term trend blacks and poverty
was down and continue through the
fifties it was an accelerated at all and
after a 1979 1978 was an accelerated
even worth talking about
so none of those things really is
correlated with happy with how blacks
who either come out of poverty or
freedom into professional occupations
and so on and i think that that
flattening of the poverty rate has been
falling for it really cuts across all
groups and it's overwhelmingly driven by
family structure all groups actually
look across all races poverty rates fall
through the seventies and eighties and
nineties if you hold family structure
constants revealing look at a particular
kind of family a parent to parent
families it starts at very low the
poverty rate but it continues to fall
all through that that there's thirty
years 78 the nineties if you look at
single women it continues to fall in
love with children continues to fall the
problem is is that proportion of all
families that are single women with kids
explodes over that period and as a
result the overall poverty rate
basically stays flat even though every
single type of family is getting less
poor it's very it's a paradox
statistically for people but
I suspect that's part of what's going on
in the black numbers yes the the the the
fear that struck me and doing the
research was that poverty rate for black
married couple was it has been in single
digits 1994 and Sally the island of the
pipeline priorities the Eurasia really
falls apart because the people don't
change their race when they get married
and yet if you look at blacks lol that
was a single mother all of that the
poverty rate is just huge yeah that's a
big handicap any thoughts on water
quality is so appealing to human beings
especially the measure the quality that
we often used to assess the fairness of
capitalism say your particular economic
system people look at measured outcomes
as you point out with all of these laws
where we would expect equality and yet
they judge it accordingly any thoughts
on why that is I have a good feeling
about that is far official in this
intellectuals have been terribly
preoccupied with us for a very long time
and so far as they influence through the
media through educational institutions
how other people think about they they
keep pushing even many of the advocates
of equality of taking over our age 20
and the thirties lament that the general
public didn't seem to be nearly as
concerned about this is they do they are
the real question is why intellectual so
concerned about this
thoughts on that I think that again it
ties in with their notion that they
ought to be deciding what society is
like and things that they don't
understand shouldn't be allowed to to to
remain it's like the idea of other
corporate feels many many intellectuals
you know I don't see why acquire
corporate executives should be making so
much money
well I don't see how why anybody should
be making the money later why in the
world would you imagine that you should
be aware of why corporate executives
money on why should be any of your
business I think it was I think it was
hired who said I want to come back and
ask about higher later but I just as an
aside I think it was hired to explain
his explanation for why intellectuals
were more likely to be socialist and
capitalist was apparently
self-interested wanna go for those of us
who are who are in favor of more
decentralized decision-making rather
than centralized decision-making you
have this embarrassment that it seems
like the people at the high IQ tend to
be the the communists and socialists the
so-called social democrats are people
want more government and I accelerations
will have more power in those systems
for course their favor of it so it was a
early public choice argument which I was
found comforting yes I thought I think
it's actually true
