Is Obama wrong on the gender pay gap?

September 18, 3:28 PMJobs and Careers ExaminerKristina Cowan

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The gender pay gap enjoys plenty of press coverage, but much of the reporting looks the same, pointing to discrimination and glass ceilings. Sen. Barack Obama has discussed the gap in similar terms, and how he's in favor of quashing it. But perhaps we should be looking more carefully at the nuances behind the gap, and be more scrutinizing of  Obama's hiring practices among his own staff.

One of my sources, a supporter of Obama, says he thinks Obama is wrong on the issue of gender pay equity. Dr. Warren Farrell, author of "Why Men Earn More: The Startling Truth Behind The Pay Gap--And What Women Can Do About It," says Obama is barking up the wrong tree by underscoring how women make 77 cents to the man's dollar: " ... this inaccurate analysis doesn't help our daughters--it gives our daughters victim power but not genuine empowerment."

Farrell notes in a 2005 New York Times op-ed that the gender pay gap can't just be attributed to discrimination: "After years of research, I discovered 25 differences in the work-life choices of men and women. All 25 lead to men earning more money, but to women having better lives." Earning high pay involves tradeoffs, Farrell notes, such as working longer hours, relocating and traveling, taking technical jobs with less human interaction, and working jobs that are dirty or dangerous.

"Is the pay gap, then, about the different choices of men and women? Not quite," Farrell writes. "It's about parents' choices. Women who have never been married and are childless earn 117 percent of their childless male counterparts. (This comparison controls for education, hours worked and age.) Their decisions are more like married men's, and never-married men's decisions are more like women's in general (careers in arts, no weekend work, etc.)"

These are important points often absent from debates about the gender pay gap. Until interviewing Farrell earlier this year and perusing his book, I too blamed the gap on discrimination. But it's more complicated, and all those debating the issues, including both White House hopefuls, should consider the complexity. Repeatedly rehashing the discrimination argument isn't getting us very far.

Meanwhile, Deroy Murdock raises another interesting point about Obama's stance on gender pay equity. In a Seattle Post-Intelligencer column Murdock writes that, while Obama claims support for equal pay for women, his female staffers make an average of $45,152, while male staffers make $54,397. Part of the explanation could be that there aren't many women in the high-paid ranks of Obama's staff.

The situation is different with McCain's staffers. Murdock says McCain's female workers make an average of $55,878, while male workers earn $53,936. A possible explanation is that there are plenty of women in highly paid positions--of the 20 employees with the highest salaries, 13 are women.

"In short, these statistics suggest that John McCain is more than fair with his female employees, while Barack Obama -- at the expense of the women who work for him -- quietly perpetuates the very same pay-equity divide that he loudly denounces. Of all people, the Democratic standard bearer should understand that equal pay begins at home," Murdock says.

Murdock's argument is worth considering. If Obama is an ardent supporter of women in the workplace, he needs to give more of them a shot at his top-paying staff positions. He doesn't need to look far: Washington is crawling with extremely intelligent, skilled and upwardly mobile women.

• Obama only talks good game on gender pay equity (Seattle Post-Intelligencer)
• Exploiting the Gender Gap (The New York Times)
• 10 Careers Where Women Have the Pay Advantage (AOL)
• Working Girl: A History of Women in the Workplace (PayScale.com)
• Obama on women's issues (Obama-Biden campaign Web site)