pay discrepencies

I was reading this article about how college-educated black and Asian women in the US earn more than white women. The authors of the study said they weren't sure why this is so - there are various ideas, like that black women may work more than one job, or that a minority with a degree in a hihg-demand field may just well command more money. (If the second, cool!).

The thing that really was interesting to me is how much more a white guy with a bachelor's degree earns: $66,000 a year, compared to $37,800 for a white woman, and $41,100 for an black woman. I find it so intersting becausse I hear that women still make 75 cents for every dollar a man earns, but in this case it is even worse. White women earn 57 cents for every dollar a guy earns. Asian women earn 73 cents on the dollar. It is possible that white men work multiple jobs to keep bringing in the dough, or just all the other reasons you can think of.

I have read about this issue in the past, and one thing I think is particularly true that keeps women's pay lower is their general lack of negotiation when being made a job offer. Men are way way more likely to negotiate their salary, and women are not.

And I know about this from personal experience as well. At my current job, I didn't negotiate my pay, I just accepted what they offered me. Partly because the pay was better than any job I had had before, and partly because it seemed...hard.

However, a 2K starting difference could really add up over time - raises are usually a percentage of one's salary. The nice thing about working for LANL is that they have to do these salary analyses to make sure they are paying everyone fairly. Although I noticed last year that I am one of very very few, possibly the only female limited-term Technican 6. So in that case, how do they figure out if I am being paid fairly is there is no one to compare me to? Also, the other really interesting thing is that LANL is required by law to publish the entire lab's salaries. So you can look around and compare yourself and figure out if your pay seems fair.

On the other hand, I think I am being paid fairly. I negotiated hard during reviews this last year, and I believe my hard work paid off with a better raise than I would have had otherwise. So I am learning. Still, an extra 2K would have pushed me into a different starting digit for my salary by now!

I do wonder if the whole salary difference between men and women is mostly that whole idea that men have families, and families need the extra money. Single women would just go spend it on clothes or makeup, but men, they have important things to pay for (like pay per view sports). Who knows.

Also, does this survey from the census average all salaries for bachelor-educated people, working or not? That would at least explain some of the huge difference in salaries - I think the percentage of men in the workforce is still quite a bit higher than women.

Update I am looking at the Census data and it seems that the male-female pay ratio is .755 for 2003 for full-time, year round workers. See the Census data