Thurow

Although Thurow makes some highly interesting points, one must question where the numbers and statistics stated in his work come from. He never lists a source for his numbers and makes no reference to any studies he may have conducted himself. It may lead one to wonder if perhaps his numbers are as accurate as they appear to be. Thurow’s claim is that the 60% gap in the difference in pay for men and women is not due entirely to discrimination and rather due to the different life choices men and women make and the effects of these choices. He argues that the ten year strain between ages 25 and 35 are some of the most important when it comes to one’s career and that while men usually spend these years attempting to advance themselves in the work force, women generally choose this time to start families and have children. Whereas men can have children and continue to work as easily as they did before it is not always the same for women. Some women cannot continue to work while pregnant, many take time off after giving birth to recover and care for their infants, and some even choose to be stay at home mothers until their children are older. He believes that it is this loss of time in the work force that causes women to often make less than men. In support of his claim the author states that women make “more use of the enforcement provisions of the Equal Employment Opportunities Commission and the courts than minorities” and that the system seems to be working for minorities, so there is no reason why it shouldn’t be working for women as well. If it doesn’t work, then the problem must lie elsewhere. He then goes on to argue that men would have to be “monumentally stupid or irrational” to discriminate against women so much that there is a 60% gap in income given the fact that they would be essentially discriminating against their own wives as well. He reasons that men know that if they discriminate against women and lower their “own family income” then they will have to “[increase] their own work effort” to make up for the loss. He also points out that differences in education between men and women are no longer a real concern because the “educational gap between men and women has been eliminated since World War II”. His arguments do sound very convincing and reasonable. There are avenues down which women can and have traveled in order to lessen the amount of discrimination they face and these resources have helped to greatly decrease discrimination. It may be true as well that these resources have worked remarkably well for minorities and that women have turned to such avenues far more often than minorities have. However, that doesn’t mean that women have benefited more from such resources and decreasing discrimination and eliminating discrimination are two very different things. It may also sound reasonable that men would realize that lowering women’s incomes could have the effect of lowering the income that their wives’ bring in and force them to make more money and work harder to do so. However, it is obvious that some men don’t realize this and it may not be as obvious to other men as it is to the author. Look at how long it took men to realize the benefits of having a woman work at all. They may not irrationally and stupidly discriminate against women, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t do so in ignorance of the effects. It seems that Thurow uses the process of elimination to determine the cause of this problem. He addressed several different possible causes and dissected and eliminated each one before arriving at his own conclusion.