Feb 4th 2011, 19:08 by T.S. | LONDON
THIS presentation, prepared for one of our Ideas Economy events, examines the variation in economic opportunities for women around the world, using data compiled by the Economist Intelligence Unit. Opportunity is defined as a combination of prevailing labour policies, access to finance, education and training, and legal and social status. One surprising finding: under communism women were encouraged (or expected) to work, and this attitude has persisted in many former communist countries, which continue to provide more opportunities for women.
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Lame presentation. Is this just the teaser? To get a real presentation, I have pay more?
The presentation says that the USA has maternity benefits nearly as good as Europe, the leader. Then in the next breath it criticizes Australia and the USA as the only two countries that don't have national maternity leave benefits. If the USA accomplishes the same ends via dencentralized means, are the presenters just making an ideological case for HOW things should be accomplished?
Second, the presentation acknowledges that women make about 75% of what men do around the world. In the USA, men work about 44 hours a week for every 40 women work. That accounts for huge chunk of the aggregate difference.
Furthermore, when you compare actual jobs (say corporate finance manager) where similar levels of responsibility are in play, where a man and woman have similar educations, and where a man and woman have similar experience, inequity vanishes in the overwhelming majority of fields, with women (particularly women in their 20's and 30's) being paid more than men. But in the aggregate, more women tend choose professions that don't pay as well as men do, for any number of reasons. If there really was this wide differential pay for equal work there would be some corporations out their staffing themselves with all women so they could cut 25% off of labor costs versus competitors.
There may gender bias involved in the job selection men and women make but, at least in the USA, men and women are compensated the same for same work. Looking at a differential in pay for men and women in the aggregate tells us little about pay inequity.