This weekend is a little different than the usual, as we are dog-sitting Paavo, the mini dachshund with the maxi personality. He is a good dog, but when he visits, he tends to wander at night and wake everyone up. Besides that though, he is pretty easy and a good option instead of having our own. My wife and daughter keep asking, but I am not ready to give in just yet. However, perhaps now would be a good time since I am not working so much and the dog could imprint with me instead, then it would be mine.
The irony.
I was reading today about another stupid social media grab for attention trend where women are laughing about how financially inept they are. Of course, women aren't ubiquitously inept, nor are all men competent, but is it something to brag and laugh about?
Paavo doesn't think so.
However, I imagine that the same women would also complain about the gender wage gap, which gets me thinking. The gap of course is not quote what it seems for the most part, because of the way they calculate it - it is much smaller than they advertise in most places. There are also some fields where the gap goes the other way. What I wonder though is, how much of an impact ineptitude has on the difference.
I suspect that like in many fields, differences between skills are going to affect salaries. However, many of these differences might not be tied directly to the work itself. For instance, the ability to negotiate, or the ability to walk away from an offer that doesn't meet desires. There is likely an average difference between the sexes in this regard, where perhaps women might not negotiate as hard on money, or be more willing to accept less if it means getting something. Having a Kobe earning 100k is better than not having a job because they wouldn't give 105k.
A 5% gap forms.
But, that also creates an anchor for future salary expectations too. So, a 10% pay rise for both moves one to 110K, the other to 104.5K, and another will move it to 121K and 114K - That gap keeps increasing based on the first anchor, but more importantly, what the difference is used for. For example in Australia, women tend to have more in bank savings than men. But, men have a lot more in investments. One is losing value against inflation, the other is gaining value.
More gap.
Which brings up another possible difference factor, because men tend to be more risk seeking than women. As a result, men might not live as long, because they die doing stupid things, but they are also more likely to invest in higher yield vehicles. But, when it comes to investing, me tend to peg themselves as people who are rational and are actually taking "calculated risks" - even if it is a fallacy. This means that they are going to do some level of due diligence, studying and comparing options, choosing what they think is best. There is a wide range of outcomes, but many build some level of financial literacy.
Which makes me wonder.
There must also be a wide range of financial outcomes if comparing women only, so what is the difference between those who are earning far more than those who are not? What are the skill differences? Are there interest differences also? For instance, I know women who are far, far more technical than myself and far more technical than the average man, but they are an outlier. I also know women who negotiate in business far better than the average man, and they are also earning far more than the average man in Finland at least. So, is wage gap a gender thing, or an interest thing?
Of course, there is a lot of legacy and systemic factors to consider, but in many places, that has been changing for many decades. But, I don't think that it is going to be possible to close it completely, because there are average differences between the two sex populations in what they are interested in, and how they behave.
My wife and have a collar on our mortgage.
While she now understands how it works at a high level, I can pretty much guarantee she doesn't know what it actually is and what factors are involved. She does not know the current interest rate or the reference rate or where it is derived. She doesn't know the maximum or minimum of the collar, and she has little care to learn, despite me trying. She just isn't interested. I know, and I check in often to see what has changed.
This is not uncommon, is it?
Our finances are only one part of our lives, but the way we approach them is how most of us approach everything that makes an impact on our lives - if we are interested, we will look into it. If not, we won't. But, not knowing much doesn't just mean we are still impacted, but that we are more likely to be more impacted negatively, because we will miss out on opportunity. We can say that we "don't have the time" to learn this or that, but if we were to take stock of the time we spend, we will likely find that we invest a lot into what returns very little, or that actually cost us, even if it makes us feel comfortable.
Like keeping savings in a bank.
Financial literacy is as important, if not more important than reading literacy itself. Our financial wellbeing directly or indirectly impacts on all parts of our lives, for all of our lives. And, the earlier we learn to read the economics of it, the earlier we start investing, and the more compounding benefits we will get.
One thing that we should all recognize though is, expecting the gender wage gap to be closed through changing the rules of the game to favour one over the other, is going to lead to more problems. And at an individual level, expecting this to happen in our lifetimes adequately and leaving our financial health up to policy makers and social constructs, is unlikely to help us much.
The best reason to be literate, is so as not to be reliant on others to provide valuable information. Literacy facilitates self-empowerment.
Learning is a skill too.
And what we choose to learn about, matters.
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]
Posted Using InLeo Alpha
You mean risk tolerant yeah? Risk averse means you don't want to take any more risk than you have to.
You didn't really mention the affect of childbirth on the salary gap. Not only will women take time to have children, but they're far more likely to take on a bigger burden of housework even when working full time, meaning they'll spend less time being seen at work. Even though people are generally having kids later, it still usually happens during peak career-building years - and I'm not even sure how we can even measure how often women are passed over for promotions or job opportunities because of the bias that the company "might" have to accommodate childbirth.
I do know some women that are really trying to educate younger women to take more interest in finances because of the outsized affect it can have on your life later.
was just reading through before I read this comment and edited to "seeking" :)
I don't pick these things up like I used to.
Will comment more after but glad to see someone is paying attention :)
This wasn't about all the factors, just the literacy part. However, from what I have understood, I think the gaps still exist even when women don't have children.
One of my clients from several years ago purposely had her children young and did her studies as they were young. Once she went into her HR job, the other women started having their kids because they chose career first. By the time my client was 30, she was heading up the entire company HR, as she kept getting promoted to fill parental leaves.
This should happen more, but I don't think gender should matter at all. Learn from any source.
I like Dachshund, my buddy from over 30 years ago had one - fun. Interesting topic around gender wage gap - a topic we have in my country a lot lol - they force too much for the sake of equality not matter what skills are required for things.
Equality of outcome is never going to happen when there is inequality in so many other variables. It is like trying to get an orange to be a chicken.
agree, nice visual comparison
Paavo is gorgeous!
He has even won a few shows! He is a good looking do for sure.
In my opinion, men are more suited to handle investment and financial decisions than women. There may be some exceptions of women who possess extraordinary financial acumen but it's still a rarity. To back this up, if we peruse history, more men have succeeded with money than women. This is a huge factor that contributes to the wage gap.
History is a difficult one here to use, because historically, there has been repression. But, that repression doesn't happen now to anywhere near the same extent, so it is time to start actively learning.
My wife doesn't want anything to do with our finances. She made that pretty clear right from the beginning. Her aunts always give her a hard time about it, but that's the way she wants it. I kinda don't blame her, it can be stressful at times. It's always interesting to see just how few females there are each year when I go to my tech conference. It's getting better, but the number is still really low. Maybe 1 to 5 percent of the total attendance.
Another reason men probably die younger!
It is very low. A lot of women do well in STEM at school, but then do humanities at university.
Yeah, I wonder why that is. I wish there were more women in tech.
Most women are not good enough at investing. This is because they are afraid of taking risks and are not brave enough. Men are braver and are not afraid of losing. The brave always win more, and sometimes they may lose. But if they are not stupid, they will eventually make up for it.
And even being a little more risk-seeking will make a difference.
on Facebook I have seen some photos of dogs destroying furniture/ making a mess at home. My Lota was calmer. The worst she did was biting a phone cable(?) and stealing handkerchiefs from my grandpa. One or few times she also climbed on festive table and started eating own her on.
That reminds me of my niece's little dachshund one year secretly ate all the leftover salmon after Christmas dinner!
I must say that my wife is very financially literate :) Not only she has an MBA degree she is also very interested in everything financial, when she had a mortgage she knew exactly what the rate on it was.
As far as the dog, yeah don't give in :) And the dog is very likely to become yours. We tried getting a Greyhound and that didn't work very well it was supposed to be our daughter's dog, but it became my dog and the whole experience was not good...
One of the couples I know are both ex-stock floor traders, she is still on the ball. But, those like her and your wife tend to be outliers still.
This reminds of something my Father-in-law said to someone who was walking our dog years ago when asked by a passerby, "what kind of dog is it?"
"A Daughter's Dog"