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“Goldin is a very influential economist. She wrote this article for her presidential address to the American Economic Association. What she said was that women earn less than men because they desire ‘certain amenities’ at work, by which she means flexibility. Her argument is that women are earning less than men because they are paying a price for that flexibility…The flexibility she talks about is the number of hours of work, the precise time of work, the predictability of work and of travel, and the ability to schedule one’s own hours…Flexible work allows part-time work…She is arguing that, in order for women to earn salaries more like men’s, the entire workplace is going to have to be changed…I disagree with her about government regulation. I think that if we had a national policy of paid leave for new parents—men and women—that would go a long way toward providing some of the flexibility that is needed. And if we had a national childcare system, where childcare would be subsidised for people who can’t afford it, and we knew that it was high quality, with trained childcare workers who are reasonably paid, that would go a long way toward making it possible for women to stay in the workplace and to take jobs that are perhaps less flexible on a daily basis.” Read more...
The best books on Women and Work
Myra Strober, Economist
