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Can We Conclude Here That Danny Dorling Is An Idiot?

I think the answer is probably yes, we can conclude that Danny Dorling is an idiot. Which is a pity, given that he’s Professor of Human Geography at Oxford these days. Pity to have a fool in a position so eminent.

For he ask us something about the gender pay gap in a letter to The Guardian:

Anne Davey and Kathy Winrow of the Oxford Diocesan School Trust (ODST) claim that their trusts “have a gender pay gap because we offer employment that is part-time and term-time only” (Letters, 29 March). But gender pay gaps are calculated according to hourly rates, not annual pay. So is the ODST paying a lower hourly rate to people who work part time as compared with full time and/or those who work term time only as opposed to all year round, but who otherwise do a very similar job? If that is not the reason for the ODST’s gender pay gap, what is?

The results for thousand of schools and other employers are now available at gender-pay-gap.service.gov.uk and vary dramatically from one another. Those with greater pay gaps should be asked to provide a convincing explanation.
Danny Dorling
Oxford

The idiocy here being that it’s entirely well known that people working part time tend – tend mind, on average – to get paid less per hour than those working full time. As the basic and standard numbers upon pay, the ASHE survey from ONS, tell us each and every year.

Come along now, anyone trying to make anything other than a just “it’s unfair” comment about the gender pay gap really must know this. Especially a Professor at Oxford whose own field of study comfortably nudges up against this very point.

Many more women work part time than do men. A much larger portion of those working part time are women than men. Part timers do indeed make less per hour than full timers. And the mixture of those things is indeed a good explanation for a goodly part of the observed gender pay gap. About half of it in fact. The fully blended, part timers and full timers, gender pay gap is recorded as being some 18 and a bit percent at present. The full time pay gap, comparing only full timers to full timers, is 9.6%. Given that the part time pay gap itself, between men and women working part time, is in favour of women by about 5% or so, yes, this does mean that a goodly half of the measured gender pay gap is down to exactly what Professor Dorling seems ignorant of.

Ho hum, eh?

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Spike
6 years ago

“Professor of Human Geography”? What, does he study the body’s Rift Valleys?

bloke in spain
bloke in spain
6 years ago
Reply to  Spike

Wondered the same. The geography of humans is pretty well known. Where all the bits are. There’s plenty of pictures. Magazines, adult rated films & such. Now you can even by life size replicas with all the anatomical details very faithfully reproduced. It’s not as if one has to deal with tectonic drift & alluvial deposits. Not unless you’re talking about the seriously obese.
Anyway. Nuff said here. Beautiful afternoon. Away to the beach to get some serious research done towards me doctorate.

Hallowed Be
Hallowed Be
6 years ago

Hopefully a reasonable summary of danny’s argument as follows. a) women more likely to be part time b) therefore paygap c) therefore pay part time the same as full time. d) therefore no paygap.

But there’s a problem with D) Enforcing part time pay exactly the same as full time might also lead to less hours worked and thus still pay gap.

Spike
6 years ago
Reply to  Hallowed Be

Indeed. Pay scales are set for a reason (two: supply, and demand), and the reason is not that Danny Dorling will like them.

Hallowed Be
Hallowed Be
6 years ago
Reply to  Spike

In uk you can earn 12k or thereabouts before income tax kicks in. A lot of people with kids (and a partner) will do part time to earn up to 11k and do no more paid work. If the marginal income tax above the threshold is 30% or something then part time pay will probably need to be paid more than full time to change the earnings level of those that work full time. I don’t know the numbers but it would be interesting if the best way to equalise part time and full time (i.e. danny’s proposal) is by… Read more »

Chester Draws
Chester Draws
6 years ago

I hope he will be willing to have his pay docked to make up for the part time assistants in his university.

I checked. The University of Oxford has the same problem as everyone else. Women’s mean hourly rate is 24.5% lower than men’s.

Bloke in North Dorset
Bloke in North Dorset
6 years ago

BiS,

“Beautiful afternoon. Away to the beach to get some serious research done towards me doctorate.”

You’re not making any friends in this part of the world. The weather has been absolutely shit; I wish I could persuade Mrs BiND we need to move to warmer climes.

Spike
6 years ago

Don’t make it New Hampshire USA; it’s dreary here with a bit of sleet last evening. We are well into the slice of the calendar in which the NCAA lets universities play their baseball schedule and the postponements are piling up.

jgh
jgh
6 years ago

“But pay gaps are calculated according to hourly rates, not annual pay”

Are they? I thought they *were* calculated on annual pay. Part-timer gets 20k, full-timer gets 40k, boo hoo. 40-year-old who’s worked for ten years is on 30k, 40-year-old who’s worked 20 years is on 40k, boo hoo. If it *was* calculated on hourly rates the gap would be zero. Part-timer gets 20k for 20 hours gets 1k/hr/wk, full-timer gets 40k for 40 hours, gets 1k/hr/wk.

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