She works hard for the money

Today was Equal Pay Day, a holiday many assumed would be obsolete by 2010. Women still earn only 77 cents to every dollar men earn. Some argue skill, some argue education, some argue lifestyle choice, but at the end of the day — women now comprise 2/5 of the nation's primary breadwinners. So does that mean that 40 percent of households should suffer the consequences?

Equal Pay Day marks the point in 2010 where women who began working on January 1, 2009 will match their male counterpart's 2009 income.

Countless laws have been put into place — and even more have been proposed — that theoretically would eradicate the disparity. But is bridging the 23 cent divide possible overnight through legislation? Does society require a cultural shift? Can we ever expect the two genders to be treated equally in the workplace?

There is a gap everywhere. This is not just an American problem (if we think it is a problem). The 23 cent difference boils down to about 19 percent; in Belgium, the difference hovers at about 9 percent, while South Korea and Japan are flirting with a 30 percent difference. But is the middle of the heap the best we can hope for?

In countries like Sweden, government policies are put in place to work toward better income equality. State-sponsored leave (föräldraledighet) entitles every family to 480 days of parental leave — but only if both partners split the time. If only the mother takes leave, she can only have up to 420 days off, depriving the family of 60 days that could have been spent with the child. Most couples actually do split the time, fairly dividing the work and childcare responsibilities. Does a policy like this ensure greater income equality? Hard to say, but it is worth noting that Scandinavian countries, which do all have policies like this, have greater income equality between men and women.

An interesting detail of the inequality is that the gap is widest at the top — in sectors that pay the most, the disparity is greatest. It is impossible to pinpoint why this occurs. Is it because women are less likely to be promoted, or because they choose not to be for lifestyle reasons? Is leadership an inherently gender-based quality? Is society biased or are we carrying out self-fulfilling prophecies? Women are scientifically less aggressive, so does this translate to mean that they are less go-getter professionally?

As elite universities like Brown begin to tip in the other direction when it comes to gender balance, enrolling more women and fighting for male applicants, one has to wonder if our generation will be the one to turn things around. Will we prove, once and for all, that men and women are capable of reaching the same level of prosperity? Or will we serve as the ultimate validation for the gap, proving that there are just some inequalities that will never be solved for variables outside of our control?

Girl power

Within the economics blogosphere, a debate has arisen as to whether women have more libertarian freedom now than they did in 1880. The argument originated because one argued that yes, women were freer more than a century ago. This, not surprisingly, launched a spree of reactions.

There are the obvious social comments and disputes to be made: the ability now held to cohabitate outside of marriage, more freedom to choose marriage and the elimination of arcane laws that limited women's lifestyles. There is also the question of liberty as imposed by society or as imposed by law.

So the debate becomes, is the degree of libertarian freedom across historical eras quantifiable or does it fall into the category of grass-is-always-greener nostalgia? But to even ask this question, a more basic dilemma needs to be solved: what is freedom?

Is freedom based on wealth or is freedom based on rights? Brennan and Schmidtz wrote their book, attempting to define liberty in a way that would allow them to examine "when a society is moving toward liberty or away from it, and so that we can proceed to ask a straightforward question: 'Was that move a good one?' "

If that is the lens through which we view the level of freedom in a society, then the measure immediately becomes subjective. Is it a "good" move if everyone has economic choice, or if everyone is guaranteed the same level of economic possession? The argument becomes circular because it is heavily disputed as to which theories support the greatest level of freedom, particularly when negative and positive liberties must be balanced. Is forcing someone to be free, as Berlin might suggest, a valid construct, or is it simply an oxymoron? Can we argue that women are less free now because more is expected of them? Or are they more free because so many societal barriers have been taken down?

Regardless, in some ways women are definitely more free. Though liberty is a contentious topic, I don't think anyone will argue against the constrictive nature of a corset.

News in images

In an attempt to avoid waxing poetic or restating what we already suspect to be true, I'm going to let these images speak for themselves. The summary?

(1) Men make more money than women.

(2) The US winds up, in a vicious cycle, giving most foreign aid to countries where it start wars.

(3) The more money you make, the more you idealize your job.

Disclaimer: These graphics have absolutely nothing to do with each other. They happened to all just earn a star in my Google Reader for being interesting.