Fudged Numbers Support Claims of Gender Gap in Salaries

[Maddy]

The latest U.S. Department of Labor data show that women working full-time make 81 percent of full-time men’s wages. But this figure is both inaccurate and misleading. This statistic looks only at raw averages and does not take into account factors such as education, skills, and hours worked. After controlling for other factors, the gender pay gap practically disappears. Indeed, among single, childless workers under 30, women earn more than men. Legislation to close the gender “wage gap” is misguided: in reality, there is no gap to close.

http://www.cnsnews.com/commentary/diana ... -gap-close

This was more or less my experience back when I worked in an office environment: There oftentimes was a glaring "inequality" in productivity. Generally speaking, the men worked harder and longer, and the women had. . . well . . . "issues." As a rare Type A woman, I was regularly put upon by my female peers and subordinates whose non-work obligations always came first and who were constantly needing somebody else to pick up the slack.

[WiseOne]

Another woman on the forum?? Hooray!

I have much the same experience as Maddy, i.e. covering women who are out on maternity leave, leaving work early to go pick up kids etc. However, society wouldn't last very long without people who have kids, so I'm not sure there's a better solution. However, while I do know some women who are playing this card for all it's worth, I know many more who work long hours and have tremendous work ethics, and still go home and do most of the housekeeping. And who don't earn as much as they probably should.

[Libertarian666]

Another woman on the forum?? Hooray!

I have much the same experience as Maddy, i.e. covering women who are out on maternity leave, leaving work early to go pick up kids etc. However, society wouldn't last very long without people who have kids, so I'm not sure there's a better solution.

How about if women with children stay home and raise their children themselves? I'm sure that's terribly sexist somehow...

However, while I do know some women who are playing this card for all it's worth, I know many more who work long hours and have tremendous work ethics, and still go home and do most of the housekeeping. And who don't earn as much as they probably should.

I'm sure there are some like that. But the data is pretty clear that women can't possibly be systematically underpaid without entrepreneurs taking advantage of that mispricing to make lots of money. Of course this assumes there aren't Jim Crow laws or the like, which there certainly aren't!

[clacy]

Another woman on the forum?? Hooray!

I have much the same experience as Maddy, i.e. covering women who are out on maternity leave, leaving work early to go pick up kids etc. However, society wouldn't last very long without people who have kids, so I'm not sure there's a better solution. However, while I do know some women who are playing this card for all it's worth, I know many more who work long hours and have tremendous work ethics, and still go home and do most of the housekeeping. And who don't earn as much as they probably should.

I agree WiseOne, it's an investment in our society. Not too different than high income folks "covering" for low wage earners with higher taxes, etc. It sucks being the one paying a higher tax rate, or being the one being more productive while others are less so, but at the end of the day I think we need parents in the work place.

[Libertarian666]

Another woman on the forum?? Hooray!

I have much the same experience as Maddy, i.e. covering women who are out on maternity leave, leaving work early to go pick up kids etc. However, society wouldn't last very long without people who have kids, so I'm not sure there's a better solution. However, while I do know some women who are playing this card for all it's worth, I know many more who work long hours and have tremendous work ethics, and still go home and do most of the housekeeping. And who don't earn as much as they probably should.

I agree WiseOne, it's an investment in our society. Not too different than high income folks "covering" for low wage earners with higher taxes, etc. It sucks being the one paying a higher tax rate, or being the one being more productive while others are less so, but at the end of the day I think we need parents in the work place.

It's clear that we need fathers in the work place.

It's not so clear that we need mothers in the work place.

[clacy]

How about if women with children stay home and raise their children themselves? I'm sure that's terribly sexist somehow...


I'm sure there are some like that. But the data is pretty clear that women can't possibly be systematically underpaid without entrepreneurs taking advantage of that mispricing to make lots of money. Of course this assumes there aren't Jim Crow laws or the like, which there certainly aren't!

On point one, this is what we do in my family, but I also realize that it's not realistic for everyone. AND just as importantly, not all women (or certainly men) are suited for being a stay at home mom/parent.

To your second point I agree. As a business owner/operator with hundreds of employees I can assure anyone reading this, that business and attracting labor is far too competitive to misprice half of the workforce by paying them less. Same could be said for minorities, etc. Good businesses, and especially bad businesses, will take the best human capital they can find. And we all have to pay market rate for such.

[clacy]

It's clear that we need fathers in the work place.

It's not so clear that we need mothers in the work place.

You're probably right, but this isn't the system that we're working with any longer. This brings up another dilemma that I think is contributing to the polarization of wealth/income/status in this country.

Now you basically have "super marriages" that pair two college educated, talented, financially driven people together. Obviously that situation can produce a high household income. These people can afford high-end full time daycare and nannies, house cleaners, landscapers, etc, etc.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, you have the lower class which will often not marry or keep their family structure in tact. They usually are couples that have kids with multiple partners, ALL of which have a hard time earning a living consistently and require perpetual public assistance.

The middle class, which 50+ years ago normally would have kept the wife at home with the kids is sort of stuck in the middle, but appears to be shrinking every year.

[Libertarian666]

It's clear that we need fathers in the work place.

It's not so clear that we need mothers in the work place.

You're probably right, but this isn't the system that we're working with any longer. This brings up another dilemma that I think is contributing to the polarization of wealth/income/status in this country.

Now you basically have "super marriages" that pair two college educated, talented, financially driven people together. Obviously that situation can produce a high household income. These people can afford high-end full time daycare and nannies, house cleaners, landscapers, etc, etc.

And almost none of them have more than 2 children (usually 1 or 0), so they aren't replacing themselves.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, you have the lower class which will often not marry or keep their family structure in tact. They usually are couples that have kids with multiple partners, ALL of which have a hard time earning a living consistently and require perpetual public assistance.

The middle class, which 50+ years ago normally would have kept the wife at home with the kids is sort of stuck in the middle, but appears to be shrinking every year.

Yes, thanks to the "hope and change" that we are all benefiting from!

[Maddy]

How about if women with children stay home and raise their children themselves? I'm sure that's terribly sexist somehow...

The sad state of affairs with today's children suggests that's not such a bad idea.

I have no problem with mothers in the workplace, but the reality of the situation is one that needs to be bargained for up front. If you're going to require flexibility, be unable to travel or to put in long hours, come in frequently overtired, etc., then it makes all the sense in the world to take a cut in pay for that privilege. The guys (or gals) who have to pick up the slack are logically entitled to a commensurate bump in salary.

Unfortunately, you'd be in legal hot water pretty quick if you openly implemented the foregoing.

[WiseOne]

Another woman on the forum?? Hooray!
I'm sure there are some like that. But the data is pretty clear that women can't possibly be systematically underpaid without entrepreneurs taking advantage of that mispricing to make lots of money.

Too bad society isn't as efficient as the stock market...

I don't think anyone is setting out to underpay women, for this reason among others. However, there are subtle ways that women in the workplace get shortchanged. There's a perception that they aren't as productive as men, regardless of the reality. For example...in my collaborative group, I often find that the men are getting credit for the work that I do, even though the men in question clearly and publicly acknowledge my contributions. People on the outside looking in see what's happening and simply assume that the woman in the group can't possibly be the one responsible for the productive output. It's discouraging and demoralizing, and I can understand why many women would respond by quietly giving up.

Also, there are indeed employers who are taking advantage of the mispricing of women's labor. One need look no further than my academic department. In a field where the majority of academicians are men, the department is majority female, and new hires are overwhelmingly (like > 80%) women. And not surprisingly, it's well known for low salaries.

That said, I'm no longer among the mispriced, because by any objective measure that a chair or a dean would see, I'm doing better than most of the men in my dept :-).

[Libertarian666]

Another woman on the forum?? Hooray!
I'm sure there are some like that. But the data is pretty clear that women can't possibly be systematically underpaid without entrepreneurs taking advantage of that mispricing to make lots of money.

Too bad society isn't as efficient as the stock market...

I don't think anyone is setting out to underpay women, for this reason among others. However, there are subtle ways that women in the workplace get shortchanged. There's a perception that they aren't as productive as men, regardless of the reality. For example...in my collaborative group, I often find that the men are getting credit for the work that I do, even though the men in question clearly and publicly acknowledge my contributions. People on the outside looking in see what's happening and simply assume that the woman in the group can't possibly be the one responsible for the productive output. It's discouraging and demoralizing, and I can understand why many women would respond by quietly giving up.

Also, there are indeed employers who are taking advantage of the mispricing of women's labor. One need look no further than my academic department. In a field where the majority of academicians are men, the department is majority female, and new hires are overwhelmingly (like > 80%) women. And not surprisingly, it's well known for low salaries.

That said, I'm no longer among the mispriced, because by any objective measure that a chair or a dean would see, I'm doing better than most of the men in my dept :-).

Sorry, but this is impossible.

If it were really true that women were underpaid relative to their overall job performance, then any entrepreneur who wanted to make outsized profits (is there any other type?) would hire women preferentially. It wouldn't take everyone in society, or even the majority, just a few people to notice this and start exploiting it. This would inevitably push their wages higher until there was no longer an exploitable difference.

The actual reasons may not be known, but it cannot be true that, in the absence of forcible intervention (by the government, e.g., Jim Crow laws) women's work is systematically mispriced.

[iwealth]

If it were really true that women were underpaid relative to their overall job performance, then any entrepreneur who wanted to make outsized profits (is there any other type?) would hire women preferentially. It wouldn't take everyone in society, or even the majority, just a few people to notice this and start exploiting it. This would inevitably push their wages higher until there was no longer an exploitable difference.

The actual reasons may not be known, but it cannot be true that, in the absence of forcible intervention (by the government, e.g., Jim Crow laws) women's work is systematically mispriced.

Heck, even in the stock market where trades are precise down to the millisecond, companies can be undervalued for years relative to their peers. So it is certainly not impossible that women are still being undervalued in some fields. Eventually, I believe this inefficiency will be eliminated absent forcible intervention, but it won't happen overnight.

[Libertarian666]

If it were really true that women were underpaid relative to their overall job performance, then any entrepreneur who wanted to make outsized profits (is there any other type?) would hire women preferentially. It wouldn't take everyone in society, or even the majority, just a few people to notice this and start exploiting it. This would inevitably push their wages higher until there was no longer an exploitable difference.

The actual reasons may not be known, but it cannot be true that, in the absence of forcible intervention (by the government, e.g., Jim Crow laws) women's work is systematically mispriced.

Heck, even in the stock market where trades are precise down to the millisecond, companies can be undervalued for years relative to their peers. So it is certainly not impossible that women are still being undervalued in some fields. Eventually, I believe this inefficiency will be eliminated absent forcible intervention, but it won't happen overnight.

Please provide some examples of this where there is an objective comparison, such that one company provides the same service as another but is mispriced for years. I'm not aware of any such examples.

And in any event, it is much more expensive to buy a company than it is to hire women preferentially. Of course if there were severe social disapprobation for such preference, that might explain why no one does it. But in this case we know that is far from the case; in fact, such an entrepreneur would be celebrated for having such a commitment to "diversity"!

[WiseOne]

Please provide some examples of this where there is an objective comparison, such that one company provides the same service as another but is mispriced for years. I'm not aware of any such examples.

And in any event, it is much more expensive to buy a company than it is to hire women preferentially. Of course if there were severe social disapprobation for such preference, that might explain why no one does it. But in this case we know that is far from the case; in fact, such an entrepreneur would be celebrated for having such a commitment to "diversity"!

The example I gave in my last post will do nicely. And indeed, the dept is being celebrated for "diversity" in hiring. So maybe not every company is taking advantage of the mispricing, but clearly some are.

Note that there's an apparent contradiction in my last post: 1) some companies are taking advantage of mispricing, meaning that they know women perform as well as men in the areas for which they're hiring, but that they can get away with paying them less, and 2) the unconscious or at least non-overt under-recognition of women's achievements. I believe the latter is a big reason for the mispricing and also why more companies aren't taking advantage of it.

Note that a woman who has taken several maternity leaves, shown up late to work regularly, left early every day to deal with child care, and is paid less after years of this pattern is NOT mispriced. I'm talking about the women who match or exceed the level of productivity of the male part of the workforce.

[Libertarian666]

The example I gave in my last post will do nicely. And indeed, the dept is being celebrated for "diversity" in hiring. So maybe not every company is taking advantage of the mispricing, but clearly some are.

Note that there's an apparent contradiction in my last post: 1) some companies are taking advantage of mispricing, meaning that they know women perform as well as men in the areas for which they're hiring, but that they can get away with paying them less, and 2) the unconscious or at least non-overt under-recognition of women's achievements. I believe the latter is a big reason for the mispricing and also why more companies aren't taking advantage of it.

Note that a woman who has taken several maternity leaves, shown up late to work regularly, left early every day to deal with child care, and is paid less after years of this pattern is NOT mispriced. I'm talking about the women who match or exceed the level of productivity of the male part of the workforce.

Again, if such mispricing existed, it would be a tremendous incentive for entrepreneurs to hire women preferentially, to achieve outsized returns. Whoever did this would eventually own all the wealth in the world if no one followed suit. Why does no one do this? It doesn't take a majority, or even a sizable number of people. One rich man, who prefers lots of extra profit to being a sexist, could clean up by hiring women preferentially.

And if your claim is that there aren't any such men (which seems very unlikely), is there one rich woman? Surely she would not be so sexist as to refuse to make more money by hiring women preferentially?

No, the only explanation that makes economic sense is that women are not underpaid for the actual value-added they provide to employers. There is literally no other explanation that will stand up to the slightest scrutiny.

[Libertarian666]

Too bad society isn't as efficient as the stock market...

I don't think anyone is setting out to underpay women, for this reason among others. However, there are subtle ways that women in the workplace get shortchanged. There's a perception that they aren't as productive as men, regardless of the reality. For example...in my collaborative group, I often find that the men are getting credit for the work that I do, even though the men in question clearly and publicly acknowledge my contributions. People on the outside looking in see what's happening and simply assume that the woman in the group can't possibly be the one responsible for the productive output. It's discouraging and demoralizing, and I can understand why many women would respond by quietly giving up.

Also, there are indeed employers who are taking advantage of the mispricing of women's labor. One need look no further than my academic department. In a field where the majority of academicians are men, the department is majority female, and new hires are overwhelmingly (like > 80%) women. And not surprisingly, it's well known for low salaries.

That said, I'm no longer among the mispriced, because by any objective measure that a chair or a dean would see, I'm doing better than most of the men in my dept :-).

Sorry, but this is impossible.

Just because your religious order does not recognize the role of culture in human relationships does not mean that culture (and its consequences) does not exist.

I don't belong to a religious order.

And of course culture exists. But in a capitalistic society, in the absence of state intervention like Jim Crow laws, it is impossible that no one would be exploiting this mispricing, if it existed, because the profit to be gained by such exploitation would be enormous.

The fact that you can't understand my explanation doesn't mean it is invalid.

Hope that helps.

[Maddy]

Too bad society isn't as efficient as the stock market...

The efficient market argument isn't a real good one, because productivity is only one factor that creates value in an employee. For example, the value of a top-notch producer who works best on his own behind closed doors is going to be discounted by some factor--perhaps appreciably--in an environment where team-building and "group think" are the cultural norm. In many instances, it's the unstated social and cultural values that are far more significant than productivity when it comes to getting ahead.

My own experience after graduating from law school and entering a litigation firm was similar to just about everybody that followed the same path: We knocked ourselves out to meet and exceed billable hour requirements. Of course, nobody on the salary committee complained about the fact that we were spending nights and weekends working ourselves into a lather, but in retrospect my understanding of what it took to succeed was horribly misguided. I learned an important lesson when, a few years into my career, a partner confided to me that from the firm's perspective, "worker bees are a dime a dozen." In other words, you could be a top producer of billable hours and have a solid track record of winning cases, but it was the ability to schmooze--in other words, to bring in clients--that would get you ahead. Unfortunately, I was never any good at schmoozing and detested the cocktail party scene, and consequently I watched many of my male peers--guys who struck me as incredibly lazy and untalented--zoom right past me on the salary scale. These were the same guys that would come in at 10:00 a.m. and then take the afternoon off to go to a baseball game while I stayed late at the office like a good little girl, meeting their deadline and somehow believing that I would be rewarded in the end. (I wasn't.) It took me many years to realize that the priorities of my firm, and of my profession, were not at all what they purported to be.

I think it's fair to say that most women (including myself) get stuck in the production rut and fail to appreciate how critical the social/cultural aspects of work are. It took me a long time to figure that out.

[Libertarian666]

Too bad society isn't as efficient as the stock market...

The efficient market argument isn't a real good one, because productivity is only one factor that creates value in an employee. For example, the value of a top-notch producer who works best on his own behind closed doors is going to be discounted by some factor--perhaps appreciably--in an environment where team-building and "group think" are the cultural norm. In many instances, it's the unstated social and cultural values that are far more significant than productivity when it comes to getting ahead.

My own experience after graduating from law school and entering a litigation firm was similar to just about everybody that followed the same path: We knocked ourselves out to meet and exceed billable hour requirements. Of course, nobody on the salary committee complained about the fact that we were spending nights and weekends working ourselves into a lather, but in retrospect my understanding of what it took to succeed was horribly misguided. I learned an important lesson when, a few years into my career, a partner confided to me that from the firm's perspective, "worker bees are a dime a dozen." In other words, you could be a top producer of billable hours and a solid track record of winning cases, but it was the ability to schmooze--in other words, to bring in clients--that would get you ahead. Unfortunately, I was never any good at schmoozing and detested the cocktail party scene, and consequently I watched many of my male peers--guys who struck me as incredibly lazy and untalented--zoom right past me on the salary scale. These were the same guys that would come in at 10:00 a.m. and then take the afternoon off to go to a baseball game while I stayed late at the office like a good little girl, meeting their deadline and somehow believing that I would be rewarded in the end. (I wasn't.) It took me many years to realize that the priorities of my firm, and of my profession, were not at all what they purported to be.

I think it's fair to say that most women (including myself) get stuck in the production rut and fail to appreciate how critical the social/cultural aspects of work are. It took me a long time to figure that out.

Apparently you have discovered a market anomaly: a profitable opportunity that no one is seizing.

In that case, you should have no trouble with the following plan, which will in fact be greatly aided by your gender.

Just open your own competing law firm, hiring women only, and pay them 90% as much as you would with males, instead of the 77% that they normally get. Since you hire only women, no one can (successfully) accuse you of sex discrimination. They get 90% as much as they would if they were male, which is 13% more than they would get anywhere else, so they'll be happy. And you will get 100% as much work as if they were male, so your company will be enormously profitable and will be able to grow as fast as you want. Win-win!

[Maddy]

Apparently you have discovered a market anomaly: a profitable opportunity that no one is seizing.

In that case, you should have no trouble with the following plan, which will in fact be greatly aided by your gender.

Just open your own competing law firm, hiring women only, and pay them 90% as much as you would with males, instead of the 77% that they normally get. Since you hire only women, no one can (successfully) accuse you of sex discrimination. They get 90% as much as they would if they were male, which is 13% more than they would get anywhere else, so they'll be happy. And you will get 100% as much work as if they were male, so your company will be enormously profitable and will be able to grow as fast as you want. Win-win!

I think you misunderstand my point. I'm not suggesting that there is a market anomaly; only that "efficiency" within the realm of complex human interactions involves more than traditional measures of productivity. In most work settings, the ability to "play the game" is far more important than the ability to generate revenue. Because many women either don't understand the rules of the game or don't care to play it, their overall value to an enterprise, judged from the standpoint of the higher-ups (and likely by the clients they serve) tends to be discounted.

There's an interesting little book called "Games Your Mother Never Taught You." The main thesis is that men become acculturated very early on in life--through experiences such as team sports and military service--to the unspoken rules of the game, and that women typically go through their careers oblivious to the fact that those rules even exist.

In this sense, women fail, on the whole, to measure up.

[iwealth]

Apparently you have discovered a market anomaly: a profitable opportunity that no one is seizing.

In that case, you should have no trouble with the following plan, which will in fact be greatly aided by your gender.

Just open your own competing law firm, hiring women only, and pay them 90% as much as you would with males, instead of the 77% that they normally get. Since you hire only women, no one can (successfully) accuse you of sex discrimination. They get 90% as much as they would if they were male, which is 13% more than they would get anywhere else, so they'll be happy. And you will get 100% as much work as if they were male, so your company will be enormously profitable and will be able to grow as fast as you want. Win-win!

In the late '00s I worked as an executive at a 100-employee start-up marketing firm in a shared executive office with the CEO and 3 other male execs. I can assure you regardless of qualifications, a woman was not getting a desk in that space. Some extra profit wouldn't have been enough to convince the CEO to break up the college dorm room-like exec office culture. In this case, there wasn't pay disparity but hiring disparity.

Your argument is that this opens an opportunity for a female to open a competing marketing firm, only hiring women, etc., etc. You also assume that this new company would immediately be able to compete for business with the established company based on merit and work quality alone. Real life just isn't so academic and efficient.

I have no idea what your background is, but it shocks me that you've never experienced anything like this.

[Pointedstick]

When observable reality and your pet theory contradict one another, it's clearly the case that the theory is correct and you simply aren't observing reality correctly.

[Libertarian666]

When observable reality and your pet theory contradict one another, it's clearly the case that the theory is correct and you simply aren't observing reality correctly.

What is being proven here is something different.

Namely, that when people's political convictions are challenged, they retreat into emotional arguments ("your religious order") and try to shame the offender. What they don't do is explain why the offender's argument is invalid.

I wish I could be that seemingly intelligent people resort to these infantile behaviors, but unfortunately it is par for the course.

[Libertarian666]

Apparently you have discovered a market anomaly: a profitable opportunity that no one is seizing.

In that case, you should have no trouble with the following plan, which will in fact be greatly aided by your gender.

Just open your own competing law firm, hiring women only, and pay them 90% as much as you would with males, instead of the 77% that they normally get. Since you hire only women, no one can (successfully) accuse you of sex discrimination. They get 90% as much as they would if they were male, which is 13% more than they would get anywhere else, so they'll be happy. And you will get 100% as much work as if they were male, so your company will be enormously profitable and will be able to grow as fast as you want. Win-win!

I think you misunderstand my point. I'm not suggesting that there is a market anomaly; only that "efficiency" within the realm of complex human interactions involves more than traditional measures of productivity. In most work settings, the ability to "play the game" is far more important than the ability to generate revenue. Because many women either don't understand the rules of the game or don't care to play it, their overall value to an enterprise, judged from the standpoint of the higher-ups (and likely by the clients they serve) tends to be discounted.

There's an interesting little book called "Games Your Mother Never Taught You." The main thesis is that men become acculturated very early on in life--through experiences such as team sports and military service--to the unspoken rules of the game, and that women typically go through their careers oblivious to the fact that those rules even exist.

In this sense, women fail, on the whole, to measure up.

It doesn't matter why women are underpaid, so long as they are underpaid. It doesn't matter whether everyone, or even very many people, can see that they are underpaid.

In fact, it doesn't matter who the group is that is underpaid. For an historical example, why were Jim Crow laws necessary? Because businessmen wanted to hire blacks and had to be forced by the government not to do so. Are you claiming that discrimination against women is worse than the discrimination against Southern blacks that required the passage of Jim Crow laws?

If any identifiable group is in fact underpaid, meaning that they generate more revenue per dollar of salary and expenses compared to another group, and there is no law that prevents people from hiring them, then all it takes is one entrepreneur to exploit that revenue-generating ability by paying them more than others would pay but less than the favored group (e.g., more than the oft-quoted "77%" but less than they would pay someone else (e.g., a man)), and generating outsized returns.

Since no one is doing this with women, that means that either:
1. No one can see this opportunity, or
2. The opportunity doesn't exist.

Only one of these is a possible explanation, given the fact that there are several people on this thread alone who claim they see the opportunity.

[Mountaineer]

Not exactly on topic, but this whole thing about unequal pay is just one more example of promoting divisiveness instead of working together to serve the customer, internal and external community, and business owner. We truly are a self-centered, self-absorbed, prideful bunch; it's just what we humans do so we can either feel superior to others or feel like victims. To both camps, I say: get over yourselves, you are not nearly as important as you think. You are worth nothing more than what someone is willing to pay you and you "deserve" very little. If you don't like where you work, go somewhere else; all will be happier. This discussion reminds me of Pleasantville where everyone thinks they are above average.

... Mountaineer

[WiseOne]

In a perfect, 100% efficient world, where the yardstick determining compensation is dependent solely on productivity that is directly related to a firm's bottom line, Libertarian666's theory would be correct.

Unfortunately, none of the above are true. Perception always beats reality, market inefficiencies are often not capitalized on, productivity measures are usually subjective and don't always connect with the bottom line, etc. etc. Maddy's stories are completely believable to me also.

If the world were different, GNP would be many times what it is now. But human nature being what it is, that just ain't going to happen. Case in point: I could leave my job and go elsewhere for a higher salary if I wanted to. For many reasons, some personal and not financially measurable, I don't want to. Starting my own business would be a great solution except that's simply not possible in my field. Maybe one day I'll have had enough of the academic game, and I'll find something interesting to do with the empty storefront down the block.