This article was in the Irish Times today, based upon
this CSO report.
What struck me was that issues such men being nearly twice as likely to leave school early as women were barely touched on, and really only to highlight the usual topic of how women earn less than men, even though the report readily admits that
"In interpreting [comparative incomes], it should be borne in mind that no account has been taken of the number of hours being worked or of the occupations being performed by men and women".
Indeed, if you actually look at the figures men work on average 23% longer hours than women, and when you look at age as a factor, the hours of both sexes drops after age 40, but this is particularly pronounced in women - 44.8% drop (if single) up to 72.1% drop (if married).
Given pay scales tend to increase with age, had anyone thought of seeing if this might affect the figures somewhat? There's a thought.
Other trends that were completely ignored, such as men being far more likely to be either unemployed or even long term unemployed, were ignored. Or that the overpaid men are presumably the only breadwinners for the 531,800 Irish households where a woman is
"looking after home/family", as opposed to the 6,700 where a man is
"looking after home/family".
(Here's another fun statistic: Women make up 91.2% of loan parents, by age of the youngest child, yet are also 97.9% of the recipients of one-parent family payments, which seemingly points to men being several times less likely to be recipients of one-parent family payments when they are single parents.)
Is it just me or are other men kind of fed up that these reports are continually being trotted out with simplistic
"Women are Paid Less Than Men" mantras, with the assumption that it is down to discrimination or oppression when it would appear that this has not been the case for a very long time? Or for that matter that statistics that point to men being disadvantaged in society are simply ignored or trivialized?
You see these statistics and claims being trotted out by groups every day, but why does no one seem to want to question their validity?