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Alexa Campbell Wrote:
There are some interesting statistics in the 2001 STC Salary
Survey.
The average salary for US men is $56,310 while that for women is
$54,860 (US dollars). In Canada, the average salary of Canadian men is $56,580
and that of women is $52,730 (Canadian dollars). Given the state of the dollar,
that
means that we are earning considerably less than our US counterparts. Is there a
reason for that? What can we do about it?
Put another way, US women earn 97% of their male counterparts;
Canadian women technical writers earn 93%. Is there a reason why women lag
behind in Canada? What can we do about it?
In comparison to females as a whole, women technical writers do
not too badly. In Canada, 1998 figures for full time workers show women earning
72 percent of men's salaries (Canadian Statistics, Average Earnings by Sex and
Work Pattern";
http://www.statcan.ca/english/Pgdb/labor01a.htm
The most recent STC Salary Survey is available at
http://www.stc.org/salary.asp (need to be a member to view the salary
survey)
Geoff Hart replied:
Alexa Campbell wrote concerning: 2001 STC Salary Survey: gender
differences
Just a cranky editorial note: If you're talking about men and
women, the correct word is "sex"; if you're talking about sexual roles or
grammar, the word is gender.
The average salary for US men is $56,310 while that for women is $54,860 (US
dollars). In Canada, the average salary of Canadian men is $56,580 and
that of women is $52,730 (Canadian dollars). Given the state of the dollar, that
means that we are earning considerably less than our US counterparts.
Is there a reason for that? What can we do about it?
For one thing, the Canadian cost of living is generally much lower. Every few
years, Report on Business Magazine publishes a comparison of living costs vs.
salaries for various North American cities and various family situations, and
whether it's better to live here or in the U.S. varies so much you can't make
any simple generalisations. But on the whole, the benefits of moving south
aren't as great as we all tend to think around tax time. That's particularly
true in technical writing; you should see some of the angst being expressed on
techwr-l by writers in Silicon Valley. As a crude generalisation, it's my
impression that working in the U.S. high-tech sector generally means living in
expensive areas, and writers must be compensated enough to be able to afford
housing and food; that alone would artificially inflate the U.S. salaries by an
enormous amount.
Put another way, US women earn 97% of their male counterparts;
Canadian women technical writers earn 93%. Is there a reason why women lag
behind in Canada? What can we do about it?
You can't compare fairly based simply on mean salaries. The only fair comparison
is to compare men and women who both have X years of experience,
Y years of education or Z degrees, and who are currently working in
nearly-identical positions (seniority level, responsibility, supervision, etc.)
I haven't yet seen such a comparison made for our profession. I don't for a
minute doubt that centuries of discrimination have still put considerable
downwards pressure on the salaries of women, but you'll have to do that
numerical comparison I suggest to find out where the problems lie and thus, the
solutions.
One pernicious problem is that technical communication still doesn't get much
respect as a profession, and this leads me to hypothesize that much of the
difference lies in how management responsibilities are assigned: if a woman
manages a technical writing department, she probably came up through the ranks
of writers and became a manager in a newly formed department that isn't
considered all that important; conversely, I many male managers are imposed from
above (e.g., from development staff) and come from positions where the job is
respected and thus compensated accordingly. So these women start at a
disadvantage whereas the men start with an advantage in terms of salary. But
please note: this is purely speculation, supported only by anecdotal evidence
and a fair bit of reading about the "glass ceiling".
In comparison to females as a whole, women technical writers do not too badly.
In Canada, 1998 figures for full time workers show women earning 72
percent of men's salaries (Canadian Statistics, Average Earnings by Sex and Work
Pattern"
To me, that's a sign that the problem lies primarily outside our profession.
There are all kinds of number games you could play to explain these figures. But
again, you need better data than just mean salaries. For one thing, the mean
salaries of women are artificially lowered by the fact that more women than men
work in less-skilled professions (waitressing, supermarkets, clerking). You have
to separate clearly the difference between lack of opportunity (why are these so
few women running companies?) and unfair pay (the supermarket bag boy earns
twice as much as the supermarket cashier girl), and that's by no means easy.
--Geoff Hart,
geoff-h@mtl.feric.ca
FERIC, 580 boul. St-Jean
Pointe-Claire, Quebec
H9R 3J9
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