Thursday, June 23, 2011

What Thompson said is not a hanging offence...

...except maybe in this country.

Women Take Almost 50 Percent More Short-Term Sick Leave Than Men

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/02/080204212846.htm

According to data from the U.S. Labor Department released last November, both married and unmarried women with children report a higher rate of absences from work than those without children.

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/story?id=4241746&page=1

Women take more sick days than men

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/8534796/Women-take-more-sick-days-than-men.html


And:
In most Western countries illness-related absenteeism is higher among female workers than among male workers. Using the personnel dataset of a large Italian bank, we show that the probability of an absence due to illness increases for females, relative to males, approximately 28 days after a previous illness. This difference disappears for workers age 45 or older. We interpret this as evidence that the menstrual cycle raises female absenteeism. Absences with a 28-day cycle explain a significant fraction of the male-female absenteeism gap.

To investigate the effect of absenteeism on earnings, we use a simple signaling model in which employers cannot directly observe workers' productivity, and therefore use observable characteristics – including absenteeism – to set wages. Since men are absent from work because of health and shirking reasons, while women face an additional exogenous source of health shocks due to menstruation, the signal extraction based on absenteeism is more informative about shirking for males than for females. Consistent with the predictions of the model, we find that the relationship between earnings and absenteeism is more negative for males than for females. Furthermore, this difference declines with seniority, as employers learn more about their workers' true productivity. Finally, we calculate the earnings cost for women associated with menstruation. We find that higher absenteeism induced by the 28-day cycle explains 11.8 percent of the earnings gender differential.


http://neweconomist.blogs.com/new_economist/2006/07/menstruation2.html

Why won't New Zealanders grow up and engage in rational debate instead of indulging emotion?

9 comments:

Lucia Maria said...

I think it's because we lead the way in pretending (or socialising out) that there are no gender differences.

NZ'ers are in denial, that's why people that say different are torn apart.

Anonymous said...

Often the truth hurts... now ducking for cover! I agree, as a Nation we do need to grow up and stop looking at things in 'micro' context. People need to be able to say things that might be uncomfortable to some, without the fear of the PC brigade (and readership-driven media) brandishing them as heretics.

Andrei said...

The sisterhood are agitating again about how hard they are done by in the workplace.

This beat up is just grist to the mill

Anonymous said...

The socialist idea is *sick leave* - that's the real problem.

When people are on an hourly rate -(the max for all state jobs should be about $5 / hr) - then you can have as much or as little sickleave as you like.

Anonymous said...

Truth and reality are often less than distant cousins in a charged up (non) debate such as this one. The participants already have their pre-determinations/prejudices to the fore. PC-ism (a non-word) is the enemy of balance.

Faversham

Thomas Beagle said...

1. Where are the NZ stats?

2. If you like statistics and data, isn't it a bit odd to be defending Thompson who was arguing against collecting more data?

If someone wants to make contentious arguments, I think it's their responsibility to back up their claims with solid data. Where was Thompson's?

Mark Hubbard said...

Thomas, you said on Twitter, quote:

'I don't accept that foreign data counts as supporting facts for a NZ policy debate.'

Mmm. I have overseas statistics that show 100 out of 100 people that stood in front of pyroclastic flows, died. I have no similar statistics from New Zealand, so when the Lyttelton volcano blows, should I ignore the weight of the overseas evidence when making my decision where to stand?

(And should we now all take offense at the fact at this time I have brought up the Lyttelton volcano, despite the fact good science shows magma cannot travel horizontally to where this is, anymore, thus there is nil risk, despite Chch earthquakes, of it blowing? After all, the object seems to be, around the argument on Thompson, to take offense, rather than to have a reasoned debate).

Bruce S said...

Why won't New Zealanders grow up and engage in rational debate instead of indulging emotion?

Is it because those who are informed and qualified to debate and express a valued opinion have just had enough of the beat downs and public floggings for standing up to baseless, emotive feminist tirades?

Anonymous said...

Truth is females are the most manipulated group on the planet. The Appearance industry from head to toe manipulates woman without mercy (lest they not look or feel good enough) and of course the bodily functions industry comes in second. Using biological roles to sustain a multi mega billion dollar industry.Just think about the head to toe services woman have been conditioned to buy. Can,t deny facts but you can be aware of manipulation.