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01.06.2011, 11:12
|  | Moddy Wellies | | Join Date: Apr 2007 Location: North Yorkshire
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| | Re: Swiss women earn 41 percent less than men | Quote: | |  | | | Well, that's obvious isn't it?. They work 41% less.  | | | | | Hey, hey, hey. That's just wrong.
They work just the same as men. They just add 41% less value. | 
01.06.2011, 11:13
| | Re: Swiss women earn 41 percent less than men HERE some other studies. Stating the difference is 9.4%
Established by BASS (Office for work- and social-political studies)
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01.06.2011, 11:16
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| | Re: Swiss women earn 41 percent less than men | Quote: | |  | | | Female voting rights were approved on the Federal level in 1970 and introduced within a year.
The exception, Appenzell Innerrhoden, only has 15'000 inhabitants, and so is not too relevant. Your wording "all women" therefore is rubbish. | | | | | | Quote: | |  | | | surely you mean 20? All women in Switzerland finally had a vote only in 1990. | | | | | So can someone confirm when the last time there was a vote which Swiss nationals could not partake in based solely on their gender?
ullainga seems to say this was pre-1990 whereas Wolli says it was earlier. I'm not sure if it is ullainga's wording which is "rubbish" or Wolli's logic.
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01.06.2011, 11:21
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| | Re: Swiss women earn 41 percent less than men
What always strikes me in Switzerland (and elsewhere) is how women and families claim "it's not worth for the woman to work because her salary just barely covers the cost for the child-care".
This to me is a huge FAIL.
The biggest problem for women and having kids, with regards to salaries, is that they loose touch with their profession. When they want to return to work as the kids are older, it is usually impossible for them to find a high paying job in the trade they started out their career in. They end up taking low-paying assistant jobs instead.
So on a life-time perspective, it is a very sound investment to continue working when you have children even if you don't earn much bottom line. Because in the long-term you will increase your earing power substantially by doing this.
See it as an investment for the future, same way you would e.g. invest in an MBA.
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01.06.2011, 12:31
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| | | Quote: | |  | | | No, it doesnt say this at all.
1)worse paying is not more insecure. How do you jump to that conclusion? It only means that Swiss females are on average less high educated or work in jobs that pay on average less. The educated part specifically means "education an employer is willing to pay for". And from my experience this is entirely true and I cannot blame the employers alone on it: Swiss society - and this includes the 50% females - is still set up in the way that you are supposed to have a small family and a small house with a small garden. As a man, you go to school and learn something that first and most importantly should be able to support a family and then it should maybe interest you as well. If you are female you go to university and have some fun till you manage to catch your banker/doctor/...
No, not all Swiss are like this, but enough to .... | | | | | This is definitely a big part of the problem. When I studied engineering at ETH we had three girls in our year of almost 200 students.
If you look at some of the soft courses at university you'll probably see the opposite. It seems to be socially acceptable for girls to go to university to do the stuff they like and that they find entertaining or interesting while boys are expected to do the tough stuff that gives job security later. As long as you can't break through that mindset everything else (including quotas and positive discrimination) is just rearranging the deckchairs. | Quote: | |  | | | So can someone confirm when the last time there was a vote which Swiss nationals could not partake in based solely on their gender?
ullainga seems to say this was pre-1990 whereas Wolli says it was earlier. I'm not sure if it is ullainga's wording which is "rubbish" or Wolli's logic. | | | | | Depends whether you are looking at national votes or cantonal votes. | Quote: | |  | | | What always strikes me in Switzerland (and elsewhere) is how women and families claim "it's not worth for the woman to work because her salary just barely covers the cost for the child-care".
This to me is a huge FAIL.
The biggest problem for women and having kids, with regards to salaries, is that they loose touch with their profession. When they want to return to work as the kids are older, it is usually impossible for them to find a high paying job in the trade they started out their career in. They end up taking low-paying assistant jobs instead.
So on a life-time perspective, it is a very sound investment to continue working when you have children even if you don't earn much bottom line. Because in the long-term you will increase your earing power substantially by doing this.
See it as an investment for the future, same way you would e.g. invest in an MBA. | | | | | I am not sure if that's as simple as you suggest. At least in my company the managers work pretty hard. That means they often don't come home until late at night, or they frequently fly to some customer location halfway across the globe to calm down an unhappy client or fix some problems, and they even check their work emails from home and during vacations and if urgent will take some actions there and then, which can be quite disruptive to family life. If you're looking for an 8 to 5 kind of job so you can pick up the kids etc then you are simply not going to considered for that promotion, no matter how good the quality of that work.
I believe careers and families don't mix. The only way to get more women into top jobs is to convince their husbands to stay at home and handle the family side. That's problem for society and social norms. But it's not insurmountable. I have a friend in Germany whose wife is the director of a highly succesfuil law firm. He has a part time job in a printing shop which is probaly poorly paid but defineityl something he can leave at work when he goes home, and he looks after the kids. He is very happy about the arrangement.
Last edited by MusicChick; 01.06.2011 at 16:27.
Reason: Merging successive posts.
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01.06.2011, 12:39
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| | Re: Swiss women earn 41 percent less than men | Quote: | |  | | | The exception, Appenzell Innerrhoden, only has 15'000 inhabitants, and so is not too relevant. Your wording "all women" therefore is rubbish. | | | | | No it's not. Before 1990, some women in switzerland (about half the population of Appenzell Innerrhoden, who I think would not be happy to hear that they don't matter) could not vote at their local elections. Therefore we cannot say that before 1990, all women in Switzerland had the right to vote. They didn't.
Last edited by ullainga; 01.06.2011 at 12:56.
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01.06.2011, 13:08
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| | Re: Swiss women earn 41 percent less than men | Quote: | |  | | | HERE some other studies. Stating the difference is 9.4%
Established by BASS (Office for work- and social-political studies) | | | | | I really don't understand how research like this can claim there are no reasons for this difference. It is a fact of biology (which is followed by society) that more women than men will experience a break in their career at some point in life and spend more time on caregiving and household, while more men than women consider their biggest priority in life advancing their career. Therefore I think women cannot expect the same pay as men overall (how do you compare apples and pears?) and should stop victimizing themselves. BTW I'm a woman, and although I am the main 'career' person in my family, I don't think women are that stupid at all setting their priorities differently, or that we should feel sorry for them, if you consider rates of depression, suicide and burnout in the male population...
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01.06.2011, 13:12
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| | Re: Swiss women earn 41 percent less than men | Quote: | |  | | | I am not sure if that's as simple as you suggest. At least in my company the managers work pretty hard.
I believe careers and families don't mix | | | | | I'm not sure Tilia was even talking about working as a CFO of a multinational or similar while you have 3 small kids at home - indeed quite difficuly, if your partner does not take the supporting role or you don't outsource most childcare and domestic tasks.
But if you are a specialist in a certain field who just started as a trainee/junior, then have those 3 kids, stay at home for 15 years and go back - you will go back as trainee (if lucky, as surely your knowledge is not up to date any more and why should they even hire you, when they can pick from fresh graduates?). If you keep working just normal hours or even part time, you will most probably advance in your career during those years and will be in a considerably better situation career-wise.
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01.06.2011, 13:14
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| | Re: Swiss women earn 41 percent less than men | Quote: | |  | | | | Quote: | |  | | | Swiss women earn 41 percent less than men
This is even worse that I could imagine!  | | | | | You have lies, damn lies and statistics Nil
If you look past the punchy headline:
'Rechsteiner said that wage discrimination was a serious problem in Switzerland, and that women generally earned about 10 percent less than men for equal work.'
I'm not sure what difference there is in other countries but I'd imagine it would be around equal. I'm not saying 10% is okay...I'm just saying it's not as bad as 40%
The 41% figures seems to be collating ALL the mens salaries and taking a mean and comparing all the women's salaries and taking a mean. It doesn't say if the women are working part time or what? It's a very vague article and doesn't really tell us much to be honest. | | | | | I'm not sure I understand this. My wife *ahem* earns all my money, and she doesn't even have a job...
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01.06.2011, 13:30
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| | Re: Swiss women earn 41 percent less than men | Quote: | |  | | | No it's not. Before 1990, some women in switzerland (about half the population of Appenzell Innerrhoden, who I think would not be happy to hear that they don't matter) could not vote at their local elections. Therefore we cannot say that before 1990, all women in Switzerland had the right to vote. They didn't. | | | | | They did in national votations.
Tom
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01.06.2011, 13:34
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| | Re: Swiss women earn 41 percent less than men | Quote: | |  | | | I'm not sure I understand this. My wife *ahem* earns all my money, and she doesn't even have a job...  | | | | | In the "get my money... buy my medicine" type of way? | The following 3 users would like to thank Treverus for this useful post: | | 
01.06.2011, 15:20
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| | Re: Swiss women earn 41 percent less than men | Quote: | |  | | | So can someone confirm when the last time there was a vote which Swiss nationals could not partake in based solely on their gender?
ullainga seems to say this was pre-1990 whereas Wolli says it was earlier. I'm not sure if it is ullainga's wording which is "rubbish" or Wolli's logic. | | | | | In a federal vote in 1970, the CH-men approved Federal voting by women with a comfortable majority, and it was introduced within less than 2 years in full. So that by 1972, women all over the union could participate in votes and elections. In 1983, the Canton of Zurich got the first female Minister (Regierungsrat) and the Union got the first female Bundesrat in 1984. On municipal and cantonal level, in many places, things moved well before the federal level and the Canton of Zurich with 1969 was NOT the first at all.
************************************************** ********************************** | Quote: | |  | | | No it's not. Before 1990, some women in switzerland (about half the population of Appenzell Innerrhoden, who I think would not be happy to hear that they don't matter) could not vote at their local elections. Therefore we cannot say that before 1990, all women in Switzerland had the right to vote. They didn't. | | | | | You twist your own words ! I did not say that before 1990 "all women in Switzerland had the right to vote" even if this was true ! Why ? Because also the women of Appenzell-Innerrhoden had the right to vote in all Federal matters up from 1972. To say that before 1990 "all women in Switzerland did not have the right to vote" simply is WRONG.
************************************************** ******************************
Last edited by Wollishofener; 01.06.2011 at 15:32.
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01.06.2011, 15:36
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| | Re: Swiss women earn 41 percent less than men | Quote: | |  | | | Because also the women of Appenzell-Innerrhoden had the right to vote in all Federal matters up from 1972. To say that before 1990 "all women in Switzerland did not have the right to vote" simply is WRONG. | | | | | I never said that voting only means voting on federal level. Some women in Switzerland as late as 1990 didn't have the right to vote on local level.
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01.06.2011, 16:06
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| | Re: Swiss women earn 41 percent less than men | Quote: | |  | | | I never said that voting only means voting on federal level. Some women in Switzerland as late as 1990 didn't have the right to vote on local level. | | | | | Less than 10'000 out of more than 3 millions is NOT "some" but "A FEW" only. And in reality, most people in Switzerland were not even aware of this | This user would like to thank Wollishofener for this useful post: | | 
01.06.2011, 16:19
|  | Moddy Wellies | | Join Date: Apr 2007 Location: North Yorkshire
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| | Re: Swiss women earn 41 percent less than men | Quote: | |  | | | And in reality, most people in Switzerland were not even aware of this  | | | | | You say that like it's a good thing.
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01.06.2011, 16:35
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| | Re: Swiss women earn 41 percent less than men | Quote: | |  | | | ...I don't think women are that stupid at all setting their priorities differently, or that we should feel sorry for them, if you consider rates of depression, suicide and burnout in the male population... | | | | | True, there is enough love to go around to feel bad also for isolated stay at home female population going through postpartum and trying to cope with house/kids/loss of work network and social life.
Works both way.
I do think people will have equal salaries based on their efficiency and level of expertise, not on their gender, age, formal charts for seniority/experience.
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01.06.2011, 17:08
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| | Re: Swiss women earn 41 percent less than men | Quote: | |  | | | You say that like it's a good thing. | | | | | Neither good nor bad. Nobody talked about, nobody realized that the problem still was existing, and in reality nobody cared about it. It simply was a NON-issue, until somebody brought it up in 1990. And the union somehow had the legal tools to press that Canton into modernity. Female voting rights had between 1972 and 1990 got into the Federal constitution, and so, the stance of that Canton had become unconstitutional
And rather bad of course is the fact that there in Appenzell is no voting secrecy, as everybody in the Landsgemeinde http://www.ai.ch/de/politik/sitzung/
can see what and whom you are voting for
Last edited by Wollishofener; 01.06.2011 at 17:19.
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01.06.2011, 17:16
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| | Re: Swiss women earn 41 percent less than men | Quote: | |  | | | Neither good nor bad. Nobody talked about, nobody realized that the problem still was existing, and in reality nobody cared about it. It simply was a NON-issue, until somebody brought it up in 1990. And the union somehow had the legal tools to press that Canton into modernity. Female voting rights had between 1972 and 1990 got into the Federal constitution, and so, the stance of that Canton had become unconstitutional  | | | | | I think you're simplifying just a wee bit there.
If nobody would have cared, nobody would have bothered to raise the issue.
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01.06.2011, 17:35
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| | Re: Swiss women earn 41 percent less than men | Quote: | |  | | | I think you're simplifying just a wee bit there.
If nobody would have cared, nobody would have bothered to raise the issue. | | | | | Young women in Appenzell DID care !
Young women in Appenzell DID bother !
AND most of all, the Council of Europe DID care !
But I can tell you that in all these years between 1972 and 1990, in the rest of Switzerland, really nobody cared/bothered about this aspect in any way.
Here some photos of voting/electing in AI :      | 
01.06.2011, 19:26
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| | Re: Swiss women earn 41 percent less than men | Quote: | |  | | | I'm not sure I understand this. My wife *ahem* earns all my money, and she doesn't even have a job...  | | | | | As a 'trailing spouse' who used to have a full-time IT job with a six-figure salary that was higher than her husband's six-figure salary I take offense to the 'oh, my trophy wife sits on the sofa and eats bon-bons all day because she can kind of attitude towards women.
If that works for you both, great, but for those of us women who are educated, driven and intelligent, Switzerland is like kryptonite to the soul. I'd like to work but, given the school hours, etc, it means I need to figure out some form of child care, especially for the random holidays, and it's really, really not easy to do. That and the extreme taxation from both sides of the atlantic for a woman bringing home the bacon along with her husband and it makes the rather dramatic cost for child care seem less attractive.
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