Freedom Flyer 7

Marriage and upbringing - not employers - are keeping women from closing the wage gap with men, a senior economist with the Fraser Institute told about 35 persons at the University of Western Ontario.

"It's as if we are having a 100-yard dash and women are carrying a 30-pound weight on their back," Walter Block said during a speech sponsored by the London Freedom Party.

The Fraser Institute is a non-profit conservative "think tank" in Vancouver which Block said has produced about 55 publications in the past 10 years, including recent books opposing equal pay for work of equal value and affirmative action.

The Ontario government estimates women on average earn 38 per cent less than men. In presenting a similar array of figures, Block warned statistics are misleading.

He said many married women view their jobs and salaries as secondary to their husbands'. As well, he said many women leave the work force to raise their children or to be full-time homemakers. Statistics Canada doesn't consider homemakers to have any earnings, although Block said they spend at least half the money their husbands earn.

He said when the salaries of men and women who have never been married are compared, women earn only slightly less than men and in some categories they earn more.

The other problem facing women workers is that many still grow up believing they won't appear attractive to men if they are too competent, Block said. "They are socialized not to compete with men. My own feeling is this is horrendous, but it exists."

Block said the marketplace usually pays a worker according to productivity. He said in a free enterprise system, if women were producing the same but earning less, employers would be snapping them up. If women were being discriminated against on a broad basis, then Block said it should follow that industries which employ mostly women would have a higher profit margin. He said that's not the case.