Sorry Craig, I don't see any links to substantiate your assertion of a gender productivity differential. However, http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0148296301003290 Dwyer, Richard, Chadwick, 2003 does provide counter examples to your assertion. Specifically, for growth oriented firms, gender diversity in management leads to higher performance. This tends to support the idea of that firms that employ and promote qualified females perform better than those that do not. Also, your argument on nurturing tacitly attributes a currently uncounted productive contribution to productivity and the economy: perhaps if the unpaid home-making was adequately costed and measured, you might find that your narrow view of the workplace as the only source of productivity might evaporate and your assertions about gender productivity differentials further discredited.

I suggest you google "productivity by gender" Dennis. There are several very authoritative reports from groups like Goldman Sachs, KPMG, the MJA, the German ZPA and lots more. These are all reports from the last few years and none of them are hidden behind paywalls.

The report you cite does not show any causation in relation to profitability, merely that more profitable firms can afford to hire some staff that are more productive. It's important to remember that correlation does not necessarily imply causation, Dennis. Nor does wishful thinking make thing true.

Rae, see my response to Dennis. I'm afraid you're simply mistaken.

Peter, anecdote is no substitute for rigour. My point is not that women CANNOT be as productive as men, it is that on average they ARE not as productive as men.

That is borne out by every study I: have been able to find. Please feel free to show me studies that contradict my POV, I would be very pleased. After all, if I am right, then it means our last 40 years of Government education and labour policies have been no more than wishful thinking based on fluff and makeup or a cynical desire to pander to the squeaky-wheelism of professional feminists looking for an inside run, not on evidence. Personally, I find that a far worse thing to contemplate than the lack of productivity of women in paid work.

Go find those papers!

Googling "productivity by gender" as Craig suggests turned up a number of papers, covering different sorts of economic activity
For example: "Are Female Workers Less Productive Than Male Workers? Productivity and the Gender Wage Gap" by Trond Petersen, Vemund Snartland & Eva M. Meyersson Milgrom at UCB focussed on piece-work (where one is paid per thing made, and there is therefore little scope for gender discrimination) and concluded "In summary, then, women are slightly less productive than men in these typically male-dominated blue-collar occupations, with 1% in Sweden, 2% in the U.S., and 3% in Norway. For all practical purposes, in terms of how to remunerate men and women, this may be taken as evidence of equal productivity.". So much for the claim that women are vastly more inefficient at making widgets.

What about professional work? "The Impact of Gender on Productivity and Satisfaction Among Medical School Psychologists" by Maureen M. Black and E. Wayne Holden in the rnal of Clinical Psychology in Medical Settings found "When years of employment as a psychologist were statistically controlled, there were no gender differences in productivity, as measured by publications, presentations, and grant awards; however, gender differences in salary remained".

What about farming and agricultural work? The paper "“Gender Differences In Agricultural Productivity: A Survey Of Empirical Evidence” by Agnes R. Quisumbing of the International Food Policy Research Institute concludes "The review finds that in general, male and female farmers are equally efficient
as farm managers."

A notable aspect of these studies is that they use multi-factorial analyses which enable statistical controls and the investigation of other factors. Notably, the second controls for years of employment and the third controlled for years of education - rural women worldwide have less access to education, and people with less education are lower productivity farmers.

In their review across these fields (Gender differences in employment and why they matter), the World Bank concluded "Despite lower earnings and productivity, women are not worse farmers, entrepreneurs, and workers than men. We argue instead that gender differences in labor productivity and
earnings are primarily the result of differences in the economic activities of men and women... Three main factors lead to gender segregation in access to economic opportunities among farmers, entrepreneurs, and wage workers: gender differences in time use (primarily resulting from differences in care responsibilities), gender differences in access to productive inputs (particularly land and credit), and gender differences stemming from market and institutional failures.", where "market and institutional failures" is economist-speak for discrimination.

I mention these three articles and the world bank review not because they are particularly significant in the field, or because I picked them specially, but because they were literally the first four relevant articles I was able to download in full on a google search, from the first page of hits.

Maybe Craig's google is broken. Or perhaps it's his worldview. He has already been shown that Goldman Sachs concluded exactly the same thing in the paper he tries to trot out to support his prejudices.

James, you've convinced me, I'm going on the dole and leaving the work to women...

Or perhaps not just yet.

The first piece you cite I am quite familiar with. Their findings are that when women work at blue-collar piece-work occupations they can be nearly as productive as men doing the same job. However, there are some clever selective biases in their choice of and treatment of data. For example, they don't assess the piece work productivity across

Don't know how that got posted, I'll continue anyway.

As I started to say, they assess piece work productivity only at the per-shift level, they don't assess it across a longer baseline. This means that of a woman works really hard on one or two days a week then has the rest of the week off her total productivity is apparently higher than it really is.

Second, they ignore possible discrimination against men, as is usual for studies with an agenda to demonstrate that women are victims of discrimination. For example, if men are more valuable to employers through being more available and less likely to waste time in time-based occupations, that is not considered and any gap in pay is defined as discriminating against women.

Third, they ignore hours of work, whilst acknowledging that men work more overtime and do more discretionary work.

There are other flaws, but these 3 will do for a start.

The second piece you cite seeks to "control" for years of work, when it is prscisely that gap in total working life that is at the heart of the problem! A woman might be just as capable as a man, but if she doesn;t work as much she is not as useful to the employer. Goldman Sachs, KPMG, etc have shown that this is a real problem, as did Sue Ieraci in her helpful citation of the current medical workforce resourcing body, which said that women doctors work around 38 hours a week on average while their male colleagues work around 46 or about 1 extra day every week.

Moreover, the double-standard in regard to working hours has a discouraging effect on men to do the longer hours and they are in turn reducing theirs. After all, if you earn the same as me and do 20% less for the money, what's in it for me to do the extra?

The agriculture paper makes the following interesting statement at the start (just after your selective quote):"Women farmers' lower yields are attributable to lower levels of inputs
and human capital than men. " In other words, they work less at their farming so they produce less...

As for Goldman Sachs, I agree with their assertion that they refuse to believe that women CAN'T be as productive as men and I also agree with their findings that nonetheless women AREN"T as productive as men.

I'm pleased you've taken the time to do some actual research, James, it must have been a struggle for you. What a shame you're not equipped to look at it with some capacity to understand it.

Well said Steven. I had that same quote copied and ready to paste before I read your comment.

In any "high road" transition planning a fourth policy measure should be considered. That being, the adoption of business designs to perform optimally in a steady-state while providing adaptive resilience.

The problem with comparing women's productivity with that of men is that it is usually done in a microeconomic context of number of things produced per hour (as per the industry reports mentioned above), and the fact that women self-select themselves out of the workforce. Men don't bear the burden of carrying another human for nine months. This makes the comparison difficult, but it is common knowledge that the presence of a greater supply of labour due to the increased presence of women in the long-term has increased productivity and living standards.

Rae

I think you meant your last paragraph to mean Craig Minns who regularly denigrates women's contribution to both society and the economy, because he does not value unpaid work?

Regards

Dianna

Rae and Dianna,
I find it ironic that 'economics' which actually means 'management of the household', fails to include the work done in the household in its measures of productivity.

Spiro,
You assert that the greater supply of labour resulted in an increase in productivity and living standards!

I might agree that greater supply of labour increased productivity. You neglect to say, though, that increases in supply of labour also increased the costs of living, especially house and food prices and therefore many women now have no option but to work and that in many households there is nothing in life other than work both at home and in the workplace. (Of course if you don't count the work in the household then we all have lots of free time and capacity to increase our productivity in the workplace).

Your assertion that increased productivity results in an increase in living standards is therefore questionable.

Actually, Diana, I do value unpaid work. Apparently far more than you do, since you are so keen to push women into paid work whether they want to do it or not, when it is obvious that most simply want to have the time to look after the things important to them.

Never mind, you can continue stalking me across threads, making your wild accusations and I'll continue to point out your looniness in doing so, as if that wasn't already obvious to all. After all, what sort of "environmentalist" would you be if you regarded facts as more than inconveniences?

Rae, I'm afraid you're still mistaken. It's interesting that you've chosen insult rather than a discussion. That's often the response of those who are incapable of resenting a reasoned argument, so I'm not terribly surprised.

In the meantime, women are still less productive than men and we are still stupidly prioritising women's education over that of men and wondering why productivity keeps declining...

Spiro, I have no complaint whatever with employing women. My point is that selectively training women instead of men is a foolish activity, for the reasons you have mentioned. It would make far more sense (and increase productivity) to train men preferentially and women after the male positions have been taken.

The path we have taken is like deciding to try to compete in a race against V8s with a 4 cylinder and wondering why you lose ground every lap.

My comment that economic growth results in a reduction in living standards was intended to illustrate that the fundamental assumptions of economics are flawed.

More productivity is not 'by definition' a good thing however it is defined, nor is the creation of more jobs and therefore more work a good thing just because it is the prevailing orthodoxy. If you want to include unpaid enterprising behaviour then you also need to include all the unpaid work done in the household that means everyone gets up in the morning, rushes to work, works hard all day, comes home, does more work in the evening and collapses in bed exhausted in the evening. Lucky we get a day of rest on the weekend! (I hope I'm conveying my sarcasm adequately).

The optimum level of productivity is that which most efficiently satisfies our basic needs and then provides spare capacity for us to increase our creativity.

Your increases in productivity mean that those with assets benefit from the work of others through land rent and so your continued demands for more growth and more work are a trap for the majority. Business owners benefit from increases in productivity but for the large majority who do not own businesses and the significant proportion who do not own any assets, growth simply means an increase in their costs.

Increases in productivity mean an increase in inequality.

'Sweat Equity'

this is so true. I have witnessed this on countless occasions and i can confirm that in many occasions there is no reward or compensation for these types of 'sweat' activities. The costs are hidden in countless unpaid hours that are used either to:

- prop up an existing business
- and/or developing new business
- and/or developing products or innovation.

vast majority of small business traders fall into the first category.

For my part, the internet and the NBN is the fertile ground for a new wave of productivity and opportunities. My company has spent three years, self funded, drawing from thirty years experience in enterprise software to produce cloud based software for small business. May i suggest that this effort is yet another example of productivity investment that is unaccounted for. Nor is there a measure of the productivity benefits for growing number of small business that now use this free software and nor is there a measure of the export value given the product is available globally.

Entrepreneurship is alchemy that creates opportunities in both good times and bad. Other than the financial rewards if you are able to succeed, it is an uphill battle. Although there are some grants, R&D concessions, etc .. it remains an uphill battle. I totally support your point "policy could be better designed to enable this type of enterprising behaviour."

maybe we need Entrepreneurial thinking to design such a policy that encourages more alchemy.

@ Michael Lardelli

"Does anyone else see a brick wall up ahead on the road to eternal economic growth?"

Yes, indeed. But according to the Gospel Of Capitalism, such questions are heresy.

Peter,
The notion of growth ad infinitum is an imaginary notion perpetuated by the 1% who benefit from it and those who define themselves through it.

I think economists and environmentalists might see more eye-to-eye if we focussed upon "ending the growth of natural resource use", that is, doing more with less, which is what productivity is all about, rather than sweeping statements about "ending growth" - "growth" is a catch-all which clearly means different things to different people.

James,
Thank you for making that point.
A steady state economy does not aim to 'end the growth of natural resource use'... it aims to use only resources that naturally replenish themselves, eg. solar, wind, timber etc.... it aims to enhance natural systems so that they provide for human activities.

It does not prohibit growth but ensures that the use of resources is balanced against their replenishment and the users are responsible for the replenishishing.

Natural systems provide for growth as well as decay and death.
Human systems only provide for growth... and that is why we have our boom and bust cycles. The consequence of growth will always be collapse if we don't plan for the decay and death.

Instead of regarding our systems are all 'too big to fail', we need to accept that they must fail because they are too big and then we will see the new possibilities for a more sustainable growth +decay, steady-state system.

Spiro,

We need to build our economy so that we do not have adverse consequences when GDP per capita is steady.

The "steady-state" paradigm is about developing an economy that does not "NEED" to grow its GDP to be widely prosperous.