Give me more demanded the already privileged of everyone else.

Kind of embarassing. From When More Women Join the Workforce, Wages Rise — Including for Men by Amanda Weinstein. Weinstein is kron. Her research focuses on the determinants of urban and regional economic development. She received her PhD in 2013 from The Ohio State University. Hopefully this is a misstep early in her academic career which can be put behind her.

The increase of women in the paid workforce was arguably the most significant change in the economy in the past century. In the U.S., women’s participation in the labor market has nearly doubled, from 34% of working age women (age 16 and older) in the labor force in 1950 to almost 57% in 2016. When it passed 50% in 1978, working women became the norm.

Yet although the female labor force participation rate has been rising steadily in the country, it has not done so evenly across cities. In places like Gadsden, Alabama, and Punta Gorda, Florida, less than half of working age women (46% and 42%, respectively) were in the paid workforce in 2010; cities like Madison, Wisconsin, had 73% and Fargo, North Dakota, had more than 75% (the highest in the nation) of women in the workforce. There is also significant variation within states: In California women’s labor force participation in 2010 was 62% in San Francisco but just 57% in San Diego; in Pennsylvania it was 62% in Philadelphia but only 57% in Pittsburgh.

Previous research has explored the factors that create these disparities — from regional differences in gender role attitudes to varying local business climates and commute times. But not much is known about the effects of these disparities, and how women’s workforce participation affects cities’ economic growth and productivity. Indeed, most of the conversation about women and work revolves around how the economy impacts women; we know comparatively less about how women in turn affect work and the economy.

[snip]

When I looked at women’s share of employment (percent of the overall workforce that is female) instead of the female labor force participation rate (percent of women who are in the workforce), I found that every 10% increase in women’s share of total employment is associated with real wage increases of nearly 8%.

This is consistent with other analyses that have looked at female labor force participation across countries: as women’s share of the labor force increases by 10%, real wage growth increases by nearly 10%. This result also indicates that the impact of increasing women’s labor force participation is distinct from the impact of increasing men’s labor force participation; in fact, a 10% increase in male labor force participation rates is associated with a 3% decrease in median real wages, likely due to a shift in the supply curve — more men are competing for the same jobs.

Weinstein is arguing that an increase in the labor force increases income, especially for women.

The flaw is that Weinstein is working from correlation and not causation AND she is not controlling for relevant differences in demographics. You cannot address differences in compensation and gender when comparing San Francisco and (say) Akron without also controlling for the relevant differences in demographics. San Francisco is younger, more LGBT, and has dramatically fewer families with children than Akron. If you are going to compare gender income and LFPR differences, you have to control for family formation rates, children, etc. Akron, being dramatically cheaper than San Francisco, will naturally have a much higher number of single worker families than San Francisco. If you don't control for those facts, you are not comparing apples and oranges. Apples-to-oranges comparisons compounded by mistaking correlation with causation. And right there in the Harvard Business Review for everyone to see.

It would be easy to feel quite sorry for Weinstein but then you see why her thinking has been clouded. She is a SJW postmodernist, seeking an authoritarian power to benefit one group over another. It doesn't look like it at first glance, but that is the implication of the words.

When fewer women participate in the labor force, the economy operates without the talents and abilities of 51% of the population. If cities want to take advantage of the real wage gains that result from more women in the workforce, they should ask women what they want and find ways to meet their needs.

The authoritarian blinkers blind her to the fact that that is what is already going on. People work in the industries they want and in the cities that they want based on a complex balancing of their personal interests and goals. No need for government to ask groups what they want and then figure out ways to give them what they want. The market is already doing that for you.

Give me more demanded the already privileged of everyone else.