Gender-driven Wage Imbalance

Mark Perry at at Carpe Diem finds evidence of a "Reverse Gender Wage Gap":

...if you control for all of the important variables that contribute to wage differentials (age, marital status, having children, etc.), i.e. impose ceteris paribus conditions, there is no evidence of gender discrimination, and either there is no statistically significant wage gap, or now there's a wage gap in favor of women.

I think Alexander Hamilton would be pleased with this. In his Report on Manufactures, he recognized the importance of expanding the labor force:

III. As to the additional employment of classes of the community not ordinarily engaged in the particular business.

This is not among the least valuable of the means by which manufacturing institutions contribute to augment the general stock of industry and production. In places where those institutions prevail, besides the persons regularly engaged in them, they afford occasional and extra employment to industrious individuals and families who are willing to devote the leisure resulting from the intermissions of their ordinary pursuits to collateral labors as a resource of multiplying their acquisitions or enjoyments. The husbandman himself experiences a new source of profit and support from the encreased industry of his wife and daughters, invited and stimulated by the demands of the neighboring manufactories.

Besides this advantage of occasional employment to classes having different occupations, there is another of a nature allied to it and of a similar tendency. This is—the employment of persons who would otherwise be idle (and in many cases a burthen on the community), either from the bias of temper, habit, infirmity or body, or some other cause, indisposing or disqualifying them for the toils of the country. It is worthy of particular remark that, in general, women and children are rendered more useful, and the latter more early useful, by manufacturing establishments than they would otherwise be. Of the number of persons employed in the cotton manufactories of Great Britain, it is computed that 4/7 nearly are women and children, of whom the greatest proportion are children and many of them of a very tender age.

And thus it appears to be one of the attributes of manufactures, and one of no small consequence, to give occasion to the exertion of a greater quantity of industry, even by the same number of persons, where they happen to prevail, than would exist if there were no such establishments.

Finding Abortion's Common Ground

Dana Loesch has a new post at blogher.com On Notre Dame and Life. While I agree with Dana throughout the piece, I think she let's her outrage get the better of her on the abortion debate. Here's part of what she wrote:

When President Obama said that we must find common ground I cringed a bit. This isn't Cap and Trade, it isn't an economic principle, it's not an opinion that either side holds; to find common ground one must back off a fundamental principle of what they believe.“The problem here is that we’re trivializing abortion,” said Rev. Frank Pavone, national director of Priests for Life. It doesn't just trivialize abortion, it also trivializes the beliefs of either side to assume that they can just lay down fundamental beliefs for the sake of false political harmony.

I agree with the president that we should work together to find common ground on this issue. Perhaps I have a unique view, but I do not believe that we need to cede any ground as we work together with President Obama.

My first suggestion is that we strive for gender equity in abortion. This can be achieved by introducing legislation that makes gender selective abortions illegal. So, which is it Mr. President? Does a pregnant woman have the right to abort her boy babes or do you stand for gender equity?

Second, over 35% of abortions in the US are performed for black mothers while African Americans compose only about 13% of the population. Clearly, abortion dispropotionately effects the African American community. At the local and state level, zoning laws could be used to limit the number of abortion facilities in predominately black neighborhoods. While I do not support racial quotas, that shouldn't stop President Obama from voicing his support for legislation that places firm racial quotas on abortion. Surely, he wants to do whatever he can to end the Black Genocide (warning: some photos on that site are graphic).

As conservatives settle into their diminished role they need to articulate persuasive arguments that further their agenda. This means smaller, hopefully more achievable, goals. By chipping away at abortion with focused attacks on its more offensive aspects, we broaden our appeal. Confronting the appalling racial statistics of abortion will demonstrate leadership on a little known "social justice" issue. That in turn will burnish our brand.

President Obama has made a couple of hollow offers (yes, I doubt the sincerity of his search for "common ground" and his promise to sit down with Tea Partiers); however, by engaging those offers we are able to descern his true motives. If a bill is introduced in Congress to reduce the number of minority abortions, he's going to be asked about it. Michelle will also be asked. Maybe it will even pass.