Jobs should support quality of life

I respond to the April 9 letter “The gender pay gap is fiction” from Joan Niehaus. She said women choose career paths such as counseling and early-childhood education rather than engineering or specialized medicine to gain greater quality of life and trade-off higher wages. We are directed to read Harvard professor Claudia Goldin’s work that states the gender gap would be considerably reduced if firms did not have an incentive to disproportionately reward individuals who labored long, inflexible hours.

Why shouldn’t all jobs offer a greater quality of life?

Niehaus’ underlying premise is that counseling and earlyeducation jobs are deservedly lower paying. Why doesn’t the teaching of our youngest children, the foundation of the future of our society, equate to engineering that ensures that the foundations of our buildings are well-constructed and long-lasting? Why doesn’t the mental-health work of counselors, who help to heal the anguish and crises of their clients, equate to the healing work of a physical nature done by cardiologists?

Niehaus also asked us to read June O’Neill, former director of the Congressional Budget Office, who dismisses comparable pay with the concern that it would be a disincentive for women to enter higher-paying fields, as if pay and not affinity is the reason a person should enter a profession.

Labor economists and other professionals have measured the persistent pay gap in the United States. Despite popular belief, the “Mommy Track” and other excuses do not account for the gap in wages. From professors to minimum-wage workers, females are being exploited. The book “Gender, Inequality, and Wages” by Francine D. Blau, shows undeniable proof of this injustice.

Mary Ellen Franzen Columbus