Love's Triumph

8M- REASONS FOR STRIKING- PART II: THE MATHEMATICAL PROBLEM

“Women work more every day, by an average of TWO hours, ONE minute and THIRTY NINE seconds, to make the same as their male colleagues, according to the gender salary gap of 21%”

How did we get to know that women have to work 2h1’39” more than men to earn the same?

First of all, someone invested their time in comparing salaries between men and women in different jobs, and concluded that women earn 21% less than men for doing the SAME tasks.

If we use equations, we can easily check the given overtime.

To simplify the calculation, we solved the problem using 20% instead of 21%.

We defined the following variables:

          X_w: women´s salary per hour

          X_m: men´s salary per hour

          S_w: women´s daily salary

          S_m: men´s daily salary

          t: overtime

We suppose that both, women and men, work 8 hours a day.

          S_w = 8 X_w

          S_m = 8 X_m

          X_w = 0.8 X_m  (because a woman makes 20% less per hour)

To make the same, a woman must work 8+t hours

          (8+t) 0.8 X_m = 8 X_m

The solution of the equation is t=2

Remember that “t” is the OVERTIME...that means that a woman should work 10 hours a day to earn the same as a man...DO YOU REALLY THINK IT IS FAIR?