Your comment reminded me of a story my aunt told me. She used to work for a government organization that provided job finding training to women. One of the women attending their job finding club told them how she had worked at a local retail store, and in the staff lounge, management had posted a notice saying, “It is against company policy to discuss salaries.” And someone else (presumably an employee) had written below it, “I’d prohibit it too if I paid what you do!”

I’m particularly happy that it covers that people like to think that men are like this (able to negotiate and value their work) and women are like that (passive and unwilling to confront a bad pay situation), but that we are social creatures, motivated by social risks and rewards and built to read and navigate complex and subtle cues related to how others perceive us socially. Clearly if a woman is intelligent enough to move up the corporate ladder and get herself promoted, she is intelligent enough to see if there’s a benefit to negotiating. In fact, I would venture to say that one of the primary reasons women push themselves so hard towards promotions is because this is the only really socially acceptable way for a woman to affect her pay. Asking for more money is seen as un-feminine and likely to be punished, but working hard is acceptable. But then working hard is unlikely to be financially recognized for women, so then you have to work hard enough to justify a change in your job title and then they have to change your pay at least a little bit (even if it’s still going to lag behind your male counterparts).

This is a long bow to draw, but a similar problem exists regarding jury duty. Jurors are reluctant to want to serve when the loss of income is not compensated. To combat this, Great Britain has created a model whereby people who serve are compensated at a scale commensurate with their personal earning power. This encourages people at all earning levels to do jury duty.

This is only the beginning of an idea that needs to be expanded, but perhaps something similar is required for care-giving. If someone is going to take two years off to care for a new baby (or anyone in need of dedicated care), perhaps they need to be compensated in a manner that is commensurate with their earning power.

Unless a true competitive value is in place for care-giving, it will always seem for some to be a sacrifice.