"the more aggressive you are the more you get away with

traditional men are the most aggressive, traditional women the least, non traditional women are more aggressive than traditional women and non traditional men are less aggressive than traditional men."

The less aggressive males (or non-selfish) I know are making less than the aggressive (or selfish) women I know. If we could just teach our women to be more aggressive and look out for their own interest instead of stifling it in them, society might get closer to equal.

I didn't look at the actual study, so maybe they controlled for this, but isn't age the most obvious explanation? Older men make more money. Older men have more traditional views.

I have to say, if this isn't something they controlled for this a really, really pointless study.

Great question. Impressively, the study "began tracking 12,000 people in 1979 when they were 14 to 22 years old. The survey participants are now 43 to 51 years old," according to the Washington Post.

Could it be that the men who embrace the 'traditional' approach to life are also less likely to desire life be more than just work? They are most likely to embrace that loyalty to the corporation thing that stopped being effective, oh, 30 years ago?

Employers pick up on the attitudes and interpret it as more serious or more dependable? Those are the people they will reward more generously - they make life easy for managers.

I know they equalized the study to look at people doing same hours, but we probably all know people who give up their nights and weekends for work and not complain (much).

I think people who have less traditional outlooks might also be less likely to work those extra hours - but if they have to, won't feel wrong complaining!

It's not much different than a "Good Ole Boy" system. If a man doesn't treat women like objects and follow the rules, he's excluded (from the system).

It's silly for the study's researcher(s) to boil it down to so few explanations. (A lot of studies are like that - incomplete, irresponsible jabs at a specific individual or group of individuals that end up alienating everyone who is reading it for the purpose it's intended to serve.) As a man, I can think of a lot of explanations (to explain the data and conclusions the researchers came to).

Best,

-m in detroit

is simply that the 'retro' men are more aggressive and more likely to impress a vision of themselves as indispensable or hardworking; or even to actually work many more extra hours because of their drive to achieve. The study didn't say they have wives to give them home support; many probably do, but many also probably don't and simply don't pay that much attention to the housework or much else other than their jobs. A wife working at home does help, but it's not essential: if your standards for living conditions at home are low, and your psychological rewards come from your work achievements, you won't mind very much.

I'm sure the reason for the real disparity is that when it comes to large money making industries...defense, automotive, Wallsheet, business, lumber, energy..these are all "old boy" industries that have a lot of money running through them and rife with sexist old boys attitudes and behaviors...consciously or otherwise. Very few if any women work within these real halls of power type industries in any true mid to upper management positions; where the money discrepancy is no doubt vast.

So if women where able to crack those institutional ceilings...I'm sure more money would pour out. But don't look too soon. These industries to a great degree nurture their own...and that means gender too!

To answer some of these questions, someone should do a study on couples. Add the incomes of a couple consisting of an egalitarian man and egalitarian woman, and compare the total to the salary of the throwback man and his non-earning wife. Clearly the egalitarian couple is ahead, and the traditional man is handicapped by his own sexism.

I guess I would be considered in the "Egalitarian Man" category. I work from home in a consulting business and I could easily take twice as many jobs and make twice as much money, but it would take up twice as much of my time. However, my wife has to commute to her 9 to 5 job, so it's only fair that I take care of the majority of the day-to-day household responsibilities. And I'm happy with this. It's great stress reliever when it's still early afternoon and you realize the most important thing you have to do for the rest of the day is the laundry.

As it was, so it is.

And we choose our kind. Just as some people will select Palin because she looks like them, some bosses will promote those people who look like them and the majority of bosses are men.

Confirmation bias, as evidenced by the comments of some of the feminist posters.

I want to see my wife earn everything that she's worth. She however doesn't enjoy her profession near as much as I do. She's also a hell of a lot better than I am and running the house and our finances. When she's in charge of that our household runs more efficiently.

Our financial situations are destined to improve for the better soon and when that happens, she'll retire to be a "house wife" or perhaps take a part time job earning a lot less but doing what she enjoys.

So am I a sexist pig for looking forward to a time when I can spoil her as a house wife and not see her stressed out everyday?

Please explain - how is any confirmation bias in the comments here connected to alleged confirmation bias on the part of those who have conducted this 30 year study?

Seems to me the two are wholly unrelated, which makes your statement logically flawed. People would be more inclined to see truth in what you have to say if your reasoning and logic were sound.