Getting divorced is My wife entitled to my mothers house?

Silvertabby

CookieMonster said:

AskAsk said:

Gavin83 said:

mason's_mum said:

burlingtonfl6 said:

 What happened to the wage gap? 
You are right though, the majority of us are just average earners leading and average life it just baffles me why either sex thinks they should walk away with more of the assets when they've not really put as much in as the other person.
Someone who gets married, has no assets, gets married, quits an average job to spend 5 years looking after the kids and then wants 80% of assets in the divorce is just pathetic.

1: there is a wage gap, as we both know  both between men and women doing the same job and between industries!

Does this still exist? I often see overall figures being quoted but I don't really see the figures that suggest a man and a woman, in the same company, doing the same job are receiving different pay due to their gender. Maybe I'm shielded from this somewhat as two people in the same role for my employer will earn the same (slight deviation for experience) regardless of gender. Either way I'd be interested to see the figures for this.

In regards to the overall conversation the contributions of the stay at home parent should of course equal that of the parent going to work. However I'm not so comfortable on the idea of pre-marital assets being split equally given that the other party had no part in accumulating these.  

 on average, men tend to earn more than women.

There is an earnings gap.
As an overall average, it's got much less to do with senior roles than many people think - as only a very small % of workers (men or women) are in "senior roles".
Men work more hours, and in riskier jobs (in general).
Time = Money; Risk = Reward.

Read a newspaper 'report' some time ago, which seemed to imply that - shock ! Horror! - a well known airline paid higher salaries to men.

Turned out that they had been comparing the overall average male salary against the overall average female salary - and it was a simple case of most of the lower paid clerical/cleaning posts being filled by women, and most of the pilots being men.

Male and female pilots of the same rank/experience were on the same pay rate, as were male and female cleaners.

The wonders of 'averages'.  

mason's_mum

Gavin83 said:

Does this still exist? I often see overall figures being quoted but I don't really see the figures that suggest a man and a woman, in the same company, doing the same job are receiving different pay due to their gender. Maybe I'm shielded from this somewhat as two people in the same role for my employer will earn the same (slight deviation for experience) regardless of gender. Either way I'd be interested to see the figures for this.

In regards to the overall conversation the contributions of the stay at home parent should of course equal that of the parent going to work. However I'm not so comfortable on the idea of pre-marital assets being split equally given that the other party had no part in accumulating these.  

I believe it does - but only have anecdotal evidence and no time to search for reputable references! In my industry it's always difficult to find 2 people that actually have the exact same job as well, but me and a colleague were doing as close as could be, the same job - he was a grade higher than me and I mentioned it to my boss who said I was on the correct grade and he wasn't, but there was nothing she could do as he reported to a different manager and couldn't be demoted.

In response to your second point, I think if it's a short marriage with no children then the default is to return each party to the position they entered the marriage in. However it's hard to differentiate assets if the marriage has been a long one - especially if children have come along.

CookieMonster

mason's_mum said:

Gavin83 said:

Does this still exist? 

I believe it does - but only have anecdotal evidence and no time to search for reputable references! In my industry it's always difficult to find 2 people that actually have the exact same job as well, but me and a colleague were doing as close as could be, the same job - he was a grade higher than me and I mentioned it to my boss who said I was on the correct grade and he wasn't, but there was nothing she could do as he reported to a different manager and couldn't be demoted.

There was something that you could do: see a solicitor.
Equal Pay Act 1975 in the UK, it's been illegal since then.
You should have been promoted to his level, unless they had justification (more experience/knowledge/other responsibilities/another skill etc.whilst doing the same job, as two people are rarely identical).
Personnel are often one of the biggest expenses in a business. If it was 'cheaper' to employ women then businesses would do it.

AskAsk

mason's_mum said:

Gavin83 said:

Does this still exist? I often see overall figures being quoted but I don't really see the figures that suggest a man and a woman, in the same company, doing the same job are receiving different pay due to their gender. Maybe I'm shielded from this somewhat as two people in the same role for my employer will earn the same (slight deviation for experience) regardless of gender. Either way I'd be interested to see the figures for this.

In regards to the overall conversation the contributions of the stay at home parent should of course equal that of the parent going to work. However I'm not so comfortable on the idea of pre-marital assets being split equally given that the other party had no part in accumulating these.  

I believe it does - but only have anecdotal evidence and no time to search for reputable references! In my industry it's always difficult to find 2 people that actually have the exact same job as well, but me and a colleague were doing as close as could be, the same job - he was a grade higher than me and I mentioned it to my boss who said I was on the correct grade and he wasn't, but there was nothing she could do as he reported to a different manager and couldn't be demoted.

In response to your second point, I think if it's a short marriage with no children then the default is to return each party to the position they entered the marriage in. However it's hard to differentiate assets if the marriage has been a long one - especially if children have come along.

you can have people of different grades doing the same job, that is not unusual at all.  this happened all the time in my experience.  sometimes i would be doing work for a higher grade and sometimes i would be doing work for a lower grade.  work is allocated on availability so there can be mixes.  sometimes people get promoted on their experience but they can be asked to perform a role that is below their grade.

job grades do not necessarily correlate linearly with salary either.  i get paid the same as someone at a higher grade and i know that i get paid more than some of my male colleagues at the same grade.  so there can be variation in pay for the same grade, but i don't think it is about whether the employee is male or female any more these days.  it is more to do with how much the employer believe they need to pay you so you would join them or stay with them, as even at the same grade, some employees will be more valuable to the employer than others.

employers also have to pay market rates when they recruit an employee and this can be higher than what they are paying current staff.  i tend to move around for this very reason as i found that if i stayed too long at a company, my pay does not keep pace with market rates.

strawb_shortcake

After they changed our pay structure at work I ended being paid around £6k pa more than some of my colleagues of the same grade, and I was very close in salary to my male line manager, which made it a little awkward when he had to tell me what my pay rise was the coming year - that format didn't last long.
But different pay for different genders isn't something we see in the CS as standard.
But the average male salary is likely to be higher than average female due to more women working part time. 

But I do see continuing trends in more women in senior roles, some don't have children, some have Nannies and others have a stay at home Dad and others use a Nursery. 
Some of my male colleagues that have a high earning partner do seem to do have the lions share of child responsibility or at least allude to this.

Silvertabby

Just a little history to ponder on....  I left school at 15 in 1971 and started work in a well known supermarket.

A lad from my class also started work on the same day as me.  As he was too young to operate the fork lift trucks in the storeage area, he did exactly the same job as me.  Stacking shelves on the shop floor.

When we received our first weekly pay packets, I got £5 and some odds - but he had over £7.  I asked the manager why we were being paid different wages for doing exactly the same job, and was told that 'it's because he's a man and men have wives and children to keep'.  I pointed out that he was a 15 year old lad who still lived with his mum, and promptly had my card marked as 'a trouble maker'.

I left that job long before the 1975 Equal Pay Act.

AskAsk

Silvertabby said:

Just a little history to ponder on....  I left school at 15 in 1971 and started work in a well known supermarket.

A lad from my class also started work on the same day as me.  As he was too young to operate the fork lift trucks in the storeage area, he did exactly the same job as me.  Stacking shelves on the shop floor.

When we received our first weekly pay packets, I got £5 and some odds - but he had over £7.  I asked the manager why we were being paid different wages for doing exactly the same job, and was told that 'it's because he's a man and men have wives and children to keep'.  I pointed out that he was a 15 year old lad who still lived with his mum, and promptly had my card marked as 'a trouble maker'.

I left that job long before the 1975 Equal Pay Act.

this really made me laugh.  "but he is 15", lol 

Silvertabby

AskAsk said:

Silvertabby said:

Just a little history to ponder on....  I left school at 15 in 1971 and started work in a well known supermarket.

A lad from my class also started work on the same day as me.  As he was too young to operate the fork lift trucks in the storeage area, he did exactly the same job as me.  Stacking shelves on the shop floor.

When we received our first weekly pay packets, I got £5 and some odds - but he had over £7.  I asked the manager why we were being paid different wages for doing exactly the same job, and was told that 'it's because he's a man and men have wives and children to keep'.  I pointed out that he was a 15 year old lad who still lived with his mum, and promptly had my card marked as 'a trouble maker'.

I left that job long before the 1975 Equal Pay Act.

this really made me laugh.  "but he is 15", lol 

Another memory from that time:  Our shop 'uniform' was a knee length nylon dust coat with the shop logo on the pocket.  The men (and 15 year old boys) had to wear collar and tie and, obviously, trousers.  The female dress code, however, was that our own clothing musn't show either above or below the dust coat.  This left us feeling rather exposed when climbing ladders to stack the higher shelves, so we asked the manager if we could wear smart trousers instead of short skirts.  His reply was 'no' because - wait for it! - 'men sometimes come into the shop with their wives.  They don't want to be here, so the least we can do is give them something nice to look at'. 

AskAsk

Silvertabby said:

AskAsk said:

Silvertabby said:

Just a little history to ponder on....  I left school at 15 in 1971 and started work in a well known supermarket.

A lad from my class also started work on the same day as me.  As he was too young to operate the fork lift trucks in the storeage area, he did exactly the same job as me.  Stacking shelves on the shop floor.

When we received our first weekly pay packets, I got £5 and some odds - but he had over £7.  I asked the manager why we were being paid different wages for doing exactly the same job, and was told that 'it's because he's a man and men have wives and children to keep'.  I pointed out that he was a 15 year old lad who still lived with his mum, and promptly had my card marked as 'a trouble maker'.

I left that job long before the 1975 Equal Pay Act.

this really made me laugh.  "but he is 15", lol 

Another memory from that time:  Our shop 'uniform' was a knee length nylon dust coat with the shop logo on the pocket.  The men (and 15 year old boys) had to wear collar and tie and, obviously, trousers.  The female dress code, however, was that our own clothing musn't show either above or below the dust coat.  This left us feeling rather exposed when climbing ladders to stack the higher shelves, so we asked the manager if we could wear smart trousers instead of short skirts.  His reply was 'no' because - wait for it! - 'men sometimes come into the shop with their wives.  They don't want to be here, so the least we can do is give them something nice to look at'. 

OMG.  wow, that is incredible.  how times have changed.  if a male manager is caught saying that now, he would be publicly stripped and whipped   

it is incredible the way people think and behave over time.  what was perfectly acceptable in the past would now sound so shocking and people would say, did they really say things like that or thought like that in those days?  wonder what is normal behaviour now that would be considered to be absolutely unacceptable in the future?

strawb_shortcake

AskAsk said:

Silvertabby said:

AskAsk said:

Silvertabby said:

Just a little history to ponder on....  I left school at 15 in 1971 and started work in a well known supermarket.

A lad from my class also started work on the same day as me.  As he was too young to operate the fork lift trucks in the storeage area, he did exactly the same job as me.  Stacking shelves on the shop floor.

When we received our first weekly pay packets, I got £5 and some odds - but he had over £7.  I asked the manager why we were being paid different wages for doing exactly the same job, and was told that 'it's because he's a man and men have wives and children to keep'.  I pointed out that he was a 15 year old lad who still lived with his mum, and promptly had my card marked as 'a trouble maker'.

I left that job long before the 1975 Equal Pay Act.

this really made me laugh.  "but he is 15", lol 

Another memory from that time:  Our shop 'uniform' was a knee length nylon dust coat with the shop logo on the pocket.  The men (and 15 year old boys) had to wear collar and tie and, obviously, trousers.  The female dress code, however, was that our own clothing musn't show either above or below the dust coat.  This left us feeling rather exposed when climbing ladders to stack the higher shelves, so we asked the manager if we could wear smart trousers instead of short skirts.  His reply was 'no' because - wait for it! - 'men sometimes come into the shop with their wives.  They don't want to be here, so the least we can do is give them something nice to look at'. 

OMG.  wow, that is incredible.  how times have changed.  if a male manager is caught saying that now, he would be publicly stripped and whipped   

it is incredible the way people think and behave over time.  what was perfectly acceptable in the past would now sound so shocking and people would say, did they really say things like that or thought like that in those days?  wonder what is normal behaviour now that would be considered to be absolutely unacceptable in the future?

In the late 90's I was working part time in a factory prior to starting college in the September. The female supervisor took me to the side and told me I had to wear baggy t-shirts in future as my closer fitting tops were causing too much distraction for the men on the workforce. I was 16 and most of the men were double my age but I was in the one with a problem. 

Went back a few years later in a different department, and was let go as they thought two weeks off sick for a miscarriage was taking the proverbial