To offset, or perhaps mesh with, the still rumbling discussion on “depression”:http://network.nature.com/people/rpg/blog/2008/09/14/on-depression—a-personal-perspective, it strikes me that there’s an obvious solution to the scientific pay “problem”:http://network.nature.com/people/UE19877E8/blog/2008/09/29/in-which-science-becomes-a-sport-–-hypothetically-speaking#comment-18378. The logical extension is that we all become enthusiastic amateurs (and a serious post on that is brewing)—
or we start whinging about how much we hate it.
Consider: If we’re being paid less than our experience, skills and training would suggest, because we enjoy it, then logically, if we want to be paid more, we should stop enjoying it. Now that’s going to be a bit much for some people and I’m not suggesting we should all hate our jobs. After all, it’s a big percentage of our waking lives and I don’t know about you but I don’t want to be miserable all day.
But there’s nothing to stop us putting it about that actually, we’re all miserable and hate it, and only do the job because we feel we have to, that we are doing it for the benefit of society only, taking away no personal reward or gratification. Then they’ll pay us the same as the marketing people, or the PR droid a certain RC in the UK appointed a few years ago at twice the professorial salary.
Yes, I’m a professional. Do you think I’d do this job if they didn’t pay me?
This weblog entry will self-destruct in five seconds. Probably taking your computer with it. But that’s necessary for op-sec, sorry. My hands are tied.
The logical extension is that we all become enthusiastic amateurs
That would also solve the problem of the proliferation of several types of scientific misconduct where people are pressured to produce results in order to secure funding, prestige or whatever rocks your boat.
Imagine all you needed was a butterfly net and some pins? How unethical would you get other than pinning insects to a piece of cardboard?
Eheheheheh harrumph. You know, I noticed just the other day that I’m apparently so miserably poor that I qualify for subsidized housing. Or would, if I didn’t own a house. My kid’s eligible for free crystallized corn syrup for breakfast at school and free health insurance.* Well. “Free.” The feds send me welfare through the tax system to the tune of a few grand a year, whether or not I ask for it.
What am I worth, as a writer. You know, the main answer is “I don’t care so long as I get to do it.” I see pharma and med writer jobs advertised in the $80-100K range; I see freelance copyeditor jobs offered in the sub-minimum-wage range. NEH apparently thinks I need $3K/mo to get by. I bill at somewhere in the $35-50/hr range for the K12 stuff, because that’s what they’ll pay. Double it for tech writing.
I suspect most writers are worth $0/yr, and that’s probably what most of us make. I never applied for federal arts grants, because I don’t see why teh public should be supporting me in work that, seriously, no one wants. Also because I like that work and am unwilling to shill for it.
I have serious issues with the compensation for the mother work, which is, y’know, supposed to be all about love. Yeah, love, sure, but damned if it doesn’t take a lot of time. I reckoned the other day I spend about 7-8h/day on kid-related stuff before I get around to making money and doing my own work, and really, I have a lovely, healthy, and frequently self-entertaining kid. What I’d like:
a) The ex pays me for doing his share of childcare at my going rate (because the economists got to me first at school, and I still think opportunity cost is a good measure), which comes to something like $2500/mo;
b) The school district hands over the per-cap allotment for the kid, which comes to around $1K/mo, and I take care of her education myself, thanks. (Come to find out today that she doesn’t like art class because they tell her what to paint, and is afraid she’ll get in trouble if she disobeys. I suggested that, when told what to paint, she ask why, and told her I won’t be mad if she gets in trouble for painting whatever she wants. She’s still nervous.)
Anyway, that’d come to about $42K/yr for raising and educating the kid; stuck in there would remain about 4h/day of kid work I do just because, y’know, I chose to have a kid. Given that the schoolteacher gets $48K plus benefits for just the ed part, that doesn’t sound unreasonable, and would put me at around median income for the area. Be a hell of a lot fewer poor old ladies if there was that kind of compensation going around, too.
amy
*despite my abject poverty, we live in a newish 3br house with yard, apple trees, etc., near nice school, & kid has the usual middle-class trappings — Spanish lessons, swimming lessons, gymnastics, violin, college fund, etc. Happily, we’re both small and live in the midst of beautiful farmland, so can afford to eat formerly happy animals and truly gorgeous veg. All of which leaves me wondering how it is that others with incomes like mine around here are so down/out, unless they’ve got massive debt, med problems, etc.
So, Amy, would that arrangement actually make you happy?
Consider: If we’re being paid less than our experience, skills and training would suggest, because we enjoy it, then logically, if we want to be paid more, we should stop enjoying it
I think I prefer your misery real rather than synthetic … 🙂
Oooh, them’s fighting words Henry. Come here and I’ll make you miserable for real…
You’re on.
Dr Rohn – you can sell tickets.
@Jenny: Seriously? Yes. For one thing, I wouldn’t wake up at this ungodly hour. I’d get more of my own work done, we’d travel, I wouldn’t feel like I was feeding her froot loops for education every day. I’d feel reasonably well-compensated for the setup, too. I sure didn’t plan to be any single mom, but so long as there’s no choice, reasonable compensation for my time sounds fine by me.
Just a little bit of context:
It should not be underestimated how totally boring are the vast majority of jobs being done by most of the world’s population. The world is full of people doing jobs far beneath their qualification and/or intelligence level.
Those of us who are lucky enough to be in jobs where we are treated with respect (even a small amount of it!), and can use our brains, are in a tiny, tiny minority.
Those of us who are lucky enough to be in jobs where we are treated with respect (even a small amount of it!), and can use our brains, are in a tiny, tiny minority
Actually, I think it’s just me.
no Henry, you have a tiny, tiny brain. Subtle difference.
Dr Rohn – how are those ticket sales going?
Richard> I think there is something in what Maxine says… that most people don’t nessecary enjoy their jobs and get paid accordingly. However, the thing that gets to me every once in awhile is that I’m suppose to be happy about doing this job for lots and lots of hours and still not be “attractive” to a larger market.
Then again, it might be the presentation that is wrong? And maybe the problem is a tad bit of the “self sacrificing scientist who is soo interested in knowing what the answer is that s/he works [unpaid] overtime”?
I couldn’t, actually, do a job I didn’t enjoy for long.
But tell me, if all this is true, why are aren’t binmen on 100k/year? Dirty job, no one wants to do it, necessary and surely it’s less enjoyable than PR?
who says they’re not?
Honestly, back ‘home’ they get paid fairly good… although their “life span” was much shorter than “regular” people so the money was a bit of a carrot for them.
Furthermore, they get paid extra for the strange hours. Mind you though, this might be a special case for the “binmen in the north socialdemocratic country[tm]”.
I think the necessary is the key word here. You need certain things to be done. They get done. If they are necessary enough and dirty enough the price will go up.
My job is necessary to the advancement of the human race. You should see our cold-room; it’s dirty and smelly. And I have to use dangerous chemicals and equipment.
And I’m miserable.
[to be more accurate. They don’t make 100k a year but as an example – a regular sceintist employed by a uni would make roughly 360k SEK a year (53kUSD) whereas a binman would make roughly 456k (67k USD) SEK a year. ]
My Dad worked as a binman one summer when he was in university and said it was honestly one of the best jobs he’s ever had. Mind you his other jobs were in an open cast mine, and then as a teacher, so…
Anyway, I’m sure the temporary nature of the job helped, but he said it was always a really good laugh.
Before Richard goes there, I’ll do it myself:
“my old man’s a dustman, he wears a dustman’s hat,”
etc.
I can’t imagine…
Actually I can, having—at various times—cleaned the floor of a petfood-processing factory, unloaded cwt bags of ammonium nitrate from a Russian freighter and spent two months on the night shift at a pea-freezing plant.
Dodgy jobs:
Strawberry picking, kitchen prep, serving in a cafeteria, working in a sports clothing shop, barmaid, cinema usher/ticket sales/popcorn shoveller, taking phone calls from job advertisers in a job centre, marketing in a biotech company.
May I ask an open question as to what you are doing to educate or engage with the public so that they want more budget allocated to fund your job?
… and are you saying that the absolute wage is too low, or is it low relative to somebody else’s wage?
Public engagement is actually a different matter from what’s being discussed here (nonetheless, a subject close to my heart).
Scientists get a ‘good’ absolute salary, but when you compare it with what can be earned by people who have trained for just as long and work just as hard, but often are nowhere near as smart, it’s pretty poor. I have a friend, for example, who’s a radiologist. I have a feeling that I earn a lot less than he thinks I do, from what’s been said. Now, you might say that radiology is more ‘necessary’ than science, but I’d argue you can’t have radiology without science. Radiology might save lives at best, or make life a little less uncomfortable for individuals at least: but Science saves Society.
Hmm. I might have a new catch-phrase.
I made ridiculous Christmas centre pieces for money once. And then McSweeneys interviewed me about it for their ridiculous jobs feature.
Richard, I think Matthew’s question is completely warranted, considering the gist of your post – and where the money to pay you more wages would come from. There is a good chance that there are many people who don’t read all threads on NN, and if they just stumble across this one, they’d get quite a skewed impression as it is at this point.
Radiology might save lives at best, or make life a little less uncomfortable for individuals at least: but Science saves Society. I’m not sure whether you’re being sarcastic – difficult to tell over the internet – but you sound very arrogant indeed, even assuming that you are just trying to be provocative. There is a lot of science being done that has nothing at all to do with saving society (at least not in the immediate sense), and a lot of other professions that do.
bq. There is a lot of science being done that has nothing at all to do with saving society (at least not in the immediate sense), and a lot of other professions that do.
Individually, we’re all going to die. Discuss.
That’s not very helpful. You ask for more pay, you need to tell people why, methinks – especially when you state that you’re saving society, no less.
From the Sarah Palin School of not-Answering Questions
Actually Steffi, if you read my post you’ll see that I’m arguing that I’ve answered why. If PR people and CEOs of companies that are crashing and burning as we speak don’t have to justify themselves, why should I?
Yeah, it’s a blog. I get paid1 to be provocative.
1 Actually, I don’t. That’s a rhetorical device 😉
Hey, if you want to get paid blogging…
Heh, interesting article.
Bottom line? At NN we’re too nice to make money from blogging…
..and you save society in your spare time. Everyone is happy – hoorray! 😉
bq. Everyone is happy
nonononono! That’s the point! We’re not happy!!
Richard: if you’re not happy in your job, you should find something else to do that makes you happy.
A problem here is that we are trying to do two things at once; to be happy, and to earn a crust. I am not sure that the two things necessarily go together. I expect that there are dustmen who earn very little but who are happy; and CEOs of companies with large bonuses who are miserable. Whether CEOs of companies are justified in earning what they do is another question (I think they usually are, actually, in that the decisions they make are, on a day to day basis, more important than the decisions you make, in that the affect more people, more quickly).
Yes, you may well ask why people in jobs that seem to do less to increase the sum of human happiness than yours are paid more, but that question is, too, misplaced. It’s not so much payment as one’s perceived value.
And yes, it’s a wonder why people in general don’t perceive professional scientists as more valuable given the money invested in their education and training. I think there are several answers to this, many of which have been discussed extensively in these fora.
1. Supply and demand. It could be that there are more scientists than society thinks it can support.
2. Vocation. Science is, traditionally, rather like teaching, nursing or the ministry – you do it because you have a calling, and this means you are paid less. The pay scale as it is today might also have its roots in history.
Nursing was always seen as a job for women and therefore low paid. It is now becoming more ‘professional’ and attracts more men. (The disparity between pay for men and women is another question we needn’t discuss here, though Amy raised it most cogently above).
Teaching was a job for both men and women, but as its status has declined for all kinds of societal reasons, it attracts fewer men than it once did.
3. Career structure. Science was until recently the province of the gentleman amateur, who would have had independent means anyway, and didn’t expect to get paid. More than a hundred years ago, T. H. Huxley (who was poor) bemoaned the fact that whereas people valued scientific knowledge, they were very reluctant to pay for it.
bq. And yes, it’s a wonder why people in general don’t perceive professional scientists as more valuable given the money invested in their education and training.
And PR types are? I dunno.
This comes down to the scientists-as-sports-stars we’ve been discussing chez Rohn. Perhaps PR types are better at putting themselves about than scientists are. They are in public relations, after all. And we all know that scientists are antisocial geeks (present company excepted).
There are other professions worse off than science in terms of how much contribution they make to society and how hard the job is. I’d argue that nurses and teachers should also be paid more. Maybe it doesn’t take as much training, but if you think how society would flounder if they all stopped working, it seems clear they could be valued more in the monetary sense.
As someone above put it, scientists aren’t that badly off, though of course it could be better. The thing I object to is the obscene extremes of wealth offered to certain professions, which I won’t name to spare offending anyone, while nurses and teachers can barely eat.
I guess it all comes down to how we are valued, and most importantly how other people value our contribution to the world. A mother and father might value greatly the scientist who discovered a cure for their child’s illness, but in all likelihiood would not support and increase in their taxes (say 10 years earlier) to fund such research. (A society of instant gratification…and all that.)
In saying that I don’t think we should be ‘punished’ for being altruistic and have to settle for pitance.
There’s a rather newish book written by Lisa Pryor (current columist and editor with the Sydney Morning Herald) called “The Pinstripe Prison”. It’s quite a cheeky look at what is happening in Australia (and presumably around the world) where young bright people are being lured into a world of investment banking, managment consulting and law. It takes quite obvious pot shots at people who make these choices but also lampoons the companies and calls on them to take some responsibility for the brain drain away from basic research. Young scientists (for example) are tempted away from doing a post doc with the promise of a great starting salary > 80 000, job stabilty and other perks. The book somewhat applaudes those who choose to go and do a post doc for taking the moral high ground and not being tempted by these companies (Easy for her to say, she’s not trying to live on a post doc wage). I must admit I felt rather smug and self rightous after reading it since I turned down a consulting job.
It’s definitely worth a read if you’re feeling down about the state of your finances (or lack there of) and are awaiting nervously the felloship annoucements to see if you have a salary next year!
bq. awaiting nervously the felloship annoucements to see if you have a salary next year!
what is it with this bloody country, Meagan? Why won’t they even tell us when we’ll find out?!
(and welcome!)
It’s politics, Richard. They’ll wait till they have a slow news day then release them. Programme Grants should be announced next week. Fellowships late November, early December according to the person I spoke to. Not much time to find a job pouring coffee at your local cafe if you luck out….I don’t think they realise that it’s acutally peoples lives they are playing around with…scientists have mortgages too….
(and thank you. :-))
It might be moot anyway—just found out that my case officer for my visa is on holiday…
Nothing like taking it right down to the wire, eh?
Ahh…so not only are you gambling with the NHMRC, but also the infamous Australian Immigration Department.
I wish you well kind Sir, and hope you don’t end up unemployed and in detention centre. 🙂
Thank you Meagan. I guess Brisvegas is a bit of a long way for a beer.
Lawyers, medical doctors and architects are three professions that have an extensive training period followed in many cases by relatively well-paid jobs and careers for those who go on to practice. These professions are providing either a clearly defined applied service to the community that the community perceives it needs (treating sick people or building houses) or are subject to market forces (lawyers). Obviously this is an oversimplification but you get my point.
Scientific research is far less tangible. It actually isn’t self-evident to me that everyone who is trained as a scientist to PhD level should then go on to have a well-paid career as a scientific researcher. Many of these people can use their training to great purpose to be prime minister, head up a new company or other. A scientific and research training is in some senses a training of the mind. It does not necessarily mean that everyone will make great scientific discoveries. Some, yes, but the question of whether they should all be paid a large amount again, to me, not self-evident.
I agree with the comments above that the “value” of a profession as perceived by the public is a strong factor, so scientific researchers are doing well to address that question in their own case. Teachers, for example, have been on a kick for some years now to tell the public how valuable they are, point to all the benefits to society at large of the teaching profession, presenting statistics on the number of people leaving the profession and so on, and as a result their pay has vastly improved in the past 10 years – to the extent that some postdocs are taking up posts in high schools as a preference. (Not as a refuge, but as an active choice.)
Scientific researchers do this of course, but they need to keep on doing it and do it in imaginative ways, presenting a constructive picture of their profession and its value, as opposed to moaning about their lot – because “the public” is used to moans about lots, we all do it. They want to know why scientists (or any profession) are deserving.
Y’know, for a tongue-in-cheek
postentry this has garnered a lot of comments. I guess it touched a nerve or six.This is true of any PhD course though, isn’t it? And in a very real sense you don’t actually start learning how to do science until you’ve completed your PhD and have to think for yourself.
I thought the latest social science research had shown that increased pay didn’t make you any happier.
My conundrum is that this same science shows time and time again that people with faith in a religion are much happier than those without, yet as a sceptical scientist I can’t find any religion to believe in and so am doomed to a life of gloom.
Anyone have any ideas for a religion for us scientists?
yet as a sceptical scientist I can’t find any religion to believe in and so am doomed to a life of gloom.
logic error. Redo from start.
Seriously, I have a weblog entry brewing about this. It’s taking a bit of fettling, though.