Wage Differentials
Exercise
What explains wage differentials between female and male actors in the pornography industry of Los Angeles? According to The Economist, “a young woman without Ms Hartley’s name-recognition might have charged $1,000 for a straight scene before the crisis, but gets $800 or less now. Men are worse hit. If they averaged $500 for a straight scene in 2007, they are now lucky to get $300. (“The Trouble with Pornography: Hard Times,” September 10, 2009, p. 53).
Analysis
A possibility, broadly consistent with evolutionary psychology, lies in the different innate reproductive strategies of men and women, adapted to the fact that sex was much more costly for women than men in our evolutionary past, leading to less selective strategies for men than for women.
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