Gender Pay Gap Needs Perspective

“Gender Pay Gap Even Wider at the Very Top of Corporate America” [Nov. 10] is meaningless as written. The entire article is built around the statement “Corporate America pays its top female executives 68 cents for every dollar earned by male colleagues.”

Even the most naive reader knows that compensation is a function of industry, seniority, corporate size, specific position and geographic location, to name only the more significant variables.

To assume, for example, that the senior vice president in charge of production for a $10-million advertising agency (a likely position for a female executive) should be compensated the same as a person in a similar position at Ford Motor Co. (a position almost certainly held by a male) is ludicrous.

I am accustomed to hearing these statistical sound bites and the accompanying vapid commentary on the local evening news, but I expect better from The Times. Please dig beneath the obvious and present information that puts an issue in sufficient perspective to be meaningful to your readership.

PAUL W. ROSENBERGER

Manhattan Beach