What services/products do men, women pay more for than each other?
As consumers, are men and women really that different?
Sure, they earn at dissimilar rates – fair or not – but by stereotype, perhaps male shoppers and female shoppers are one in the same. One chooses to spend an entire Saturday at the mall, the other an entire Saturday at Home Depot. See, pot-eh-to, pot-ah-to.
Yet of course, all is not fair in the bottom line of consumerism.
Fact is, women pay plenty more for many items than men do, and men pay plenty more for many items than women do.
Certainly, we can look no further than a simple consumer service to make our point: haircuts.
*Bing: Why do women earn less than men?
Where all else is equal – both men and women, that is, require haircuts – it is women that pay an overwhelmingly larger amount for a trip to the salon than men do for a strap in a barber’s chair.
Same goes for dry cleaning. Both men and women visit the dry cleaners, but their costs differ greatly. A guy can take in a dress shirt to get washed and pressed for under $3. Women, by contrast, can’t likely get a blouse dry cleaned for much less than $7 or $8.
But oh, don’t think that things are all in the favour of men.
On many more expensive items and services, men get hosed. Just check out insurance for the best example.
According to a study from Insureye.com, men pay five per cent more than women for car insurance, eight per cent more for home insurance and up to 25 per cent more for life insurance.
Surely isn’t worth saving a few bucks on dry cleaning, is it, fellas?
What other items do women pay more for than men? What other items do men pay more for than women?
Posted by: SP | Nov 15, 2021 4:46:48 PM
"men pay five per cent more than women for car insurance."
Funny it doesn't count teen males as men (unless they've done something wrong).
As a teen male my car insurance was 3x what my sisters paid for the SAME coverage.
Your other examples are apples and oranges.
Dry cleaning for women vs laundering for men.
Buzz cut for a man vs wash cut and style for a woman.
Pay is the inverse. Men working 50+ hours a week make nearly 9% more than women doing the same job for 35 hours a week.
Clearly discrimination going on here. LOL.
If things were so unfair in actuality businesses would undercut the one's 'ripping women off' and be flooded with customers.
But we know that women are happy with their arrangement which is why it continues despite all the options and declarations to the contrary.
Posted by: LK | Nov 16, 2021 6:05:21 AM
Males pay more for insurance than females do because they have more accidents. The insurance industry is well aware of this and charges them accordingly. However, does it cost more to dry clean women's clothing than men? No, not really. Women are not "happy with their arrangement" as SP suggests. They simply have no choice if they want their clothes dry cleaned.
Posted by: AM | Nov 16, 2021 1:56:59 PM
Definitely haircuts. Women always have to pay a lot more for a haircut, even if they have short hair!
Posted by: Josh in Calgary | Nov 16, 2021 1:59:47 PM
LK,
This article is SOOOO misleading. The reason why it's "only" $3 to have a shrit washed and pressed is because it's NOT being dry cleaned. So why compare it to a lady's blouse that IS being dry cleaned? Men's pants still cost $8 if you want them dry cleaned. Why compare apples to oranges?
Same with the hair cut thing. My hair takes 20 minutes to cut ... so why should it cost the same as my wife's that takes an hour? On the other time I go to the barber 6 times a year and my wife goes twice a year. So it's essentially the same.
Posted by: Jay | Nov 16, 2021 3:39:16 PM
There is not really any factual support for this article. Comparing laundering and ironing men's shirts to dry cleaning women's shirts is like comparing sheep and donkeys. Most men are at the salon for a buzz cut/trim and are in the chair for 20 minutes. I (female) get a wash, cut, style and am there for an hour and half, I should pay more, I am getting far more products in my hair and it takes 3 times as long as I imagine most men take! When I had a buzzcut (yes, I had a buzzcut) I paid only $15-$20 to get my hair done. The insurance example is the funniest one, it has no reference material whatsoever, you didn't explain the conditions of the study, so who knows if it even shows what you say it shows? For instance, are we even comparing apples to apples? Is this study done by car type, for drivers with the same driving record / merits, or just tallying up the totals for all men pay and comparing to the total by all women? Maybe the study is actually showing that men tend to by sportier, more expensive cars to insure (which isn't the insurance companies imposing higher fees on men, it's more men CHOOSING vehicles that happen to cost more to insure or have fewer safety features than women choosing the same). Maybe the study shows that men have more demerits or poorer driving records ON AVERAGE than women, and thus pay more. I see no evidence of causality, I suspect that a man and a woman walking into their insurance company with the exact same car model/year and identical driving records pay the exact same thing. My guess is the difference in insurance costs determined by this study are actually CAUSED by other factors (choices by individuals, no doubt influenced by gender but choices nevertheless), not the insurance companies out to get men. I find it hard to believe an insurance company has an automatic markup everytime the male gender box is checked...
Posted by: SP | Nov 16, 2021 8:14:55 PM
Just a quick followup to clarify things a bit for LK and Jay.
I used the example of insurance premiums first because I have a clear picture from both sides of the desk there. "Statistically" men have a smaller number of accidents per mile driven than women. However most catastrophic accidents involve male drivers. So women can have hundreds of parking lot fender benders and still cost the insurance companies far less than one young guy discovering his skill can't keep up with his bravado, one time.
My sisters first accident involved a dent in the car door and no damage to the other persons car. My first accident totaled two cars, my old car and the other drivers brand new (less than 200 miles on it) Chrysler Fifth Ave. And my accident was very minor in comparison to many I have dealt with. Till that point I felt the premiums were unfair.
Unless things have changed Insurance companies look at age, gender, driving record, post code, claim history, and then vehicle choice, credit score, deductible etc, etc, etc.
It is all down to statistics. So if there was a connection between star sign and accident cost they would factor that in if they could, it is nothing personal (and yes there is a box for gender).
As for the hair cut example, I checked with my barber and he will do a #4 buzz cut on men AND women.... for the same price !
Posted by: discrimination | Nov 16, 2021 8:33:12 PM
i am a man, at least i was the last time i checked, my penis is not big enough to get caught in the gas pedal, so i have to pay more because of other people, if i refused to hire, or rent to a muslim because, statistically they are more prone to commiting acts of terror, what does that make me?, why are insurance companies diffrent?