Ever Wonder Why a Whore makes More?

I’m currently reading Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner.

In it, the authors claim that there are four meaningful factors that determine the wage of a particular job - the number of people who are willing and able to do the job, the specialized skills required by the job, the unpleasantness of the job, and the demand for services that the job fulfills.

“The delicate balance between these factors helps explain why, for instance, the typical prostitute earns more than the typical architect. It may not seem as though she should. The architect would appear to be more skilled (as the word is usually defined) and better educated (again, as usually defined). But little girls don’t grow up dreaming of becoming prostitutes, so the supply of potential prostitutes is relatively small. Their skills, while not necessarily “specialized”, are practiced in a very specialized context. Their job is unpleasant and forbidding in at least two significant ways: the likelihood of violence and the lost opportunity of having a stable family life. As for demand? Let’s just say that an architect is more likely to hire a prostitute than vice versa.”

Hmmm... Interesting, is it not?