Quote:
Originally Posted by Makarov
You have already been provided with links to numerous studies that show that a wage gap persists even after "number of hours worked" is accounted for.
There are also other, more complex issues such as the way society values traditionally female work.
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It's exceedingly complex. The "choice" factor is the best example of this. Women typically choose fields that pay less than the ones men choose - this is a pretty major factor in creating the pay gap (people really should stop referring to it as a wage gap). Women are underrepresented in STEM fields, particularly. At this point, though, there's no obvious, formal barrier to entry in those fields for women; quite the opposite - you're more likely to get hired as a woman than a man, precisely because of this gender imbalance and efforts by employers to reduce it.
So how much of this particular factor that contributes to the pay gap is attributable to blatant sexism - employers who think it's reasonable to pay women less because they're women? Very little, at this point. How much of it is attributable to structural factors in society, like the notion that engineering and chemistry are "men's fields?" How much is the perception that workplaces are "boys' clubs" where a woman applicant isn't going to fit in or be happy, discouraging them from going into these fields? How much is the actual fact that such boys' clubs exist, leading women to quit at a higher rate than men (anecdotally, I feel like this is a big factor in my profession). How much is the result of society steering girls in a particular direction starting at age five? How much is simply a matter of the general chemical differences in men's brains as opposed to women's? It's almost impossible to answer these questions, and they're going to vary from field to field and among age groups. Does this factor interrelate with the societal norm that suggests women should be the primary caregivers in a typical family? I'd say almost certainly. Is that societal norm necessarily a bad thing that should be fought against? I'm less sure. I am pretty sure, though, that the goal isn't a society where 50% of the people in every profession are women and 50% are men. That's neither achievable nor desirable.
The problem with the pay gap as a concept isn't that it doesn't exist or doesn't represent a problem, it's that it doesn't provide any useful information. It's a misleading oversimplification in an attempt to describe a problem that has multiple layers of complexity, many of which we can't quantify.