he pay gap exists, the problem is we’re looking in the wrong place.
These are the gaps. 👇
If you work longer hours you get paid more. If you are willing to travel further, you get paid more. If you work very dangerous or undesirable jobs, you get paid more. If you don’t take parental leave, or are not entitled to it, you get paid more.
And you should get paid more for these things - men are just doing them more than women.
No. The pay gap is not down to discrimination, and there is no monthly 20% bonus that magically gets added to men’s pay slips.
The gap is down to the different choices, complex behaviours and varying interests of men and women, in general.
It will not be solved by chasing patriarchal bogeymen, misleading people with bad data, or by making sassy sex-toy-slinging videos on Instagram.
It will be solved by having a grown up discussion about giving equal parental rights back to fathers, securing more paternal leave and encouraging men to take it.
It will be solved by ensuring everybody has equal opportunity to be or do whatever they like.
It will be closed by exposing those who turn this issue into yet another gender war, for their own self interests, making it a stick to hit men with.
If you want to close the gap, then drop out of the women and gender studies program, and try studying industrial engineering instead. Simple.
Because American women working the same job, with the same experience, are paid the same as American men (well 98% the same).
And saying they don’t is just indulging in yet more recreational victimhood, more social grandstanding, and more patronising and misleading conversation, that neither solves the problem, nor empowers women.
So what is inside the pay gap?
What do you think?
Sources:
Hours Worked https://tinyurl.com/36ccn4k7
Workplace death https://tinyurl.com/bdzzu4sk
PayScale Paygap 2021 https://tinyurl.com/2p9c3fy6
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Listen to the Freakenomics UBER pay gap podcast here!
https://tinyurl.com/2p8r2vyj
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Image by Tom Morbey