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If you are an employer despicable enough to systematically be paying women less just for being women, I don't think another redundant law is going to change your behavior.

Women don't earn about 18% less than men (OECD median, 2008)[0] because a small minority of employers pay women almost nothing, but because the vast majority of employers pay women (or blacks, or handicapped people) slightly less. Just like laws that prohibit killing don't target psychopaths, laws that prohibit discrimination don't target the KKK; they (should) aim to change the societal norms that your average Joe McAverage conforms to. It's the distinction between institutionalized discrimination and the more intimate personal type.

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[0] The exact number is not really what's important here, but http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/54/57/40846335.pdf

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18% number is bullshit debunked many times. When you control for occupation, working hours, etc between male and female - the difference in pay is only 2-3%

I have no idea what the right number is. But as the article points out, part of the issue is precisely that traditionally female jobs tend to pay less because they are traditionally female. Here's one apparent example of that in action:

"One of my lecturers at university once presented us with this thought exercise: why are doctors so highly paid, and so well-respected? Our answers were predictable. Because they save lives, their skills are extremely important, and it takes years and years of education to become one. All sound, logical reasons. But these traits that doctors possess are universal. So why is it, she asked, that doctors in Russia are so lowly paid? Making less than £7,500 a year, it is one of the lowest paid professions in Russia, and poorly respected at that. Why is this?"

The answer? It doesn't seem to be a coincidence that in Russia, doctors have been a traditionally female profession, unlike western Europe and the USA. The low pay and low status of medicine in Russia appears to be directly tied to its identity as a "women's career" there.

(Quote from this page: http://cratesandribbons.com/2013/12/13/patriarchys-magic-tri... I don't know whether this site was the first place I heard about this fact, but it's the top hit for it on Google.)

Hmm. It's a bit suspicious that communism/socialism isn't part of the argument here.

Seems pretty obvious to me that in a free market, doctors would always be highly paid as they take years to train and everyone, rich or poor, needs them. But in a non-free market where they can't demand their true price, who would want to be a doctor? I'd expect that is a much bigger factor towards it being low status than the fact that it's female dominated.

Russia hasn't been communist in that sense for decades. There are plenty of professions there that have become exceedingly wealthy in that time, but doctors have not. So to make your case, you'd need to demonstrate 1) that specific ongoing regulatory burdens in Russia have served to suppress physician pay, and 2) that the persistence of those particular burdens in Russia's era of deregulation is not linked to gender bias.

Your "seems pretty obvious to me" is <em>only</em> valid if you assume a priori that there are no distortions to the pure, free market outcome due to irrationality on the part of market participants. Systematic gender bias would be a clear example of irrationality (which I assume you'd agree with even if you didn't believe it were actually at work here). You may not mean it this way, but your phrasing sounds to me like you're assuming your conclusion.

Russia hasn't been communist for a while but almost all the doctors are still state employees. As for distortions, can you think of any other cases where the distortion is massive and the situation doesn't involve government subsidies?

Regardless, I'm not going to go digging around for evidence. My point is that the post above and the linked article did not even address the socialism aspect, which is a huge warning flag.

Here's a heavily sourced study that found that Utah women are paid about 69 cents for every dollar a man in Utah makes:

http://go.nationalpartnership.org/site/DocServer/wf.epd.fact...

It's not a national study, no, and Utah has been cited as being one of the top 5 states in the gender pay gap so this is admittedly higher than many other states. It also states that this gap remains at about the same amount (66 to 72 cents per dollar) regardless of industry, education level, or personal choices (eg, raising children or being married).

I don't believe that study is well controlled. In fact, some of the claims are either contradictory or just don't make sense.

A 2009 study sponsored by the US Department of Labor, which analysed about 50 studies on the gender pay gap, concluded that "The differences in raw wages may be almost entirely the result of the individual choices being made by both male and female workers."

There are observable differences in the attributes of men and women that account for most of the wage gap. Statistical analysis that includes those variables has produced results that collectively account for between 65.1 and 76.4 percent of a raw gender wage gap of 20.4 percent, and thereby leave an adjusted gender wage gap that is between 4.8 and 7.1 percent.[1]

http://www.consad.com/content/reports/Gender%20Wage%20Gap%20...

The 69% number is simply a census comparison of all men and women that work full time. It doesn't take into account position, education, experience, or even hours worked beyond 35hrs.

When it later talks about 'the gap' remaining after accounting for other variables. It means a smaller gap and it cites different studies. It just doesn't provide the 'after controlling for choices' value, only that one exists.

Not that I don't believe you, but could you link to said debunking?

This article[1] links to various sources which cite different values. Of those, this report[2] (research funded by US Department of Labour) states in it's summary (page 35);

"Specifically, variables have been developed to represent career interruption among workers with specific gender, age, and number of children. Statistical analysis that includes those variables has produced results that collectively account for between 65.1 and 76.4 of a raw gender wage gap of 20.4 percent, and thereby leave an adjusted wage gap that is between 4.8 and 7.1 percent."

My personal opinion is that there may be a slight gap, research that conservatively accounts for factors rather than assuming the difference is 100% gender-pay do tend to put it below 10%, however there just isn't enough hard evidence to account for all the variables which may cause such a gap, so finding an accurate value isn't possible. Each side of the debate will always find the most attractive figures to support their agenda, as can be seen by people quoting 20%+ raw wage gap analysis that doesn't account for difference in time worked etc, and others misreading statistics to say that it's lower than reported.

-------------------------- [1] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/christina-hoff-sommers/wage-ga...

[2] http://www.consad.com/content/reports/Gender%20Wage%20Gap%20...

4.8 to 7.1% is quite a bit more significant than your initial claim of 2 to 3%

edit - also, how do you claim to have any kind of confidence in the accuracy of your own estimate, while simultaneously arguing that reaching any sort of accurate value is impossible?

It was someone else who made that initial claim of 2%, however if you read the full summary of my second link, they admit to only accounting for factors they were able to measure. So additional factors they didn't account for, may have influence towards the divide (other than gender-pay), and may account for any number that could further reduce that 4.8-7.1%. I'm not saying it is as low as 2-3%, but its certainly possible.

It was someone else who made that initial claim of 2%

Sorry, complete failure to pay attention on my part.

Though as to your other point, unmeasured factors could push the figure either way, so if you allow the error bars to go as low as 2% purely on a hunch, then you should also consider that it could be up to 9.9%, if trying to work out any sort of reasonable policy.

That's true, I suppose I was too optimistic in my analysis, there will definitely be some unmeasurable factors pushing in each direction.

Here are two blog posts with summaries and good links to various studies (I know these are bad sources, but they make the point and were easy to find).

http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2013/08/gende...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/christina-hoff-sommers/wage-ga...

The 77 cents on the dollar myth actively shifts attention away from the real issues with gender roles and western culture in favour of a simple outdated narrative that isn't going to help anyone.

It's a useful shibboleth though, the people using it are either well meaning but uninformed or interested more in attention/marketing than actual equality.

I can't be bothered to find it, but I remember reading the same thing. I'm sure a short search will turn it up if you're interested in reading it.

You can't be bothered to find it, even though you think a short search will turn it up? Interesting.

You say that like 2-3% is not completely fucking outrageous.

It's not outrageous if the margin of error is 2-3%.

I know right?! Female here just cracked up reading that. 2-3% is still 2-3% too low.

Ah, but what if the reason women are in lower paid jobs is because if sexism?

There's a case currently in front of the employment courts here in NZ which is confronting this directly. A group of aged-care nurses (working in retirement homes etc.) have made a claim to the employment court that (a) it's a female-dominated vocation, (b) it's lower paid than other similar vocations (by demands, skills, qualifications etc) and (c) that (a) and (b) are linked.

The case has made it through preliminary hearings and is now proceeding to a higher court; if they win a massive precedent will be set, allowing for claims of gender discrimination at the level of entire industries and vocations.

(I think it's totally a fair claim.)

How is the wage level for an industry segment not related to the simple supply and demand relationship for labor in that segment?

Why is that different from reduced demand? Sexism reduces the amount people are willing to pay for the labor of the supposedly-inferior sex.

So whom should the nurses sue to recover their theoretical damages in that case?

If I decide to groom my dog myself, can I expect a lawsuit down the road for my non-consumption of professional dog grooming services if any dog groomer is a member of any minority class? After all, you can't be sure that I'm just a cheapskate who likes washing my dog; I might be racist/classist/sexist.

In case it's not clear, I view the decision to consume in a free market to be a free choice and not subject to judicial review.

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