The mythical wage gap

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One of the many gripes women have is the gender pay gap. According to wikipedia pay gap, allegedly, manifests itself in two ways

  • Women are paid the same as men but generally work less hours and so end up with less money
  • Women are paid less for exactly the same labour as men

On the face of it, looking at that data, gosh it's the evil bogeyman patriachy holding women back, yet again.

As always though what lies beneath it is way more subtle and really, put the claims under a microscope and they evaporate away.

The first observation to make, in the EU at least, women just work fewer hours than men. For whatever reason women choose to work fewer hours and so have less money as a result. Is this really a gender pay gap ? Or is this free choice with women choosing that money is less important to them than other activities ? Do they value the flexibility of working less hours prioritising their children ? Isn't it, perhaps, fortunate they have the ability to to enjoy that ability without society judging them as they would, for example, a man ? If women choose to work fewer hours then should we really be dictating to people what they should, or shouldn't be doing ?

The second claim that women get paid less, for the same labour, as men we can see is absolutely untrue. If you look at the areas dominated by women they are mostly in the care sector. These are not particularly highly paid jobs, but again offer flexible working, and free markets have elected what the reward for performing those functions should be. Choosing to do those jobs means you are choosing a lower pay packet. By contrast those areas dominated by men are areas with lots of demand and not much supply i.e. Software Development, Technology & financial services. Simple economics dictate that these are higher paid professions. Software development, for example, is all about making things more efficient, automating repetitive tasks. There's a huge demand for software and not enough supply, couple that with it being a hugely effective efficiency driver the rewards are there. Nothing is stopping women entering those professions. They are free to go to university, to follow those degrees and to enter those careers. However they choose not to.

The gender pay gap is a myth. If it were real, if women actually did the same job for less money, companies would be prioritising female workers in order to boost their profits but no companies do this. If you are running a business then you can't afford to have an agenda, you have to make cash by being the best and taking the best people. This is free markets, and freedom in action.

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