Is there a gender pay gap?

Question

Judging by my month or two membership of this site, I can bet that this question has already been asked, and perhaps this isn't the best medium to be asking on. But still..

I get fed propaganda from both sides of the argument and it is quite frustrating. Finding an impartial source of information for such a controversial topic is like finding a needle in space.

So far, I am inclined to believe that there is no pay gap caused by sexism, but one caused by personal choices (which I suppose can be viewed as a sexist cause, depending on your own beliefs). I am not even sure if there is a gender pay gap. I have also been told that if you control all of the variables then there is little to no discrepancies. So, I am sat here, in a dazed, conflictingly-brainwashed confusion. 

If you do comment then please provide credible sources, and keep it civil.

Also, I am stricltly talking about the US and the UK, since most of the users here live/are from there.

Klara-Hitler · Accepted Answer

There is a pay gap and the reasons is women's nature not sexism.

The pay gap is not the difference between the individual females and males working the same job for the same paid hours. pay gap is the average earnings of women compared to men.

Let me give you some simple inside information how it really is.
In September I went to US to help financing my cousin's company. we had to have some people replaced so I checked religion, social class, political belief, gender, race, relationship status of every single one of them in a week. Came out that the employees working most hours and best were married conservative males, regardless of race and class. And it wasn't surprising for me at all.

When replacing them, I tried to push the idea to hire more conservative males, preferably married ones. why? because according to the documents they simply have much better work ethics, and my job was to control the spending.

Call me sexist, I could care less about it honestly.

It is not our fault, it is women's fault. Companies hire individuals who have the best abilities and work hardest. Women don't have the best abilities and when they have they don't work slightly as hard as men do, especially as hard as married men.

Having the same education doesn't mean having the same talents and abilities, ambition and work ethics at all. If I want to hire ten people with the same education, I will hire 10 talented conservative young boys who dream of having a love and a family and are ambitious enough to work overtime and get paid more.

I have a small business, I only have one female business partner. Why? Because we both worked together 12-14 hours a day. My boyfriend has a business, it's February 13th a day before Valentine's day he's still not here with me. He can't leave everything and expect to profit.

I won't risk my own money just so I don't get called sexist, nobody does. welcome to the reality. It is economy, it is not a joke. And if I hire a female, if they have a child and don't work, or just don't work hard I will cut their payments. And then of course they will earn 20% to 30% less than the males in the same job. Because they are not working the same hours.

Economy isn't a joke. It's not a party in women's honour so everyone force himself to hire women and give them free money.

If you want the pay gap to vanish, force women out of the houses to the work force.

And if you do that your economies will implode in 20 years.

Rainie_ · Accepted Answer

Depends on what countries we are speaking. Most of the west do have rules for equal pay. But some jobs do discriminate and ignore the rules, but that's not majority.

As for my mother, even though she worked in the design industry for a huge company, there was still a wage gap. She was a quite high standing boss over a lot of people (but she also had her own bosses as well of higher level), so she was responsible for writing the work evaluations and achievements of her team and sent it to the higher ups who decides on bonuses and wage. And she found that the men always earned somewhat more. Didn't matter if the woman did the exact same job, with exact same achievements. She noticed the same with some of her colleagues on the same level as her, the men earned slight more than the women (she asked and compared with them). For reasons she couldn't understand why.

These are not typical jobs though like in retail or such where wages are exactly the same no matter the gender. (So that job isn't a good example for wage gap issues).

And also, like I said, not all companies do this.

patiencegirl · Accepted Answer

Yes there is a pay gap. I'm a live example. I have a Master degree 20+ years of experience in a Male dominated industry. I have a annual sales record of $6 Million dollars and my base salary is $70K covering 4 large regions. while I have a co worker in same company covering 2 small regions and he gets $150K base salary and all he has is a Bachelor degree. I also have colleagues in same industry covering just 1 region and their based salary es $100K - $150K no Master degree, a colleague and I we both applied for a same position at a competitor I was offered commission based and he got offered $100K based salary. so yes there is a gender pay gap!

YepThatsIt · Accepted Answer

The easy answer is No.
TL/DR: Still no.
Educated in the area. Went a bit overboard. Still solid stuff below.

** Assuming we're talking about U. S, Canada, west/north Europe etc as usual:

Women and men in the same profession with the same work experience earn the same with women in general earning /more/ money than men before 30 and if they go on paternity leave (more common than not) then 1-4% less once they come back. If not women usually stay ahead of men by roughly the equivalent in terms of pay. This is if we take their hourly wage and not their total wage. If we look at the total wage men will consistently be about 3-5% ahead of women due to the sheer fact that men on average actually work more than women do.

The often referenced gender pay gap is caused by men and women choosing very different professions. Women often go into public/human service professions whereas men have a tendency to prioritize a higher salary. This is then put into a context where it would appear that a female and a male doctor have different income for the same amount of work, which is not at all true.

E. g. Between two graduated economists the man will likely go into banking/investment or another high-paying area and a shockingly high amount of women gravitate towards Customer relationship mangagement and alike.
This is however once again not at all the same as women earning 80% of what men make on the same job or anything akin to it. On the same job women and men earn near identical salaries with variations mostly below 5% for either gender.

On a final note: contrary to popular belief the occupations with an actual gender pay gap are mostly in women's favor and often understandable and the result of the market operating on its own. As an example female Event Managers tend to earn up to twice the numbers that their male counterparts do.
The reason I am using this example is that this is also an occupation heavily based on performance. Women on average actually make better event managers than men. Naturally there are performance based professions where men shine as well (sales for example). This should be celebrated, not looked down upon.

The number you're looking at has absolutely nothing to do with sexism or discrimination.

Dandeus · Accepted Answer

Yes, there is. And it's not a matter of choice of industry. Statistics exist, gathered by the government, that break down wages on an industry-by-industry level. There are some industries where the gap is minimal or non existent, but there are MANY where the gap is very evident.

It's also not a matter of women dropping out of the workforce to have children, as studies have been done specifically on young people just taking their first jobs out of college, that also show that women on average get paid less than men for their first jobs.

If you're curious, ignore blogs and infographics. Look for studies, not summaries. Tables full of numbers are tedious and dry, but they're more reliable than partisan websites trying to convince you one way or another.

TheAngryBanana · Answer

NO !! there is no dam wage gap ! ( strictly speaking western world here )

Yes people work different feilds which has either lower or higher rates of pay depending on serveral factors such as expreince, degrees, hazzard pay, a special career skill say like brain surgerey I mean a person working aretail job part time such as moi ain't gonna earn any thing close to that of a brain surgen after he has higher work skill and higher demand than my job.

Then there is also the factor of life style factors in the way I mean different people can work different hours and has different stuff going on in life which can cause them to gain or loose anual money and yes women do loose money for being pregnant off work ill give you that.

But the main reasons I do not belive in there is a wage gap is due to two main things, I have never seen a well neuteral based acidemic paper that has been a in depths mimimum 5 year study journal paper done on this which is backed by more than one proffesional ecomist.

Aslo from a logical point of view most companies want to make a profit for as low a turn over as they can get if lets say women did get paid less legally then why dont big comapnies higher nothing but women and save money?

But they can't cause we have alws in the western world which stop people of any gender being paied less than another and must all legally be paied the same minimum wage for the same type of work : )

rjroy3 · Answer

The only real accurate way to define if whether or not there is a pay gap is for a individual company to show their payroll. If a guy and a girl at the same company have the same amount of experience and their work output is equal, but the guy makes more... then you can say that's sexist.

But when you say a guy at this company makes this much and a girl at another company, who works in that industry makes less then that doesn't really say anything and is dishonest. I've never seen a poll that showed honest, no nonsense statistics on this issue.

Personally I've worked at jobs where I made more money than guys and girls with equal experience. I also worked harder, had more initiative and got more work done than others. I don't think there's anything wrong in situations like that.

On the flip side, I've worked at companies where all of us pulled out our paychecks on payday, just to see. Everyone, guy and girl made the same amount of money. So I doubt there is actually truth to this pay gap outside of an employer negotiating to pay everyone less, during the hiring process. Which is a contract that both parties agree to. Anyone who has applied for jobs read the part of the application that says, "how much are you asking to be paid?" And "is this negotiable?".

You can always turn down a job and work someone else who pays more. And if your quality of work is really that good, then the company will pay for it. What employer would turn someone down that would raise their profits 5% and all they have to do is pay them the same as anyone else? The concept is just silly. Because if it were true. Why not just hire most if not all women? You could pay them less, saving yourself money on paying employees and get the same quality of work or better (if a pay gap, due to sexism is an issue)

danielthelamb · Answer

I think there is a gender pay gap caused by a mixture of personal choice and sexism..

Lets say you have a man and a woman working for you by lifting products from location A to location B. By the end of the day it would most likely be the man who has done more work because he most likely will have more physical strength and stamina compared to woman. So if he does more work than the woman, he should get paid more right? Thats the mindset of someone by personal choice.

We don't take into consideration about how much EFFORT the woman has put in as well. Even if she makes less progress that does not mean she hasn't put just as much effort in or even MORE! Knowing this.. If you still decide to pay the man more than the woman the pay gap is caused by your sexism.

A business person pays for work done, a kind person pays for effort put in.

normalice · Answer

You forgot the option "there is a gender pay gap, but it's probably due to a variety of factors, some may be actual problems worth addressing, and others may be made to be a big deal when they aren't."

Like, I think the stat is that women make 70% of what men make. At root, that seems like a problem. But it might be found that 25% is about what women forefeit by taking part time jobs by being with their kids or such. That's a choice and only leaves 5% to account for.

And I say "only," but it's still must be accounted for. Because this is an average. Even if it's rare enough to only account for 0.1% of the pay gap, it's still a problem. You can mask some very large differences by only paying attention to the 0.1% difference on average - and those large differences are significant at the case-by-case level..

gotc147 · Answer

The correct answer is D, this is not a matter opinion.

The only way a woman would get paid less than a man when the two work for the same company, doing the same job, with the same credentials and who started on the same day is because the man negotiated a higher salary and the woman did not.

The "gender pay gap" is not due to sexism or women simply not being paid the same for "the same work", it exists because a male engineer makes more than a female social worker. They're not comparing male nurses and female nurses, they're comparing female nurses to male surgeons.

Doofey · Answer

Notice on all the studies the difference after all things are accounted for are never the same. That's because it is all estimates and predictions of how it will effect wages. There are numerous reasons which have not been quantified or have not been properly quantified. The assumption that this difference can only be due to sexism is an begging the question. It is assuming sexism has a statistically significant effect on wages to show that it does. I think fighting sexism would best be on an individual basis.

Kirah · Answer

In the Western world? No.

If you add up all the earnings from men and compare them to all the added up earnings from women, women get 77% less. But this fails to take into account that less women are in the workforce, women are more likely to choose lower-paying jobs, women don't negotiate salary as harshly as men, et cetera.

If you account for all variables, there is no pay gap. In fact, childless women aged 20-29 *outearn* childless men aged 20-29. Doesn't mean that there is institutionalized sexism.

Humping_Tornadoes · Answer

There isn't. I have posted countless and countless of explanations about this and I've used references and statistics to explain myself. I'm already tired of repeating myself yet it seems people still like to believe there is such thing as a gender pay gap.

They can still believe all they want but there is a reason why economists just won't take this matter seriously, and this issue will always be a non-issue for economists, because there isn't such thing as a "gender" wage gap. There are numerous reasons for the mild differences in salaries, and in few cases big differences and the reasons are far beyond "gender bias" for fucks sake. People really need to get their heads out of their asses with this subject.

hellionthesage · Answer

Their is no gender pay gap, if you actually look within occupations their is no real gender gap its only when you compare men and women as a whole where you get a gap and that is due to personal choices of women. Women tend to work fewer hours then men use more sick days and work holidays less, they also tend to focus on jobs that are more flexible with hours and are lower paying in general while men are more willing to travel for work and focus on jobs that pay more. Their are some cases where their is a substantial pay gap like modeling where female models make ten times the amount of male models. Over all their is no pay gap and what discrepencies that do exist are not due to sexism.

Possible_Mate · Answer

theoretically speaking if the man and woman are working for the same company, doing the same quantity and quality of work they are being made the same. however men and women tend to work in a variety of different industries, doing vastly different work. so you can't well here's a female teacher and a male lawyer; there's a wage gap!

nicole_SOA · Answer

I've seen this question on here, and I still believe there is a gender pay gap. Every woman I know who doesn't work for the government get paid less than the men in that line of work.
Maybe there isn't but I've been on both sides of the United states in the past 5 years and have never seen a change. I've always seen women getting paid less.

kittykatg · Answer

I would use the word deliberate. Its institutionalized and we need to do more for kids when they're younger to stop it then waiting till their in college and say well its women's fault that they aren't in STEM programs when they've been told since they started school that math was for boys. It hurts men just as much when they are told they have to be good at STEM and not express their emotions through art and literature or else they're not "a real man" whatever the hell that means.

genericname85 · Answer

"there is a gender pay gap by choice" is an oxymoron. gener pay gap says "unequal pay for equal work" it´s not influenced by choice.

there is no gender pay gap. however women more often choose to work part time, take a maturity leave and on top of all that choose less payed industry to begin with.

the correct correlation would be: there is no gender pay gap. however women earn less on average caused by their own choices.

if there was a gender pay gap, then why should people hire men, if women are cheaper?

QuestionMan · Answer

The pay gap exists because it is a calculation of average male earnings vs average female earnings. It does not take into account the job type, hours worked and level of experience. If you compare the wage of a female teacher working at school A with 5 years of experience to a male teacher working at school A with 5 years of experience then there most likely won't be any difference unless one of them has proven them self to be more competent.

On average women go into lower paying jobs like teaching and social work while men tend to go into the STEM field which pays better. Women also are more likely to want to start a family and be a stay at home mom which reduces the average female income greatly.

XRabbitHeartX · Answer

There is still very much a pay gap in my country, South Africa unfortunately. This is a fact, not a opinion. In some cases I do believe it's genuine sexism, and in other cases I do think there are valid reasons for why the woman might get a lesser pay (mothers working half day for example). There are variables that can be taken into consideration. But in general the gender pay gap is very much real and can be backed up by statistics.

Bandit74 · Answer

I think there potentially is some but I think it is often exagerated. For example the statistic tgat everyone quotes which says women make 76 cents for every dollar a man makes didn't take job title, hours worked, or qualifications into account.

This video explains it better. His voice is annoying but guve it a chance.

front2back · Answer

If you actually account for all variables, including experience, hours worked, GPA before starting job, maternity leave, above and beyond work, etc. women make about $0.98-$0.99 per every $1.00 a man makes on average. It's still not equal and it should be fixed, but it's not $0.70 per dollar like a lot of people say it is.

In some industries women get paid more though, to deliberately avert this. In the sciences to encourage women to enter, stay, and not claim male bias, they do pay women more for the same work.

BiscuitesSwag · Answer

There is, however it isn't as big as it used to be back then.
I tried to search for a video but I couldn't find it, so I will tell what was in it.
It was a simple study with 2 participants, a man and a woman. They both went to the same job application and they both had all reauirements, were willing to work the same amount of time, the also had the same amount of experience, etc. And guess what? The woman was offered 13% less money than the man for EXACTLY the same thing!

Number_25 · Answer

Gender pay gap is a real thing but its because women leave workforce for long times to raise children. It has nothing to do with inequality. In poor nations there is no gap because women can't take off of work. Not only that but their is a lot of women in stem subjects in poor counties because they have to be to survive.

MaskedSanity · Answer

Sources in video description.

Is there a gender pay gap?

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