Women aren't paid less. The "wage gap" is a myth.
The "wage gap" is largely a myth, at least in developed countries. The primary reason why a gap appears in the raw statistics is because men and women tend to work different sorts of jobs. For instance, in the medical sector, women are more likely...
The control method used to adjust for occupation is imperfect since it relies on discrete buckets. That it fails to fully eliminate the effect of differing occupations is entirely expected. However, without looking at the numbers, it's difficult to say if the few-cents gap would also dissolve under more robust analysis.
The only citation in this answer is itself sourced from here: aauw.org/resources/research/simple-truth which confirms that there is a wage gap. So the citation used to support the assertion contradicts it instead.
@ToddWilcox Your answer violates the principles of EMH. Please be more specific.
@ToddWilcox Besides, I have never seen any study on the subject compensate for risk. Not risk to get injured at work but risk for being laid off due to recession. E.g., in most countries, the construction business is very sensitive to the business cycle while public services such as schools and hospitals are more or less completely insensitive to that. In other words, if a (male) construction worker earns 10 % more than a (female) teacher/nurse but is laid off for a year every ten years due to an economic downturn, their life income will be the same.
@ToddWilcox: Just the opposite: telling women that they'll get paid ~20% less is a powerful detriment to women feeling respected and valued in the workplace, de-incentivizing them from pursuing high-powered careers. Whatever the intent of this myth might be, it harms women.
Hi, welcome to Economics:Stack Exchange. Please consider improving the answer by adding references from reputable sources. As many other science stacks we encourage links to external sources. See our help center. Please consider citing the studies directly instead of citing Huffington post.
@ToddWilcox: the epi.org article you cite to support your claim, right off the bat diverges in definition to the claim made in this answer. With regard to the question of 'surgeon vs nurse', and how any differences resulting from that should be viewed, they come out straight as saying 'definitely still sexism by definition'; a common view in modern feminism, but an extremely marginal view outside of it. As such it does nothing to refute the claim being made in this answer.
@1muflon1 I figured it'd be fine because it's a source that's well-known for its left-wing bias, speaking out against a piece of feminist dogma. If anyone wants to improve my answer by editing in links to other sources, though, please feel free to do so!
@nick012000 if some journal is known for either blatant leftist or right wing bias (e.g. Breitbart) then it is automatically not credible source, even if you debate something with a left/right leaning person. In addition, science is neither left or right leaning. On economics.se politics and moral philosophy are considered strictly off topic. It is always best to build any answer either on published sources or on media that have high standards of creditability and journalistic integrity.
In addition, you should consider rewording your answer, even if some studies show women on average can be less assertive in negotiation (Amanatullah & Morris, 2010) that does not mean "women have inferior negotiating skills" as there might be women far better at negotiation than some men.
"When comparing two people in the same profession, with the same seniority, working the same number of hours, and so forth, women earn $0.98 for every dollar that a man earns." That's somewhat misleading, because historical hiring practices have made it difficult for women to achieve the same seniority. And we still live in a society where women are the primary caregivers for children, so they're often unable to work the same hours.
@Barmar while likely true that part is largely irrelevant for the question if you take it literally which the answer seem to do. Though the answer could indeed be improved by providing more context. This way it seems too simplistic and even if the first part (that the explicitly sex/gender based wage gap is much smaller than the numbers commonly thrown around) can be backed up, the second part reducing the remaining difference to female traits seems to just assume stuff and fails to answer why this smaller difference doesn't have any impact economically on hiring either.
@Barmar The question specifically asks "If women are paid less, why don't employers hire more women for roles." If it is wrong to assert that women are paid less for the exact same role, then the answer to the question is "that is not a true assertion." The context you bring up has no relevance to this question.
@Papayapap I'm not aware of any published "adjusted wage gap" statistic. The raw wage gap is the one I see universally quoted in support of the idea that women earn less than men. The slogan is, of course, always "equal pay for equal work," but the data presented to suggest that that isn't already happening is almost always just the raw wage gap, which, of course, isn't comparing equal work or anything like it.
Blau, Francine D., and Lawrence M. Kahn. 2017. “The Gender Wage Gap: Extent, Trends, and Explanations.” Journal of Economic Literature, 55(3): 789-865. Available online here.
"Once you control for differences in occupation" - one could argue that the difference in wages across different occupations, where men and women congregate in different ratios, is exactly the relevant differential! If you control for occupation, then you are controlling for the differential itself.
To anyone reading this comment thread: in an earlier comment I pointed out that the link in this answer that supposedly was support that there is no wage gap actually showed there is a wage gap. Since my comment, the writer of this answer has changed the link to a Forbes article. The original support for this answer is linked in my earlier comment. The new Forbes link is to a column/editorial, not to a news article.
You're misrepresenting your data. You try to have a nice and catchy headline but you contradict it in the very next paragraph by saying women are paid less (in different occupations, sure, but that's still being paid less). And in the paragraph after that you say women are paid less in the same occupations, yet you quite easily dismiss that by citing possible factors (without much evidence to support those, but even if those are true, it wouldn't mean the wage gap is not real). Both references you provided say more research is needed into the adjusted wage gap, not that it's a myth.
@Steve arguably the context of the question as asked here presumes a specific employer and occupation for which they are hiring for, does not use the words "pay gap" but instead addresses the presumption "If women are paid less for the same work". The differential between occupations is irrelevant for that, the question is whether companies actually are able to pay less to an equally qualified women doing the exact same job. If the pay gap is caused by other factors and this arbitrage opportunity (less pay for completely equivalent worker) does not exist, then it fully answers this question.
@Peteris, this answer clearly proceeds from the assumption that differentials across occupations are entirely legitimate, but I contend that such an assumption begs the question of legitimacy of such differentials. I broadly agree that it's unlikely significant differentials can be maintained nowadays, between men and women working cheek by jowl in roles that are formally acknowledged to be the same, especially since legislation exists to prohibit such differentials. (1/2)
But the main way in which differentials have always been imposed, is not by paying men and women differently in exactly the same role, but by there being an unequal distribution of men and women in different roles (a distribution sometimes reinforced by express policy, but always underpinned by cultural factors that would likely cause the unequal distribution by self-selection amongst workers),
which are roles then paid differently because employers find they simply don't have to pay as much for what then emerges as "women's work", as they have to pay for "men's work". (2/2)
Discussion on answer by nick012000: I…
Discussion on answer by nick012000: I…