OPINION

New Research into the So Called “Gender Pay Gap”.

By Scarlett Minney

New research into this so called “gender pay gap” shows that
women are believed to earn 14.0% less money than men.

But this statistic is entirely meaningless because it isn’t taking

into account the type of job, the hours being worked, and the
effort being put in which means people are instead jumping to
conclusions and arguing that the statistic is “proof of
discrimination towards women”.

Illustration by guardian design

The average woman prior to having children works

full-time for 42 hours a week but her average male
counterpart would work 45 hours a week.
Additionally, women opt for lower paying
professions and men head towards professions
featuring law and technology - jobs which require
more expertise and therefore lead to higher earnings.
This is shown with 78% of chief executive officers
being men as in comparison to women men have the
confidence to lead a community and are more willing
to take the necessary risks. The increase in women
graduating from college is completely irrelevant as
women are not choosing higher education that would Jperagine, dreamstime.com
lead to high paying jobs, for example, in the STEM
field.

This “gender pay gap” is not caused from discrimination

against women but simply women making poor choices that
do not benefit them as much financially. If a woman chooses
to raise a family, they are showing they aware of the lack of
paid parental leave in countries like the US and are yet
choosing to take this time off. This shows that the issue is not
a “gender pay gap” but instead a “motherhood pay gap”.
Women need to instead make decisions primarily considering
the money they want to earn. And if women want the same
pay as men they need to instead be aiming at higher paying
Light field studios, Adobe stock jobs or show a higher interest need for paid parental leave
and instead work towards closing the “motherhood pay gap”.

The government and many organisations propose to close this “gender pay gap” but how do they
actually plan on achieving this?

Should men be forced to work in lower paying industries and vice versa until the ratios of women to
men in all industries is 50/50? And should women who lack the expertise for high paying jobs be
allowed the job anyway? Companies cannot achieve these utopian ideals without further
discrimination and issues towards everyone.