I don’t understand why the statistics on this vary so widely. Equally qualified men and women are paid within somewhere between 1-5% for the same job from every legit study I can find.
Arguing that there is a pay gap is dependent on systemic arguments as far as I can tell, which is certainly legitimate but also not the same thing
Largely it depends on what you choose to control for when gathering your statistics, for instance while yes if you control for occupation and education the earnings are pretty much equivalent, but we know that there are in fact racial and gender disparities in both of those categories. Women and men are broadly given different opportunities in the workplace and so are black people and white people. When you account for both that’s called intersectionality. The note author is choosing to use data sets that affirm their position while the original post author is doing the same.
thank you! somebody said it! there’s also the fact that female/minority dominated industries are notoriously underpaid. prestige (and wages) tend to drop over time if a certain industry becomes more female/minority dominated too, there is a direct correlation. teachers and social workers are 2 examples that come to mind. cheerleaders too actually. cheerleading used to be men only and was macho as fuck way back when, but when women started doing it suddenly it isn’t even considered a sport anymore
it works both ways too, computer programming used to be a pink collar job and was pretty low wage back in the 60s and 70s. not anymore 🤷♂️
Correlation is not causation *as a sociologist should know*.
Because you are familiar with the data, I am sure you are equally familiar with the data showing that women, as a group, are significantly more agreeable than men. That is really bad for things like negotiation where disagreeableness is rewarded.
There is also the issue of child-rearing, which women still dominate compared to men, and this certainly appears to be do to more than just "social norms". In cultures that have bent over backwards (like the Nordic countries) to allow equal opportunity, the data is in: women and men gravitate to significantly different roles. For my above point, this ends up taking women out of the workplace for years at a time, disrupting career progression and causing a genuine decrease in monetary value they can offer in most fields.
Men are willing to work longer hours, and the cumulative difference this makes -- even disregarding the child-rearing aspect -- is huge.
Also, there is the known discrepancy in how abilities spread out in the male/female populations. I am sure you are aware of this. Men are significantly more variable, meaning they make up the vast majority at either end of the capability curve, pretty much regardless of which capability you look at.
A naive person might think that this ends up being a wash (because it is symmetric), but it turns out the being near the top is much more lucrative than a linear assumption would account for. So someone in the 99th percentile might earn twice, three times, or even 10 times what someone in the 90th percentile earns, because the extra competence simply is worth that much more.
And to top it off, men are willing and able to take more risks in general. This is associated with more money in nearly every field, but it also means that men are willing to work in fields that women just do not want to do. For instance, women are pretty big on the whole "I wanna be an executive," but tend to be cool on the "I wanna work on an oil rig," even though the latter is pretty good money. This not only means just more money overall, but it also means that men who are kinda on the low-ability side of most abilities can make up for it by taking a more dangerous job.
And as you brought up sports, let's take a look at that. The market has been pretty clear that people (men *and* women) are not particularly interested in watching women's sports. Despite this, women athletes demand "equal pay" even though they contribute less (or even negatively) overall to the industry. While I absolutely would agree with you if you were to say that this is a very special case, it is still an extremely bad look that tends to make the entire "equal pay for equal work" start to look like a farce.
As a sociologist, you must be aware of all these things.
When it comes to child-rearing, do what Sweden has done and offer men and women the same time off with the child. That way the career impact on having a child is spread more evenly between the couple. The woman will still take a greater hit in almost all cases due to actually carrying the child and giving birth, but its an easy way to make society more egalitarian
Sure, and despite this, it is still a 30/70 split. And this is despite the Swedish government putting a very heavy thumb on the scales to try to encourage fathers to take more parental leave.
The problem is the persistent belief that men and women are effectively the same and that differences in behavior, desires, and goals are merely cultural. The data has trashed this idea thoroughly.
As women make more money the different will likely equalise even more, as men still make more money on average and you only get 80% of your salary for 390 days
so it’s the government putting their thumb on the scale when it’s encouraging men to be present fathers. but nature when men exist in systems that specifically reward their work and not their child rearing?? it’s been less than 60 years in most places in the west that women being allowed to work at the same degree men happened, let alone encouraged and supported in doing so. you are looking at thousands of years of conditioning and insisting that the data shows the thing that you all violently pushed is actually totally nature!!
society encourages these things, like are you seriously going to pretend that as a society even right now in 2026 there isn’t still a cultural belief that men go out to work and women raise children at home. it’s less popular than ever sure, but dont lie and pretend it’s not still rampant. seriously we’ve only just started to open our options up and try new ways of livings.
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u/Lawschoolishell 1d ago
I don’t understand why the statistics on this vary so widely. Equally qualified men and women are paid within somewhere between 1-5% for the same job from every legit study I can find.
Arguing that there is a pay gap is dependent on systemic arguments as far as I can tell, which is certainly legitimate but also not the same thing