23 February, 2015

Statistical controls tell us how the gender pay gap works, not that it isn't real - Vox

Statistical controls tell us how the gender pay gap works, not that it isn't real - Vox: Life is complicated. Any summary statistic is, by definition, going to be an effort to simplify that reality. And it is absolutely true to say that pay discrimination on the part of employers between the women they employ and the men they employ only accounts for a minority of the gap. But the statistical controls that reveal that don't make the problem of the wage gap go away. They help us identify where it exists. Some of it exists inside the companies where women work. Some of it exists inside household dynamics and broad social expectations of how family life should work. And some of it exists at the level of occupations, where women's job opportunities are structured in an economically unhelpful way.