Here’s The Real Reason For The Gender Pay Gap Complaints

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So, here it comes, the morphing of the complaints about the gender pay gap into the true political demand. All must be more equal just because. That is, this isn’t about gender or even sex, it’s about the demand that wages must be more equal for all.

What else can we assume from this by Rachel Reeves?

Rachel Reeves, the chair of the BEIS select committee, said: “Transparency on gender pay is only the beginning. We need to examine why these pay gaps persist, why within the same sector there may be companies with wildly differing pay-gaps, and what remedies are needed to tackle them.”

She said excessive executive pay was “at root an issue of fairness”. She said the committee would also look at whether the new reporting scheme was properly capturing the salaries of staff, and what steps companies were taking to address the pay gap.

“Pay awards for top bosses which vastly outstrip worker pay and which owe little to building genuine long-term value in a company are impossible to justify and damage the social contract between business and the public. Unjustified executive pay awards are the most corrosive influence on public trust in business and businesses must face up to their responsibilities and tackle this problem. If businesses don’t step up on executive pay, government will need to step in.”

You see how the sidestep has been done?

The original complaint, a fair enough one to be honest, was that men and women were paid different amounts to do the same jobs. Something that’s been illegal for 50 years and doesn’t happen at anything above the level of statistical noise today. And yet it’s obviously true that men and women, on average, earn different amounts. The difference is falling, as we’d expect it to given the female irruption into the professions and higher education. But it’s still there.

The why it’s still there is the different – on average, as always – reactions to the arrival of children. More women than men opt to become primary child carer, more men than women opt to go hunt for higher incomes to provide for the snotdribblers. This is actually true as well – we can explain the entirety of the observed earnings gap purely by pointing to the mothers’ pay penalty, the fathers’ pay premium. Nothing else, at all, is required to explain the numbers we see.

As this plays out it means that we’ve more men climbing the greasy pole and that means that average male pay/earnings are higher. And that’s it, really, that’s all it is. The solution is that either primary child care equalises – possibly a little difficult in a sexually dimorphic species – or we put up with the gap.

But now note how the political demand has morphed. We must wipe out all inequalities in pay. No one should get high pay because it’s likely to be men who get it even.

Hmm, the answer is probably that Rachel Reeves should go boil her head.

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Pat
Pat
6 years ago

The question is what level of pay should we all equally receive. Presumably the worldwide average, for if it is to be the national average then it’s national socialism being promoted.

Bernie G.
Bernie G.
6 years ago

I’ve listened to people suggest men are ‘forced’ to take maternity leave, and that employers should continue to pay them their full salary for the duration. Have also noted they want women returning from ‘maternity leave’ to receive accelerated promotion to compensate for their having gone missing for six years. I also note there’s a suggestion that women working part time – three days/week – should be paid a full time salary because in reality they work just as hard as full time staff. Given the direction the world’s moving, I wouldn’t rule out anything.

Gamecock
Gamecock
6 years ago

“Pay awards for top bosses which vastly outstrip worker pay and which owe little to building genuine long-term value in a company are impossible to justify and damage the social contract between business and the public.” Justify to whom? Social contract ?!?! I want to sell corn on the cob on the street and there is a social contract? Employee pay and exec pay are two different realms. Conflating the two is ignorant. “Unjustified executive pay awards are the most corrosive influence on public trust in business and businesses must face up to their responsibilities and tackle this problem.” Executive… Read more »

Spike
6 years ago

Excessive executive pay IS about fairness. There are a lot of people in town who can rivet together two side panels, but few who can correctly determine that the entire assembly line should be shut down and converted to assembling things customers seem to want to buy instead.

Mandatory disclosure is not a gentle compromise, versus mandatory equal pay, that will settle the dispute. It does not defeat achievement’s enemies; it arms them.

jgh
jgh
6 years ago

In the 1990s I was unemployed for five years, and in the last 8 years I have been unemployed for five yeas, so there is a pay gap between me and somebody who was continuously employed for the last thirty years. WHO DO I SUE?????

Rhoda Klapp
Rhoda Klapp
6 years ago

And on the day the figures show women earning more than men by about 5-7%, what then? Corrective action? DMMFL.

Spike
6 years ago
Reply to  Rhoda Klapp

Around here, they already do, once you equalize for relevant factors. Businessmen who do not want complications with The Inspector pay women the same as men even when the women cannot continuously put in 40 hours a week between family emergencies.

Hallowed Be
Hallowed Be
6 years ago

Sidestep? i’d call this a side-leap.

BniC
BniC
6 years ago

Maybe the professional sisters have realised they can leverage the low pay of their fellows to improve their own chances of promotion or top jobs.

BniC
BniC
6 years ago

It’s illegal to discriminate on gender when hiring, it’s illegal to pay less for a job based ikon gender…..so when it’s illegal to have a gender earnings gap and the only way to fix it is to hire more of one gender exactly how will that work