The Guardian’s Arts Graduates Discover Lake Wobegon

Or rather, the arts graduates over at The Guardian seem not to have got the joke from Lake Wobegon. Which is of course that all the children in that icy social democracy – that being really what Keillor is describing – are above average.

Note please, this is a joke. One rather lost on, as I say, The Guardian’s crack team reporting on the gender pay gap:

Almost half of the companies included on a list of businesses feted as the best places to work as a woman in the UK have a gender pay gap higher than the national average, exclusive Guardian analysis has revealed.

Really? Half are above average? Or, given the opprobrium here, below it? Alert the media! Err, well, yes, that’s exactly what they have done, isn’t it?

Of the subsidiaries of companies included on the Times Top 50 Employers for Women list in 2017, more than nine in 10 pay women less than they pay men on average, with almost half of the companies reporting a gender pay gap greater than 18.4% – the national average as calculated by the Office of National Statistics.

No, really, the distribution seems to be roughly centred on the average. No doubt the mathematicians will have a field day with this finding.

Analysis also shows that more than four in 10 FTSE 100 companies, based on subsidiaries which were required to report, have a gender pay gap higher than the national average

Around and about half either side of the average?

Note that the national average being used is the median, The G’s calculations here being the mean number of companies. But still, it’s just such a stunning statistical finding, isn’t it?

Global advertising agency WPP also reported large differences in what they pay men and women on average. The company filed figures for 19 of its subsidiaries, almost half of which had a pay gap greater than the national average of 18.4%.

Truly amazing.

Some half of companies are either side of the national average for the gender pay gap. The Guardian wants us to know this, oh yes.