There is only the one solution which will actually work. Our problem, if we wish to view it as such, is that men and women have different propensities – note propensities, not certainties – for desiring to care for their own young children. It is only changing that which will eliminate the gender pay gap:
[perfectpullquote align=”full” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””] Think through this again. Assume even that I’m right, the gender pay gap is a consequence of, and only a result of, a generally and on average difference between men and women in the desire to care for young children. More women would like to do this than men. From that, all else flows. So, when do we think this preference is going to end? For it’s at that exact same time that the gender pay gap is. My own estimation is that the preference never will change, which is a bit of a problem for any attempt to close that gender pay gap, isn’t it? Sure, maybe I’m just a patriarchal cisgendered heteronormative doing some mansplaining. Or maybe human beings just are a sexually dimorphic species. [/perfectpullquote]That is, much as it will annoy, the only solution.
An element of wages is paid to compensate physical risk. Physical risk at work in inequitable between the sexes. Thus we need to “fix” the gender risk gap as part of the overall “solution” to this perceived problem.
As a metric 96% of the UK’s 150 fatal work injuries in the UK are males. We cannot resolve the risk premium element of the pay gap until more women die doing risky work, which requires roughly 70 more dead women a year…
Unfortunately I think that you are wrong because you are assuming a free market in labour. Government will intervene in the labour market to achieve this goal as we have seen in the Fife Council equal pay for equal work ruling. I suspect that in this area Fife Council is a monopsony employer and therefore can chose pay men less than the market value for their work.