To think that 16% pay inequality between the sexes isn't necessarily a problem....

[Bananabread123]

.... so long as:

1. men and women are paid equivalent amounts where there is parity of responsibility, experience and competence

2. affordable childcare is available

3. men and women are equally able to take career breaks for the purpose of child rearing, and that cultural barriers inhibiting this are removed

4. there is equality of access to money and spending decisions for women in households where the man is the main breadwinner (and vice versa)

5. Barriers that prevent or dissuade women from working in high paid professions are removed.

Why do I say this?... because in my experience women, on average, tend to want to lead on child rearing, and that this is a biological tendency that exists over and above any cultural norms. Clearly it will be different for every couple, but I'm talking about norms here. Not all, but many women want to take time off after their babies. And many (not all) women embrace the flexibility of part time work when children are young. And if that being the case, they will have less experience than their male counterparts, and it follows they should expect to be paid less on average.

I agree it can be very tough, but at least the period you have to pay full
Childcare is significantly shorter now. With a first child you could take a full year off, and then get 15 hours a week free from age 3. That's a big difference from 20 years ago when you'd pay full fees from 12 weeks til the day they start school. It's often when you have subsequent children that it gets really tough because you need to keep paying the childcare retainer for older children even while you're on ML. Still worth taking the hit if you're serious about wanting to maintain both careers. The other thing a lot of couples do is space their family out so eldest child is in school while the younger needs full time childcare. (Didn't get that bit right- we had 3 under 5s )

Bananabread - you are right on the narrow point that the pay gap statistic in itself does not reflect the choices made by males and females.

You would be unreasonable to suggest that it does not give some indication of the scale of the current problem.

Also, you have given reasons why the statistic might overstate the problem, due to women choosing to stay at home. The statistic is also likely to understate the problem in that certain professions are female-dominated (e.g. nursing, caring) and attract lower wages than other professions (e.g. construction) which are male dominated. This factor is significant and unlikely to be reflected in the 16% headline figure.

Bottom line, I think we can agree there is a problem with unequal pay, that it is hard to quantify this with complete accuracy, but there is work that needs to be done to sort it out. Our time and energy is better spent in solving the problem than quibbling about how to measure it.

[Munstermonchgirl] very much so. There has been much needed progress made in legislation from what I know, so couples can share parental leave and paternity leave provision has generally improved (though should be far better I think). Also given how many more women are in the workplace now and succeeding hugely, there are bound to be lots of cases when the woman is the main breadwinner when a child is born. Many women will want to continue thriving in their careers after having children and many men will want to take on the primary caregiver role to the child or become SAHDs. I really admire your succeeding in your career and bringing up three children and have no doubt your daughters will follow in your footsteps!

Childcare is significantly shorter now. With a first child you could take a full year off, and then get 15 hours a week free from age 3. That's a big difference from 20 years ago when you'd pay full fees from 12 weeks til the day they start school.

The cost of childcare has risen 40% in the last 5 years though, and wages haven't risen at all.

Research shows that the 16% pay gap remains despite controlling (as much as possible) for the factors listed in your OP.

However, if you are arguing that there are factors that determine the pay gap that are not easily controlled for or that you cannot control for, then I agree that you would expect to see a pay gap but it's difficult to say how that would be.

I don't think it's the gap in my working life of 2x1 year that are the reason some male colleagues are promoted and I am not. It may be what that gap means to an employer though.
Experience does not equal promotion in my line of work.

I know a few couples who have recently had children where the mother doesn't want to transfer any leave. It's not a financial decision, but her desire to take the whole leave herself- which is fine, but it's no good then complaining about losing pace in your career compared to people who have taken less time out

This ^ I have seen many times recently. Including from my sister who is now bored and sad that her career has pretty much gone for good now her kids are close to secondary school.

I wonder whether women are working in occupations where it is harder to have a career? By a career I mean promotion.

If there is substantially less positions of the next grade up it makes it all the more difficult. Some professions have flatter career structures to others. A dr is likely to move up the ranks whereas a nurse is not so likely. In a hospital there are many more consultants than senior nurses but many more junior nurses than junior Drs I think.

When your career then doesn't go anywhere it's less easy to protect. I'll just pick another job up at the base level, but I know I am very unlikely to ever be promoted. Your ambition dies a bit and you become less career focussed.

I often see posts on MN about taking a hit on the cost of childcare when the children are young, but this is presumably working on the assumption that both parents have a good salary coming in at the starting point. You can't afford to take a hit of paying out £200 a month more in child care than you actually earn if you aren't earning a big salary to start with. My husband and I are both graduates, but we live in an area where childcare costs are high and salaries are low. I don't know a single family where I live who have two parents working full time, because the costs of childcare is so prohibitive. Since at the point of having children none of the women were out earning the men, it was the women who went part time, or gave up work.

I think you're right headofthehive. There's also evidence that generally men are far more likely to push for promotions and salary raises than women. So I suspect it's a set of varied reasons, including the jobs women tend to go into, their own aspiration to climb the career ladder and whether they take a lot of time out/ work part time.

There was a thread on here a few weeks ago (something about 'is part time working a necessity or luxury') and it was astonishing how many women posted that they'd been working part time long term- in many cases they'd continued part time for their whole work life after having children. This is relatively very rare among men. Sometimes there isn't a direct correlation between hours/years worked and opportunities for getting ahead, but often there is.... all other things being equal, someone who has greater experience is probably going to be more successful in promotions.

Treaclesoda- that's crazy if every childminder within reach of where you are is charging an hourly rate of higher than NMW. It sounds as though there's an opening there for childminders to undercut whatever provisions there currently are.

It's not that one hour of childcare for one child costs more than NMW - childminders don't earn very much, but they need to make some money at it or they wouldn't do it.

It is also the fact that there aren't very many spaces to go round so it is hard to find a space, you have to pay the childminder even when the child is at preschool or school, you have to pay her even when she is on holidays, you have to pay your travel costs to work etc. There are no nurseries or after school clubs or breakfast clubs in my area so no alternative options unless you have family who can do it.

Full time child care in my area for two children would come in at somewhere between £60 and £90 per day. At the lower end of the scale that is £300 per week, so it is far more than NMW.

Oh yes I can see for more than one child it gets difficult - many families I know space their children out to avoid 2 in full time care simultaneously- it's the only way they can afford to keep working.

It's a shame that more childminders aren't plugging that gap in your area, as you say there are many couples who would want to both work. Childminders don't normally charge over NMW, and often they do it because they have a young child and can earn without paying out childcare themselves.

Our childcare cost more than my earnings for quite a while (in fact we took out a loan to pay the last set of nursery fees when we had 2 of our kids there- now nursery is financially horrendous compared to most childminders, but we'd been let down by a childminder who had regular sickness and we were desperate to have reliable care. It's very hard to take a big financial hit, especially when you see friends who aren't working and have as much or more disposable income, but all I can say (20 years on) is that having children was the best decision I ever made, and hanging onto my career was the second best.

I don't blame people for not wanting to be childminders though. One of my closest friends is a childminder and she can barely get parents to actually pay her. There is an assumption that it's not a real job, she doesn't really need the money etc. She has a written signed contract with parents that she is to receive payment by bank transfer on a particular day but time after time they will arrive to pick up the kids, chat about how they stopped off to go clothes shopping/book a holiday at lunch time and then give her a breezy 'oh, BTW, I can't afford to pay you yet, I'll get it to you next week'. She chases for money and gets a sneery 'oh, I didn't realise you needed it so urgently'. A lot of parents treat childminders like crap.

How can the wage gap be an issue if women choose to work less due to child rearing, do you expect to et paid more per war just to make up for it?

Get paid more per wage*

No, psycho, I don't think that's what anyone expects.

It's about being paid the same for the same work. And having the same opportunities for the same jobs and same earnings as men.

It's hobsons choice really psycho. I didn't choose to give up a career, rather chose one that had less opportunities for promotion than my DH. Unfortunately you don't always realise this. Now when it came to the fact there is limited childcare here, it becomes obvious that I get to be the one taking the hit as I already earnt less and had less opportunities in the future.

To take out a loan, or such to continue, you have to be realistic at your chances that it is a worthwhile investment risk.

Headofthehive- your experience raises another question: are women tending to 'undersell themselves' and picking lower paid careers with fewer prospects from the outset?
Working in education, I know that girls outperform boys at most levels of education, but clearly at some point, factors are coming into play which set women on a path of fewer prospects.

Anecdotally I know a lot of women who work part time (and I mean women in their 40s-50s not those with young children) I also know a number of women who choose to remain 'underemployed'- e.g. I am head of English in my school and the LSA who supports in my dept is actually a qualified teacher; she's the same age as me with adult kids yet earns a fraction of what she could if she worked as a teacher. She's brilliant btw so is a great asset to the school, and she seems quite happy with her life choice so this isn't a criticism at all, just an observation.

I think women do pick careers with lower prospects, e.g. Caring. However, you often pick things that you like rather than what is most lucrative.
if females have a general interest in a profession - society seems to value it less. If a woman "took in washing" it was regarded as pin money - as a help to the family income. If a man did it he'd be lauded for being a businessman.

As you say the careers which are stereotypically thought to be "female" and so have more women entering them have "lower prospects" sometimes simply because they're deemed as "female" so lesser. Women are also probably pushed towards those professions due to gender stereotyping in society and boys being more encouraged to aspire to high paying work. Also, I think the pay gap exists across sectors, with women doing the same jobs as men often paid less across the board.

Hopefully culture is changing but I also know of the mum of one of my friends, she was earning more than her dad when she was born (in the same profession), but decided to take on the bulk of the parenting and put her career on hold as they decided he would have higher earning potential in the future, because men get paid more. This really needs to change.

Maybe I can't have an opinion because I'm a housewife, but I don't think the pay gap is that much of a big deal - we have bigger issues to worry about, eg. immigration, radical Islam, etc.

So women not being paid as much as men for doing the same job is totally fine? Oh and my only worry about immigration is the country's increasing hostility towards it.