To think this video from the Economist on the gender pay gap is good?

[Idreamofalandrover]

Hmm there was one point I didn't agree with though, or I think they didn't go far enough in explanation.
"women choose lower paid careers than men, nurses, administrators, teachers...".
I think these jobs are low paid BECAUSE they tend to be held by women, not the other way round

I see what you mean, I think some can be explained by having good pensions that make up for the smaller take home pay.

Because women tend to live longer? Interesting thought. Are we really that forward looking in our twenties though?

I think these jobs are low paid BECAUSE they tend to be held by women, not the other way round

This. Also, sometimes it is that women are paid less in the same job. And even if they're asking for promotion as often as men, that doesn't mean they get it as often as men, or can be as mediocre as male peers who get it. Let's ignore all of that and just put it down to them chosing lower paid careers and parenthood and ignore why men tend not to be penalised in the same way.

I didn't think of that, but that might be something. Was meaning women centric jobs are often public sector and they often have better pensions that private.

Women often ARE paid less than men in exactly the same jobs.

Actually I think it was poor. The sentence at the end .... is that IT? Is that all you've got? To recommend.

women centric jobs are often public sector and they often have better pensions that private.

That massively depends on the details. Is a final salary pension so great if you're on a quarter of what you could earn in the private sector? "The private sector" covers everything from family firms with one or two employees to global banks and other multinationals. It's a pretty meanness comparison to just say public vs private as if it's a binary comparison.

Yy to the causal link being back to front - employers get away with paying less in roles that are traditionally thought of as female. There's nothing about those jobs which makes them worth a lower pay packet.

Also, same job different pay - I suspect that this is far more prevalent than many realise but that it isn't widely publicised because of gagging clauses in settlements. In the past I had to take my then employer tocourt (being ddeliberately vague here because of just such a gagging clause). I got a hefty pay rise and back pay. It was part of a group action brought by my trade union at the time.

It would be next to impossible to fight now. In the last year May's government has changed the law (not well publicised - I didn't see anything in the press). Trade unions can no longer bring group actions but have to fight each case individually - so instead of funding one case and being able to say "look how many individuals are affected" they'd have to fight scores of cases separately, making it both financially untenable for the union's legal fund and obscuring in court the fact that the discrimination was affecting lots of women at the same time, it wasn't just a one off cock up.

I've realised the reason that this thread kind of set off an alarm bell in my mind was because I was casually chatting to a friend a couple of days ago - she mentioned she too had had a successful equal pay claim. Which made me wonder: is it much more widespread than we think, because of gagging clauses? (I remember seeing that mentioned in connection with Harvey Weinstein, as one of the reasons the shit didn't hit the fan earlier - the cases which were settled out of court imposed gagging clauses on the victims so they couldn't talk about it/warn other women).