So the gender pay gap is real, but gender isn’t real?

@NerdyPotato Okay a social construct. You must have heard of that.

@blokeinpub yes, I've heard of that. But that means it does exist, so what's your point with this post? 🤔

@NerdyPotato Let me get some crayons off the kids and I’ll show you.

@blokeinpub ok, I'll wait... 🤷

@blokeinpub Explained in easy terms:

- Gender is socially constructed: That means it's "real", but it doesn't mean it's a simple 1:1 correspondence with sex
- The pay gap is "real", as in, pay gaps have been observed
- No, the pay gap is not predicated on gender. If you are a journalist or bad at statistics it may be in your interest to make people believe this, though

@calabaciteh so they both exist but aren't related. I still don't understand why that is confusing or worth posting about. Lots of things exist and aren't related.

@NerdyPotato A lot of people confuse fluid gender identity with gender "not being real", "not mattering" or being relativistic but that's just not the case. It's simply that their definition of gender is too narrow. That's one source of confusion.

Another one is that feminists have been pushing the agenda that women earn less solely due to the fact that they are women. This has been debunked numerous times, but the myth endures.

There's still a ton of people out there who haven't caught up yet

@calabaciteh what other factors play a role besides being a woman? Popular arguments like women having lower education, working fewer hours or performing less have also been debunked. The pay gap exists even between men and women where those all are the same.

@NerdyPotato Working fewer hours and not playing promotion games as aggressively as men are definitely factors.

If being a woman was the only different factor dictating a cheaper employee, profit driven companies wouldn't hire men.

@calabaciteh men earn more than women for the same job with the same hours though. Fewer women may work certain jobs with certain hours, but that doesn't explain the different pay for those who do.

@NerdyPotato No, they don't. They either don't earn more, don't work the same hours, or being women is not the common cause of the other two.

@calabaciteh that's been debunked many times.

@NerdyPotato such as?

@NerdyPotato If women are so much cheaper, do the same jobs and work the same hours, why are companies still hiring men?

@calabaciteh all your arguments are true and factor into the uncontrolled wage gap. But when eliminating all those, there's still a gap left called the controlled gap:

https://www.forbes.com/advisor/business/gender-pay-gap-statistics

And it's also not because women don't negotiate their salary as much:

https://journals.aom.org/doi/10.5465/amd.2022.0021

Your last question is an interesting one. You'll have to ask the HR departments of companies, because it's their decision.

@calabaciteh Actually studies have shown that women get discriminated against for having children. So pay gaps are due to biases and are very real.

https://www.aauw.org/issues/equity/motherhood/

@SatanBurger So women DO work fewer hours. It says so in that link you posted.

Seems this particular issue is USA-centric though. I haven't seen this happen in Europe in countries with fair parental leave laws

@calabaciteh It's not just USA centric, there's developed and developing worlds by which female rights are still last in many parts of the world as there's more to the world than westernized countries. For developed countries though, the US does rank lower in all statistics so you're right for sure.

As for women working less hours, less pay shouldn't correlate with fewer hours though because people need money to support their children. The link also said that males benefit more from single fatherhood than mothers. Or something to that extent. They said that men's earnings tend to increase over time. Women would probably work more if they had support.

@SatanBurger sure, we need money for a lot of things, not just supporting children, but if you enter a wage based contract, your earnings ARE based on your work...

@calabaciteh They're not based on your work if employers are discriminating because you got kids. That has nothing to do with the actual work but the employer anticipating different things due to gender which brings it back to the original point. You having children doesn't affect the work you do at your job unless you bring your kids to work.

@SatanBurger No, but nobody is discriminating because you got kids. The actual reason is because having kids takes time away from work. If you attend your workplace every single day of your pregnancy, up to the moment you give birth, without missing an hour then it absolutely doesn't affect the work you do, but that is rare.