So glad to see Sowell take on this subject again. This gender gap argument drives me crazy. From a practical standpoint, it drives me crazy because its just not true. However, even if we stipulated that it was true, I despise politicians that claim they are going to help "create jobs" or "level playing fields". Government can do no such thing. Any job that a government creates, necessarily removes many more jobs from the economy. The money that goes to creating those jobs must come from actual producers that would offer those jobs in the market. Given the inherent waste in a bureaucracy, that one job the government creates most likely kills private jobs by a factor of 10. I'd love to see some research on that. As for "leveling the playing field", the market will always decide what a service is worth, or what a product can sell for. With that fact being unavoidable, the government cannot artificially increase anyone's wages or payment for goods or services. The market sets the cap on wages. The only thing the government can do to level the playing field is bring the top earners down, since they cannot artificially increase the middle given that the top has limited resources to pay the middle. It is simple economics. You don't even need to know the difference between capitalism, socialism, Austrian, Anarcho, etc, to be able to understand this concept.
If there is really a wage gap (which as Sowell says there isn't), the only way the government could fix it would be to artificially deflate men's earning by taxing and giving to women. Given that the vast majority of women and men end up married to someone of the opposite sex, how would that help anyone anyway?

I always ask people who pull this chestnut out to show the inequality of the job market "If it were really cheaper to hire a woman to do the same job (it's always women make $0.72 for every dollar a man make), why are employers not hiring every qualified woman they can to save that $0.28 per dollar?" They almost always come back with misogyny of the workplace. I then say something like imagine you have a business and you have a job to fill that would pay $100,000 per year with two qualified applicants one male and one female. Wouldn't you rather hire a woman for $72,000 and use the $28,000 for something else? Who wouldn't? Then why aren't employers hiring women if they are so much cheaper? Because they aren't cheaper to hire and it's a statistical trick that is perpetrated on the country.

Love it! The "honesty gap" is something I will use daily. At least in my business I pay the same percentage for all employees based on gross sales generated - regardless of gender, age, race etc. They can make as much as they want - but they have to hussle and be productive. Whiners don't last long.

I agree with Sowell on this point. I find the expectation that there would not be a pay gap infuriating. As he says, it's like saying hard work for money and caring for children are nothing big, like taking up stamp collecting.

STEMs women are being snatched up as quickly as they show promise in the educational system, in graduate work, in the job market. I know a number of women who were projected into science/computer majors because they had the ability to do the work (not necessarily the desire).

That being said, there are definitely individuals who will pay a woman less than a man for the same job. This goes back to Ancient Egypt where payscales have been discovered that explicitly that state that for a day in which a woman spun 10 skeins of flax she would be paid 2 1/2 loaves of bread and a flask of beer, whereas a man who spun 10 skeins of flax in a day would be paid 3 loaves of bread and 2 flasks of beer. So this has been going on for a long time.

Most modern complaints about this are pure BS, however, and I think the Sowell article is largely true.

Jan

Excellent article.

Great article... two examples, my wife and my sister-in-law. We had one daughter, my wife went back to work within 6 weeks of having the baby... she chose to continue her career and today makes well over 100K (yes she's one of the evil ones :-). BTW, our daughter did not suffer because of it. My sister-in-law, degree in nursing, worked for 10 years as a NICU nurse, after the 2nd baby, she quit working and eventually started to work as a school nurse making probably mid 30s... she chose to be a stay at home mom.. I think she collects stamps too. Both made choices and I would guess many choose route #2.

Good article. In an ideal world, gender is no more important than race.