View Debate

The gender pay gap undeniably results from discrimination, even if subtle. Many women experience biases during hiring and promotion processes, leading to less pay for equal work. Societal norms often pressure women into lower-paying fields and penalize them for taking maternity leave. Although there might be other factors, the consistent patterns of disparities in pay speak to underlying discriminatory practices that undervalue women's work across various industries.

Let’s be clear on what we mean by discrimination. Discrimination is essential to human existence, it’s a good thing to discriminate in favour of the healthiest food, sturdiest and safest shelter, most suitable mate, and now for the best employees. The argument should be whether the gender pay gap is the result of unfair discrimination, ie discrimination in the basis of being female rather than on the quality of work, output, hours worked which may sometimes correlate with gender. It isn’t unfair to pay a woman who works 30 hours per week less than a man who works 50 hours per week with the same level of per hour productivity and quality of output. There is always some unfair discrimination in the economy, some against women, some in favour of women, some against certain other identity groups like race, religion, age, socioeconomic class etc. however, the proportion of the gender pay gap (defined as the per hour difference in average pay for all women doing paid work) which is driven by unfair discrimination is very small. This is proven by studies which have shown that the majority of the gap relates to other factors like industry choice, seniority level, experience and formal qualifications, whether hours worked are during daytime standard 9-5 hours or include overtime worked at less convenient hours, whether the work is dangerously, located in remote areas or otherwise unattractive. The KPMG report “She’s price(d)less” highlighted this, ironically while trying to show that women were unfairly paid less because they were women. Instead, their detailed analysis showed that once the large annual or lifetime earning gap was broken down to per hour, to remove bias from maternity leave, part time work, the remaining per hour pay gap was around 6.5%, of which two thirds can be explained by the factors listed above: industry, seniority etc. Less than 3% absolute per hour pay gap remained unexplained, but even this shouldn’t solely be attributed to unfair discrimination. Many women favour nursing and teaching roles which are in the public sector, and the government, in general, puts harder limits on salaries, but allows more flexibility than the private sector: women therefore often trade off lower pay for flexibility, eg to work from home or take time off to pick children up from school. This is a free choice in a free market. Within the corporate sector specifically, women often stay longer with one employer (despite low or no pay inflation) to build goodwill before taking maternity leave, to retain job security and more flexible hours when they return to work. By contrast, men are more likely to “job hop” every few years and demand a pay rise with each new role, so a man who has 15 years experience can easily earn more than a woman who has 15 years experience in the same field, through purely individual decisions in a free market. In the cases where there may be genuine or perceived unfair discrimination towards women, they can “vote with their feet” and leave for a higher paying job elsewhere, so that gap shouldn’t be sustained in a free market. If these women can’t get paid more elsewhere, then the free market itself is confirming that their value is not higher than what they already earn. If a profit-seeking private company could hire women to do exactly the same work as men, and pay them Less for the same quality and scale of output, then companies could and would only hire women: there are no cases of this occurring, which indicates that the reason women are paid less, on average, is due to other factors than gender, which just happen to correlate with gender (eg with women tending to prioritise flexibility over high pay, on average, and choosing careers, employers and roles accordingly.

While it's true that some factors contribute to the gender pay gap, inherent biases still play a significant role. Women are often steered towards lower-paying roles and face penalties for taking maternity leave, reflecting deeper societal discrimination. Even with choices and job flexibility, the unexplained 3% pay gap still highlights a disparity. If the market were truly unbiased, this gap wouldn't exist. Women also face barriers in negotiating raises, further perpetuating pay inequality. The free market isn’t completely free from biases, and dismissing these overlooks the subtle yet impactful discrimination many women experience.

Not true. No one is “steered” in a free market to any job at all. They can leave and seek another job if the employer is offering an unfair deal. Explicit discrimination like downgrading seniority after maternity leave is illegal in my country at least, and it should be. Women don’t face any unusual barrier to negotiating raises, just motivational differences (because they tend to prioritise job security and flexibility over high pay). Shy people of both genders struggle to negotiate pay rises, but it would be absurd to suggest that there is unfair discrimination towards shy people. I provided highly plausible explanations for the 3% remaining gap related to free choice and different priorities. I can’t prove they’re the full explanation, but you also can’t prove they’re not.

Both debaters bring valid points to the discussion. DivineBayou506 (in favor) highlights the subtler forms of discrimination that could contribute to the gender pay gap but does not provide strong evidence to unequivocally support these claims. SpectacularReef701 (against) provides a more detailed analysis with supporting evidence, effectively countering many of the claims made by DivineBayou506. While the debate brought different perspectives on discrimination within the gender pay gap, SpectacularReef701’s arguments were slightly more compelling due to the use of concrete data and logical reasoning.