Poll: Is the 'gender pay gap' a real thing?

Should a woman with the same skill/experience doing the same role/hours be paid at the same rate as

  • Yes

    Votes: 127 66.1%

  • No

    Votes: 37 19.3%

  • I'm not sure

    Votes: 21 10.9%

  • No, but only because that answer suits me and not because it's right

    Votes: 7 3.6%
  • Total voters
    192
Burnsy2023 said:
Equal pay in principle hasn't been a contentious issue in a long time, even for hardened conservatives. How it's enacted, the evidence and the methods to rectify are the contentious issues.
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I agree the issue is not contentious, which begs the question: Why do feminists believe that the "gender pay gap" is caused by sexism and/or patriarchy and not instead a reflection of differing life choices?

That said, someone voted "no" on the poll. I wonder who and why?
 
MooMoo444 said:
The topic question and topic poll don't match though. Someone might just vote no to the question in the topic without even realizing the poll is asking something else.
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Yeah I was thinking that, I thought it should have just asked whether there should be a gap or not, not if there was, then I realized it did.
 
Would it not be more unfair to deny a more qualified person an executive position so that you can fill a gender quota?

The current executive generation are likely largely made up of people from a time where there were larger differences in proportions of men and women being groomed/promoted/educated/trained for these higher roles. At the moment women have just as much of a chance as men to obtain jobs and jobs of the same role are paid equally within the same company, it will only be a matter of time till the newer generation of more equal proportions are considered to take over from these exec roles, levelling the statistics over time regardless of whether we put in a gender quota law or not.

Should we implement laws that require men are hired on a quota basis in female dominated professions? Maybe we should turn away female nurses so as to make the proportions of male and female nurses equal?
 
It's shocking if it still exists. There's no reason for someone to get paid differently because of their gender.
 
Should women be paid the same as guys in the same job? Of course.

Does this mean the average wage/income of men and women should be exactly the same? Of course not.

Maybe we should compare the wage of those people under six foot and those over. Maybe those under 6 foot earn 10% less, which obviously means smaller people are being unfairly paid /triggered.

And along the same lines, when applying for some apprenticeships in the engineering field a year back, I saw a few times "this year we're trying to increase the number of female apprentices". Now how would they go about increasing this? It has to be by either somehow getting more female students to apply OR by looking more favourably at their application purely based on their gender. Equality.
 
Avenged7Fold said:
Should we implement laws that require men are hired on a quota basis in female dominated professions? Maybe we should turn away female nurses so as to make the proportions of male and female nurses equal?
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Also true of HR type roles.
 
Of course the rates of pay should be equal when every other variable is the same and only gender differs. As for the studies showing a difference, I really don't think they take into account how employee's pay is actually calculated and is solely interpreted to support the side of the argument the publisher is on.
 
I remember reading somewhere that on average women earn more than men up until the age of 30. I put this down to early career choices. A lot of young men go into labouring/ skilled jobs which would on average pay less than a young woman going into an office doing admin/ pa based jobs.

Men then out earn women from 30 onwards. I would attribute this to lifeste choices, one in particular, having children, then returning to work.

Obviously many other factors play a part and that's the problem with broadbrushing these things.

There isn't even equality amongst same sex jobs/ positions/ etc due to everyone being different, differing hiring circumstances, how well the salary was negotiated. (Trend is men negotiate harder when it comes to wage)

Sexual discrimination, IMO, doesn't even come into it.
 
Holliday said:
And along the same lines, when applying for some apprenticeships in the engineering field a year back, I saw a few times "this year we're trying to increase the number of female apprentices". Now how would they go about increasing this? It has to be by either somehow getting more female students to apply OR by looking more favourably at their application purely based on their gender. Equality.
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Indeed.
Getting more of one gender into a field should be down to making the experience/education more socially acceptable to that gender to increase the amount of applicants. It should never be a case of choosing one gender over another for the role or adjusting the pay by gender.
 
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I've seen the gender pay gap. I've been paid more for the same level of job than female co-workers, with the same experience.

My wife's been at the other end of it too, with male colleagues getting pay rises offered much sooner than female colleagues - again, without a formal process, without any additional experience.

Across the board this happens, and the evidence is substantial.

I'm amazed there's even a "vote" on this and people are actively denying the facts. This sort of gender pay gap has gone through UK courts and companies/councils have had to pay out in favour of under-paid women.
 
Discrimination happens at an individual level.

If there is pay discrimination then it is due to the individual who chooses to find one loophole or another to pay the individual less.

How do some people think pay gets decided when a company decides to hire someone? lol

lordzargon said:
I've seen the gender pay gap. I've been paid more for the same level of job than female co-workers, with the same experience.

My wife's been at the other end of it too, with male colleagues getting pay rises offered much sooner than female colleagues - again, without a formal process, without any additional experience.
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Obviously this is illegal and at least the pay gap in your case was very easy to prove. If this happened now there would be questions asked and it would be quite obvious that people with the same title and experience are being paid less but do you think that the choice to pay women differently was made by an individual?

Obviously your wife's situation is harder to prove but how can you be so sure that she was discriminated against, maybe those individuals performed better on informal assessments regardless of experience. It is hard to prove discrimination because it hard to compare pay, though its all too easy to assume you are being discriminated against when you didnt get the pay rise you wanted.
 
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lordzargon said:
I've seen the gender pay gap. I've been paid more for the same level of job than female co-workers, with the same experience.

My wife's been at the other end of it too, with male colleagues getting pay rises offered much sooner than female colleagues - again, without a formal process, without any additional experience.

Across the board this happens, and the evidence is substantial.

I'm amazed there's even a "vote" on this and people are actively denying the facts. This sort of gender pay gap has gone through UK courts and companies/councils have had to pay out in favour of under-paid women.
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So if there have been payouts in the past, does that mean it is still a problem now?

I have not seen any evidence at all for a gender pay gap, but have only worked for two companies in my working life :)
 
I suspect it's less to do with sexism and more to do with the willingness to negotiate for higher pay. I think studies have actually proved this recently. If a man goes for a role he might negotiate a 50k pay deal, whereas the woman might settle for 45k because she thinks it's fair for the job advertised. I'm generalising, obviously. That said I know a lot of women that are not interested in money in the slightest, where most men even if they're not your egotistical city slicker, are still interested in earning more than the next guy. Women don't seem to have that urge quite as strongly, and if they do there's a lot of evidence that points to them being worried about being labelled something nasty for it.
 
lordzargon said:
I've seen the gender pay gap. I've been paid more for the same level of job than female co-workers, with the same experience.

My wife's been at the other end of it too, with male colleagues getting pay rises offered much sooner than female colleagues - again, without a formal process, without any additional experience.

Across the board this happens, and the evidence is substantial.

I'm amazed there's even a "vote" on this and people are actively denying the facts. This sort of gender pay gap has gone through UK courts and companies/councils have had to pay out in favour of under-paid women.
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Were you by any chance better at your job than your female co-workers?

Where I work Women in general have more time off, are less interested in moving up the ladder and often work less hours after having children than Men.
 
I suspect the majority of the "no" responses in the poll are due to the thread title vs poll question. Alas, this makes the poll somewhat redundant. Not Gilly's fault, more a lack of foresight on my part in suggesting it was added to this thread.

But if someone who voted "no" genuinely meant "no" perhaps they could raise their hand so they can be roundly castigated?
 
If you can get women to do the same job as a man for less money with the same experience and qualifications, why would you hire a man?
 
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