The Truth About the Gender Pay Gap 

Getting men paid family leave actually makes a lot of sense. It would level the playing field somewhat for something that shouldn't be just left up to the mom's anyways.

The salary secrecy seems to me to be a big factor but when everyone's salaries were leaked at my old company we saw a very interesting result. One of the male welders who was a very quiet, introverted older man who was highly skilled was actually paid less than a female production scheduler who was very brassy and outgoing. This was consistent through the company. Introverts were paid less and all the highest paid employees were highly pushy or extroverted. Gender seemed to be a nearly non-existent factor. This, to me, says it was outgoing people combined with pay secrecy that primarily motivated gaps in earnings.

"Women make 77 cents on the dollar" is the absolute best example of lying with statistics.

One thing regarding the point about degrees earned. Yes, women are graduating with more degrees than men, but from what I information I have found, women graduate with less valuable degrees. A degree in gender studies has less earning potential than an engineering degree. Women are, for example, known to not get as many STEM degrees as men.

Stop calling it a pay gap. It's an earnings gap, very different.

That orchestra statistic is INSANE. Even in music?

1:33 I'm high right now, but is the ceiling really trying to hypnotize me?

The wage gap should be named the, "Earnings Gap" 1. There are discrimination laws in effect that prevent businesses from allowing such a practice. 2. Woman are more likely to pick jobs that have flexible hours/make less. 3. Woman are the most educated gender in the United States, yet CHOOSE degrees that will not make them competitors or even make them apart of how much people (Men) make in STEM fields. 4. Men are more likely to pursue careers based on the how much money they will receive, work longer hours, ask for a raise, and go into STEM fields. The problem with the "Wage Gap" controversy is that people have a problem that it isn't a 50/50 split. They are mad because in our society we have allowed woman to CHOOSE their own path in life. What I wrote is simplistic, but I think it does wrap everything nicely.

This is actually a lot less agenda driven than I expected. I'm legitimately pleasantly surprised. I was really close to unsubbing but this is actually really well researched and kind of neutral. Kudos Pakman.

okay I work overtime, cover illnesses, work holidays and weekends get paid the same as woman who works set shifts with 2 half days. it's straight up bullshit if you can't do the job fully like the rest of the staff who signed the contract, you shouldn't be paid the same.

You found the corrected wage gap to be around 89% to 91%? That's the lowest figure I've heard to date. Most research papers have the wage gap somewhere between 93% to 97% and that's without factoring pay raises.

Wow David this was fantastically done, you show true liberals how to do a a video like this on a very contentious issue, good job.

“Women simply chose to enter lower paying jobs”. I’d like to flip that on its head and suggest that our society has always, historically been male-centered, so jobs that women gravitate towards, such as nursing, teaching - even fashion, décor and design - are condescendingly seen as less valuable and therefore worse-paid. Yet, a job like teaching has a crucial impact on society and should be treated as such. In Finland, teachers are paid a salary on par with doctors, which means it attracts the best and brightest. Basically, Fins realise that teachers are role models for the future of society and this system has had massive impact on the performance of their students. A Freakonomics podcast outlined how the USA lost its finest teachers to other professions during the 1920s and 1930s when women joined the workforce on a larger scale: Other professions were seen as more esteemed and teaching was looked down upon. Yet, before that, the smartest women (read: people) in the country used to become teachers, as that was one of the only vocations available to them at the time.

Uploaded 3 minutes ago, 15 minute video already 1 dislike.

The pay gap exists, but not due to gender discrmination.

TL;DR The real paygap is somewhere less than 20 cents. The only reason people may say it doesn't exist is because others want to spin it to look like it's due to discrimination when truthfully no one really knows why the although small gap exists.

Very well said, sir. This female-primary-household-breadwinner thanks you.

If the pay gap was real, then women would be offered jobs until they suffocated under all the job offers. No men would ever be hired. Equal pay is legislated. It is a law. You can't take averages of women and men in the workforce and then compare them without accounting for all the factors that come into play.

David at 5:53 could you point out which degrees men lead in vs. women?

You're really downplaying the effects of personal choices made by individuals. What we have is not a pay gap between men and women, but between mothers and non-mothers. We *know* that men and women make different decisions and prioritize their careers differently. We *know* that women, generally, choose jobs with more flexibility, lower recurring-education requirements, and less personal risk. *Women*, in large numbers, choose jobs that give them the flexibility down the road to potentially start a family, strong interpersonal relationship potential (such as teaching, child-care, veterinary medicine, or nursing), or general personal satisfaction and fulfillment. You talk about education and the fact that women are earning more college degrees, but you missed the mark here. Women are between 60 and 65% of college grads, this is true. However, women primarily populate fields such as general nursing, social sciences, teaching, and veterinary medicine. They populate fields that a lot of people want to work in, which creates *more* competition and drives down wages in that field. In contrast, men generally choose careers with the highest earning potential. Men choose educations with specializations, such as advanced medical degrees or applied mathematics, science, chemistry, and technology. Men choose specializations in careers that are in demand, difficult to earn, and difficult to maintain. On the other side of the spectrum, men also choose the careers with high pay, low education requirements, that are exceptionally physically demanding. Examples include steel work, construction, mining, sanitation. These are the jobs with the highest injury and fatality rates. What we see is not a discrimination between men and women. It isn't a "gendered" pay gap. We are seeing the end result of a lot of people making decisions to balance their work and home lives. Yes, men generally double down on their careers when the baby comes along. You didn't really seem to understand or express why--it's because the woman is removed from the work force anywhere from 12 weeks to several years. It isn't just job experience that drives your personal wage up, but also uninterrupted time in the work force (we call this expertise). Again, this is the result of a personal decision, and some families work the other way, with the woman doubling down and the man being a stay-at-home father.

Yeah, pay secrecy, while working 80-100 hours a week, for a contractor for the US, I was paid $2/hr less, than the 5 individuals I supervised (4 females 1 male) for around 2 and a half years (I was not only the most senior in my unit, I was the most senior in my department, over current managers) until I realized what was happening and threatened to leave. They were paying new hires, 2 dollars an hour more than the person they had supervising the unit, who'd worked there for 5 years. Even still, my pay was lower ($3 dollars lower/hour) than that of the previous supervisor, who was a female. This was an office dominated by women (probably 95%), and all managerial positions were held by women. This is merely anecdotal evidence, for my own life, and one particular job. Both Christine Hoff Sommers, and Claudia Goldin (First woman to gain tenure in the Harvard Economics Dept) suggest the gap is lower than even you suggest in your video. Might be worth talking to them, since they've done extensive research on the matter as well.

If car insurance companies get to charge men more because they're more likely to get into an accident, why wouldn't employers pay women less because they're more likely to prioritize family?

The BBC in the UK (hardly a bastion of right wing views) found that women into their 30's working full time earn slightly MORE than their male counterparts. So women's salaries are impacted when they decide to have children and effectively take a different path regarding their life choices. For this and many other reasons that have been explained over and over and over again the literal gender pay gap may be real but there is nothing unfair about it.

Women aren't generally as assertive as men, they wouldn't be as likely to force themselves into a higher pay-grade.

The people/publications that call it a "wage gap" are specifically trying to convince people that women are oppressed by men. If they were being honest, they would call it an income gap. More importantly, it doesn't need to be fixed. The fact that women and men tend to gravitate towards fields that suit their interests is the sign of a free society. Here in the west, we value freedom of opportunity over numerical equality in all fields. That kind of enforced 50/50 gender split is something that would be more appropriate in a Marxist or communist society.

What about the 'death in the workplace' gap? No, that does not matter, since it is MEN who are getting the shitty end of the stick in THAT example.

I think it's a strawman argument to say that people claim there is absolutely no pay gap.

You brought up the point that women get more degrees than men, but you failed to mention the kinds of degrees that women end up getting, which is very important. A degree in Social Work will not lead to as much pay as a degree in Petroleum Engineering. It also would have been beneficial to mention that the wage gap among milennials is much lower and women even earn more than men right out of college. Also most of the studies I have seen say that the wage gap shrinks to 4-8% so I'm dubious about your 9-11% statement. Not saying you're wrong based on whatever you read just that disparities like this are why this is a difficult thing to talk about.

I find davids intelligence so atttactive ❤

1) Alimony not considered earnings 2) under reporting of earnings of hookers, strippers, beauty salon workers, and waitresses.... Can these factors be included in the equating of earnings.? How many young female students report gifts and housing from their sugar daddys?

David, thank you for a well researched and cogently argued video on this very heated subject. Keep it up, brother!

I love these kinds of videos. Keep it Pakmayne.

An employee who is willing and able to work longer, more flexible hours will, of course, be of more value to an employer. I don't understand why anyone objects to that.

Nobody is disregarding half the work force. It has been illegal since the 60's to pay men more than women for the same job.

you're an employer with an equal male and female applicant and can only hire one. the male wants to work his hardest for as many years as he can to rise as far as he can, hopefully ending as ceo. the female wants to work hard enough to provide for her family but not so hard that she'll be too absent as a mother and wife. she doesn't want to be ceo, and she'll take much more time off than the male after having a child. her productivity will go down over the years, as opposed to the male's, which will go up. is it discrimination to choose the male? really?

You also need to take into account the generational gender pay gap. Among millennials, there is almost no gender pay gap and it's narrowing over all. www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2014/beyond-bls/millennials-and-the-pay-gap.htm I theorize this has to do with that the women of older generations, when they were first entering the labor force did have discrimination in the workplace, were not educated as well, etc back then. So over all, they started lower and have a harder time to make up for it even today. Once the older generations die off, I do believe the gender pay gap will be basically gone. A lot of people seem to think women are being paid less because of discrimination, but I am skeptical of that since it's 2016 and anyone who does that would have a law suit. I don't think women do earn less except for the older generations, and that's because women once were discriminated against, and they were once more wanting to take time off for family whereas the millennial generation, of which the ones who have children, are less likely to take time off for family.

*The fact of the matter is that when you look at the big picture, women generally do not want the same job types as men. Far more men go into STEM jobs like engineering, mathematics, science, and technology. Those jobs pay way more. As a result, when you look at the total amount of money earned between men and women, men make more. But when you account for the differences in job types and education, the wage gap vanishes to a much smaller amount (5 center per dollar - not the 23 cents claimed). To illustrate this point further, white people only make 86 cents for every dollar that an Asian person makes. The reason is not because there is some discrimination going on. It is the exact same reason that men make more than women, as a whole. This is because even more Asians go into STEM jobs than average Caucasians. Wage gaps really have very little to do with discrimination. It just so happens that women, for whatever reason, do not choose to go into higher paying jobs, and do not choose to work as much overtime, etc. And it just so happens that Asians go into high paying jobs even more. That is why whites make 86 cents for every dollar than an Asian makes. And that is why women make 77 cents per dollar that men make. It's just looking at the total amount of money that a group makes. It is not accounting for differences in what types of jobs different groups go into, it does not account for voluntary overtime differences, and it does not take into account educational differences, etc. It's only looking at the total income of men versus women - and this produces a very misleading result.*

But what college degrees are they earning?

Absolutely LOVING these longer in depth episodes.

Thanks for the good video. Glad to hear some level-headed and researched ideas about the pay gap.

Hey David, could i ask for the list of references you used?

Good job taking a nuanced approach and remaining as unbiased as possible. As always, the reality is much more complicated. Like the great American philosopher John Dewey once suggested, where there are dichotomies, the corresponding reality will often be somewhere in between (paraphrasing/summarizing).

There is good reason to believe that the pay gap is less than 9-11%. The CONSAD study comissioned by the US Dept of Labor found the gap to be 4-7% accounting for a large - but not exhaustive - range of factors. Even the American Ass'n of University Women found it to be 7%, accounting for many factors, but fewer than CONSAD. Here are a range of relevant factors (most, though not all of which were factored in by CONSAD; NOTE: CONSAD even said that the gap could have gone to zero if all factors were included): 1. Hours worked - men work more hours per week, even among only full-time workers; 2. Weeks worked per year - men work more; 3. Years worked - men retire later; 4. Educational and career paths - Men more likely to go into higher income fields such as trades, engineering, etc. Even within specialties, men choose higher earning paths. For example, in med, men are more likely to become surgeons, women to become GPs and pediatricians; 5. Following from 4, men are more likely to work in fields that compensate less desirable, more strenuous, riskier work with higher compensation. Men are more likely to take jobs that put them in physical danger, that require well over 40 hrs a week, that require work in unpleasant conditions (e.g., inclement weather, remote locations - what is the female equivalent to working 100 hour weeks in the Northern Alberta tarsands hundreds of miles from home? There isn't one); 6. Men are more likely to relocate for work or commute further, thus expanding their net and increasing the chance of securing higher wages; 7. Men are more likely to work as non-salaried employees - such as contractors. These people will often get paid more per hour but will get less in terms of benefits and paid time off. Thus, they will appear to make more because other non-compensatory factors are not always considered by pay gap metrics; 8. Women disproportionately pursue careers offering work life balance - e.g., avoiding 45+ hrs/week, gravitating toward professions/jobs that allow for flex-time, work-from-home, and that offer more in the way of sick days, etc. Then consider that research has found that men are more likely to negotiate their wages than women. Lastly, consider motivations. Does anyone doubt that men, on average, are more driven to achieve high socio-economic status and income than women? A man and a woman will both be better off by being wealthy, but a man's mating prospects are closely linked to his job title/rank and income. A man also has more to lose if he really falls through the cracks - less charity available to him, more face lost in accepting such charity. Likewise, men and women both are better off to be good looking. But would any of us disagree that a woman will pay a bigger social price by gaining a bit of weight or not looking her best? If it doesn't surprise us that the average woman spends more time on her appearance, why should it surprise us if the average man is often willing to prioritize his income more highly than most women? A man will pay less of a reputational price for gaining 20 pounds, and a woman will pay less of reputational price for giving up 15% of her income in order to pursue a career in a field she is more interested in, or to be with her family. Likewise, do any of us really think that as many men as women are willing to make serious career sacrifices for childrearing purposes? Let's create equality of opportunity. Lets open more people's minds to the prospects of males and females going against tradition in how they allocate earning and family duties - IF it's what particular couples want to do. Lets permit equality and allow people to do things traditional of the other gender's role if it works for them. But lets not pretend that males and females, as classes, do not have different tendencies. And as for some fields deemed "women's work" being devalued and underpaid, and the opposite happening to male dominated fields. Men's fields become male dominated because men are drawn to high earning professions and are willing to relocate, travel, take physical risk, work long hours, and work in uncomfortable situations to get that money. If someone were to offer comparable wages for cushy jobs with comfortable hours, who wouldn't want that job? Men and women would be pummeling the company with resumes. And then the employer would reduce the pay because they would know they could get an employee for less. But if the job was not cushy, did no have great hours, required relocation, and had other factors that reduced the number of ppl willing to do the job, they'd have to increase the pay. And men are more likely to take he bait of more money at the cost of such sacrifices.

From the US Bureau of Labor Statistics: In 2014, employed people worked an average of 7.8 hours on the days they worked. More hours were worked, on average, on weekdays than on weekend days-8.1 hours compared with 5.7 hours. On the days they worked, employed men worked 52 minutes more than employed women. This difference partly reflects women's greater likelihood of working part time. However, even among full-time workers (those usually working 35 hours or more per week), men worked longer than women-8.4 hours compared with 7.8 hours.

You are missing one important thing. Divorced women with kids that get child support and live with another man . They are every managers/bosses nightmare. They have 3 sources of income. So they miss a lot of work and that work/job is far less important to them than somebody with only one source of income. This phenomenon is never talked about nor researched. Also child support is not counted as income .

I was really looking forward to this piece but to be honest I'm pretty disappointed by it. David used "university degrees" synonymously with "job qualifications" which is obviously an erroneous point to try and make. He also made no mention of the higher paying STEM jobs and the enormous difference between male and female graduates in those fields. I think those are two key things that were overlooked in this video.

Why does it always seem like normal people know more about this shit than the politicians do?

Amazing, many people posting about all the things that adjust the pay gap towards men, until the pay gap vanishes. Not a single thing goes the other way. "We need to adjust because women choose lesser paying jobs" "We need to adjust because men are forced lesser paying jobs" Both adjust happen in the same direction, because people have been tricked by the words "forced and choose", but told they are doing math. Myth upon myth upon myth demonstrated in this thread. "Businesses would just choose the cheaper". Yes yes.... that's why key interview skills include eye contact, a firm handshake, and a well made suit. Because we're absolute meritocracies that have no biases. Every study shows massive hiring discrepancies for women and minorities with identical qualifications. The name at the top of the paper massively skews callbacks on CVs. Then there are the performance issues. Whilst the libertarian brigade are out in force today saying "There is no pay gap", there is the other part of the brigade out today too saying "They did it to themselves", and the other other part saying "They must be objectively worse". Pay attention to that. Some of your fellows are out in force saying they can't carry as much, so must be worse programmers. Some of those people are going to be hiring programmers. Remember the meritocracy line from earlier? You can watch it not be true in your own community. That's just the stuff I shouldn't have to explain before we even get to the parts that do. Generally speaking you can name many factors in any complex system. It's very easy to pick your favourite 10 and have them point away from the simplified rule. If you're not looking at all the factors though, you're not doing any work that is intellectually worthwhile. You're just fooling yourself to not have to adjust your ideology.

Thunderfoot destroyed these arguments two years ago.

Anyone who works knows 77 cents is bullshit. My female colleagues throughout my life have made as much as I have - or more. The gap exists in a tiny amount, and mostly in the older generation still feeling effects of true sexism. However, now it is all but nonexistent. Women, however, tend to take more time off due to pregnancy/maternity leave or choosing to work less hours to take care of children. My wife and I are a perfect example. We work in similar fields, and she actually makes more than me per hour, YET, since the birth of our child she took a lot of time off with our baby and subsequently has worked part time for several years since. So, looking at our gross incomes, it would appear she is being paid less than me for the same work. But she's not working full time like me, she and I chose that she work part time to help raise our child. She earns more than me per hour but takes home less annually. It's not a pay gap in our case, and the case with the vast majority of people.

a good job David on covering the span of the data and drawing your conclusion from it, rather than having some narrative first and trying to make things fit around it

Here's the thing, when people say there isn't a pay gap (as you've shown it's down to less than 10% and the remainder is due to child care that forces you to focus less on work. You can argue over whether or not it's fair and what can be done about it, but that's just the market correcting itself) they usually follow it up with "there's a earnings gap". But that gap is not an issue, it's just the free market working as intended.

You see, this is EXACTLY what CH Sommers is talking about when she says that false statistics are not going to help women. When people spout off about the 23 cent pay-gap, you can almost see the internet itself splitting in two as two separate groups of people turn their backs to each other and stop listening to anything the other side has to say. However, when you acnowledge all of the mitigating factors and drive in that a 23 cent pay-gap does not exist and begin narrowing in on the real number (about 7 to 10 cents,) then you actually start to engage the other side of the table and get some real discussion started.

One thing that I think is important is women appear to have less of an inclination to jump into high paying fields like Computer Science. Sure they get more degree's but the most popular degrees these days aren't high paying or high demand. I teach programming and I tell you at the high school level getting girls into a coding is extremely difficult. They just take no interest in it. At the middle school level and under it's not a problem at all. Some have taken drastic methods such as changing the names of Computer Science classes into something more appealing towards women. The demand for female programmers is pretty damn high.

Since this phenomenon of paying women less for equal work exists so prominently in society, why not you list some examples of specific businesses that pay women less? This shouldn’t be difficult, right?

speculation as to why a gender pay gap exists is not evidence for discrimination. show me evidence that there is wide spread discrimination against women's pay, not just "oh it could be because of their gender, therefore it is".

Although I appreciate that this video was less bombastic than most regarding this topic, it continues to perpetuate the myth that the primary cause of the earnings discrepancy between males and females is systemic sexism, This is in spite of the fact that no credible evidence has been presented to substantiate those assertions. It is somewhat telling that your opening montage included only two academics, both of whom are opponents of the myth. Skeptics have exposed the flaws in methodology and analysis of every major Feminist study purporting to find a link between women's earnings and sexism. Although you noted in the video the "gap" decreases each time a new factor is discovered and adjusted for, gender ideologue (including those arguing for additional regulations in the montage) simply ignore the new results and continue pressing the 3rd wave (Neo) Feminist agenda. What I find truly puzzling is why this information is being treated as breaking news. When the US Department of Labor released its 2009 study, it determined that the "gap" was between 4.8 and 7 percent, and a more recent 2014 study released by the American Association of University Women (AAUW) - certainly no friend to feminist critics - it concluded nearly the same findings. In addition, it suggested a possible explanation for the remaining deviation; men tend to negotiate their salaries, rather than accept a first offer. As we can see, the issue is extremely complex, and the more data we collect, the charges of sexism become less credible. Why then is the public continuously bombarded with the 77% figure? Could it be that they are not honestly interested in equality of opportunity, but rather their goal is for guaranteed outcome? Theirs is a classic "God of the Gaps" argument (pun intended). The NeoFeminists spy a possible gender issue that cannot be explained on a bumper sticker, then immediately assume it must be that boogeyman collectively known as the "Patriarchy". Careful thought and reliable, repeatable scientific experimentation shows this simply not to be the case.

@4:50, Care to list what the "controls and restraints" are? ... because I don't see any documentation, and most of the time when I see this sort of "the gender pay gap is still 90 - 95 with 'corrected factor' data" claim, the claim almost never includes anywhere close to the 37 factors that Warren Farrell lists in "Why Men Earn More" (one of the best sources from the 'wage gap is a myth' side). Instead, its usually acknowledging 2 or 3 factors and calling it a day. In other words, to make a valid claim, PLEASE ACKNOWLEDGE WHAT'S IN YOUR CLAIM. How are you coming to that number? And if you left out some of the 37 factors claimed by the "there is no wage gap crown" why did you leave them out? Don't just gloss over this. If this channel is about anti-regressivism and having discussions based on facts, then do like school and SHOW YOUR WORK. Otherwise, frankly, you don't have a legit leg to stand on. Come on Pakman. I know you can do better than this. Please upload your work or make another video about it.

Here's another problem. I work a six figure salary job in healthcare. Most of my colleagues are women. I tend to invest my money in real estate and the stock market and drive an old, beat up car. My colleagues tend to spend all their money on clothes, fancy Euro vacations, high priced luxury apartment rental, BMW's, &c. They bleed money. Every time I ask one of my colleagues out on a date, they reject me, because they want a man that makes more than them. A lot of them do find higher earning men, get pregnant, drop out of the workforce, and continue to live their luxury lifestyle on their man's dime. If they think there is even a 10% chance they can win the lottery like this they won't settle for their equal. They're hardwired through evolution to seek men that have more assets than them; they are sexually turned on by those men by design.

Great video. I can't believe I hadn't looked into this topic before now but I'm glad I started here.

I don't entirely agree but it is nice to see someone discussing this with reason and looking for evidence. The Young Turks'd probably spend 40 minutes screaming "MISOGUYNHNY"

David, I'm sure you're aware the argument of "women earn more degrees and have higher GPA's, therefore women should earn the same (or better) money" is just as simplistic as the 77 cents argument. You need to go more in-depth. The type of degree matters. Computer Science and Engineering specialties are going to net you a much higher salary than a Social Work or a Communications degree. Men naturally gravitate towards more technical areas while women are generally drawn to the liberal arts and humanities. If you look at the sex ratio of different engineering degrees at PayScale.com you would see it ranging anywhere from 80% male to 95% male, this even despite all the efforts made into trying to get women interested in STEM. Then compare and contrast with say, social work and the arts where the career options are neither great nor well paid the populous of these classes is overwhelmingly female. Just because women on average graduate with more degrees doesn't mean they are graduating with the right degrees. The GPA argument is also highly misleading. Taking all the grades of all female students and dividing them to all the grades of all male students is not going to provide you with any in-depth understanding of either how capable or how hard working the students are. Deriving conclusions from such a statistic would be an example of some very poor sociological & economics research. Again, you need to look into the types of classes female students are taking vs male students. How academically rigorous the curriculum is. One would assume if such factors are being corrected for the GPA gender gap would most likely disappear.

A lot of talk about unconscious bias, which is at least a step up from the unwarranted accusations of systemic racism and sexism. However let's keep it real: Bias applies outside of race and gender. In fact, there are biases far worse than those. I'll list a few qualities below that are as likely or more likely to cause bias than race or gender: - Lack of height (for men) - Baldness - Physical deformities (ex. cleft chin) - Uglyness - Perceived lack of wealth - Social conditions (ex. Asbergers) - High-pitched voices (for men) - Obesity Someone who can be described by any of these qualities would be on average more discriminated against than someone like Larry Elder or Emma Watson. Yes, there is bias based on race and gender. It is not near the top of the list though. Does anyone disagree that a short, balding, ugly, white male with a high-pitched voice will have significantly more bias against him than the average female or average black guy? Why then do we not focus on how much more these factors play a role? My guess is identity politics. It doesn't fuel the victim narrative in the same way.

I cannot believe how many politicians still use this stupid wage gap crap. This debunking of it needs to go mainstream.

I'm gonna reserve my judgement on the things said here until I can research them more myself. But I just wanted to say thanks for actually even doing a piece on this! Kudos.

In my opinion due to my calculations and statistics there is a 4-6% gap due to sexism.

I'm a male and I work 55-60 hours per week. I'm supervisor where I work. My Wife only works about 35 hours per week at her full time job. She chooses to work less, bc she chooses to to take a lot of time off.

Two words: Free Will. The women choose to want jobs that are flexible. Honestly. If their jobs were so important to them that it trumped their wanting to spend time with their kids, then they could send them to child care, or get them a helper, like my mother does. The fact that they want to be with their kids more while the dads are the ones who tend to be the career focused ones is nothing to slight them for, but it doesn't mean that the world and the law needs to bend to the delicate sensibilities of feminists who will scream "MUH OPPRESSION!" at everything they don't like.

i would take issue with your use of the words "fair" and "unfair"

The first thing you have to address when arguing the Gender 'Pay' gap is defining the difference between, pay and earn. There's also a difference between qualified and experienced. The other thing is you are paid to work and be productive, if you are not productive you should not get paid.

Great piece, David. The nuanced approach you took to this issue is really a refreshing change from the simplistic arguments made whenever this issue is debated.

People are forgetting that pay discrimination due to someone's race or gender is illegal. Women also have the option to sue the business their working at if they are being discriminated against.

The way you summed it up at the end, just made me think two of the best ways to help this is: a) people need to stop having so many kids, and b) if you do have kids, you should stop getting divorced. Seems like that would help things, but of course, people want to keep procreating and leaving their partners. If women don't have kids, they can work on their career. And if they do have kids and stick with their husband, they wont be the primary bread winner.

David, it was truly painful to watch this video. You did 'not' take the differences between the types of work far enough. For instance, take engineers. This is one area where feminists will point out that even in the field of engineering women are paid, on average, less than men. However, when you look closer still it turns out that men tend to go into different fields of engineering - like chemical - that pay more. It is a bit like an onion, the more you it peel away, the more the pay gap disappears. The 'experts' - and many who have looked into this over the years - say that when one does 'proper' research, the pay gap is reduce to within the statistical margin of error! Also, instead of using economic statistics , this point can also be made using history. For instance, in the 1950's the women's movement protested the then pay gap of 4/5 of what a man made. Notice how the woman's movement back then used the fraction 4/5 instead of what they use today - which is a percentage of somewhere around 80%. This switch - from a fraction to a percentage - hides the fact that the pay gap has 'not' change much in 60 years. This is true even though laws have been passed and women have moved more, and more, into the work place. So, how could this be? It is because the pay gap wasn't due to 'discrimination' back in the 1950's when they protested the 4/5 pay gap - (however, it is true if you go back to WW2 or earlier.) This point is made 'clear' by the fact that the pay gap has 'not' changed much since the 1950's even though our 'laws' and 'culture' have changed considerably. What blinds people to this reality is bigoted feminist ideology and dishonest advocates providing misleading statistics for years. David, you are clearly trying to be objective here, which is great, but you are still plainly influenced by feminist ideology - you no doubt have taken too many Gender Studies classes. As a result, you seem to accept rather easily, and without evidence, the assumption that employers and society are innately sexist. You never even seem to notice that you NEVER provided a single bit of evidence to support this underlying bigoted assumption in your video. Instead, all you did was dig a little deeper, and then you said: Ah, well there is still a 10% gap which must therefore be discrimination. No, you just did 'not' dig deep enough and then you gave into your 'bigoted' feminist bias. What statistical evidence did you provide that supports your 10% assertion? NONE! And, if you had, I would have destroyed it here! But, of course, you didn't. I suggest you listen to someone - I know, you know already - Dr. Christa Hoff Sommers who dissects this faulty feminist advocacy research. By the way, these feminist advocates are 'Post-Modern' frauds who have already been exposed as charlatans - i.e, the "Sokal Affair." I also 'strongly' suggest you look into "Post-Modernism" and the current academic stalemate often called the "Science Wars." As it is highly relevant to this topic. I also suggest that you read Dr. Stephen HIcks book "Explaining Post-Modernism" - particularly the last two chapters. I hope you stay verdant in regards to this issue, because you're WRONG! Take care,

And guess what? Men bargain for their salary, they don't take maternity leave, and they do tougher jobs such as construction and welding which don't require degrees but still pay very well, not to mention that the kind of degrees are not specified, women earn more social studies degrees where as men focus on more science degrees. Please post this study that says that women are paid less, if they are, you can go report it. IT'S AGAINST THE LAW! There is no debate, there is a bunch of people screaming as loud as they can in order to get special treatment.

Very nuanced video. Would very much appreciate a complete list of links to the studies mentioned in this video. Thanks.

David, you are doing it again.... You are trying to be so fair, that you end up being biased. Once all the factors are taken into consideration the pay gap is nowhere near 11 cents! It's like having a climate change denier debate a legit climate scientist, and calling the debate fair. It's not fair, because it gives the illusion that each position has merits.

If women make less and companies want money, the why aren't only women working.

Thank you David for a well thought out and nuance video, I disagree with a lot of the solutions and speculations you make on this channel but I usually agree with your assessments of reality.

Link to all your sources by time of reference please.

How was experience and on job performance taken into account when determining the gender pay gap? Also, when asking "is it fair to women that they have to spend more time with their children than working due to societal/biological pressures?" you could easily flip the scenario and say "is it fair that men have to spend more time working than with their children due to societal/biological pressures?" and say the system is biased against men. I believe that women and men should be given equal opportunities to pursue careers and families and I also believe that women are naturally more likely to focused on family than men and vice versa for men and careers.

There is a small gap, but it's due to the choices women make. Not due to discrimination.

A man or a women's pay is not for himself or herself, but for his or her family. In our society, much higher percentage of men are primary household breadwinners than women, so men are under much higher pressure to negotiate higher pay (for his family) than women. If not, he may not even stand any chance to start a family. That's the reality we are in. Women often take jobs not for the pay, but rather for the benefits such as health insurance or flexibility, since most of them are not primary household breadwinners. So a gender pay difference is a natural consequence of the family structure in our society, plain and simple.

This video is basically calling biology sexist.

I can pretty much tell what direction this video is going to take based on the like/dislike ratio.

I think we should talk about the Gender Work Gap where men are forced by societal pressures to devote more of their lives to work, often harder and more dangerous work. This obviously leads to the Gender Life-Span Gap where men die younger than women.

The USA doesn't provide paid maturity leave because it isn't the government's job to do so..that belongs to the private sector.

Well done, David! I am very impressed with this report.

It's interesting how the clips touting/perpetuating the wage gap were politicians and mainstream media...

They may be earning less useful college degrees, though.

So women make the majority of collage graduates? So what? Men make up the majority of graduates in highpaying fields (engineering for example).

"The raw wage gap data shows that a woman would earn roughly 73.7% to 77% of what a man would earn over their lifetime. However, when controllable variables are accounted for, such as job position, total hours worked, number of children, and the frequency at which unpaid leave is taken, in addition to other factors, a U.S. Department of Labor study, conducted by the CONSAD Research Group, found in 2008 that the gap can be brought down from 23% to between 4.8% and 7.1%."

Yes, women are earning more college degrees, but the real question that this video didn't touch on is what degrees are they actually earning? Not all degrees are created equal. If we look at the table at 5:53 we can see a difference in degrees that men and women typically earn. For example, Arts and Humanities was 53.6% female, whereas Engineering was only 22.2% female. That is just one example. Most of the degrees that lead to high paying careers (due to supply and demand) were earned by men. There are also MANY other reasons for the so-called "pay gap" (I prefer the term "earnings gap" myself. Women aren't PAID less; they EARN less) that this video didn't touch on. I suggest people read "Why Men Earn More" by Warren Farrell (former National Organization for Women board of directors member) where he outlines 25 different life choices people make, which have an effect on their earnings. Because men and women typically value different things, they inevitably make different life choices. Here's a summary of his book: www.warrenfarrell.net/Summary/ There are income gaps everywhere. Why is this an issue? This isn't some problem that needs to be fixed. Not all jobs pay the same nor should they, and people who work longer hours SHOULD be paid more. It's only fair. My friend is a doctor and she gets paid A LOT more than I do as an early childcare teacher. And so what? She absolutely SHOULD get paid more than me. We BOTH made CHOICES that led to me EARNING less than her. Personal choice is not oppression.

It was one big sausage party in all the computer science classes I took that led to my high paying career. Not one of the men in those classes was a chauvinist. They were more or less all keyboard white knights, and undateable losers. I knew my degree would lead to high pay. There weren't that many women in the business classes either. You know, the ones where they teach you to be the Boss, the Leader, the highest paid person in the business.

The pay gap is not simply BECAUSE of gender. You must consider fields, positions, efficiency in that position, tenure,…

Very well researched and presented.

Wow, David Parkman, a special kind of special kid

a lot of the commenters didn't watch this video. the pay gap does exist and when certain factors are introduced, its not 77 cents but around 90 cents.

You brought this up, but one of the interesting things to note is that in College if you look at the wages degrees are worth, the lowest paying degrees tend to be dominated by women while the highest paying degrees are male dominated.

Very interesting video. I have seen statistics that suggest your final conclusion is off buy as much as 5-7% though. I would be very interested in investigating your primary sources. Is it possible for you to leave them somewhere on your website or in your comments?