How California’s Fair Pay Act Will Help Women

Looking at data on wages from 1998, they found that women’s chosen occupations and industries, versus men’s, accounted for forty-nine per cent of the gap; the jobs and sectors made up disproportionately of women simply tend to pay less than those occupied mostly by men. There were other factors, too. Women’s relative inexperience accounted for eleven per cent of the gap, for example, and men’s higher representation by unions explained four per cent. There was, however, a significant portion of the gap that was unexplained—forty-one per cent.

.. Is it discrimination? Or other factors, like the fact that women tend to work fewer hours than men—Blau and Kahn’s research looked at total salaries for full-time workers, rather than at hourly wages—and that they are likelier to take time off from work while raising children?

.. In several of the industries with large wage gaps that she has studied, the difference in pay rates is explained largely by a single factor: These industries—the legal and finance professions, for instance—tend to more richly compensate people who are willing to work long, inflexible hours. And those people are likelier to be men than women.

.. In some professions, the difference accounts for such a significant portion of the wage gap that, Goldin told me, getting rid of the premium pay for the most dogged—and often male—employees could eliminate the gender gap altogether.