Women’s Attitudes on the Gender Pay Gap May Surprise You

By Emily Ekins of Cato.

"Today is Equal Pay Day, the day that marks how far into the next year women on average have to work to bring home the same income men earned in the previous year. In light of Equal Pay Day I published an op-ed in the Washington Examiner that looks at women’s opinions about the gender pay gap. What I found might surprise you:

A Pew Research Center survey found that 62 percent of women believe that women “generally” get paid less than men for doing the same work. However, when asked about their own companies, far fewer — just 14 percent total — believe women are getting paid less than men where they work, and 17 percent say women have fewer opportunities for promotions where they work.
These are nearly 50-point shifts in perception from what women believe is generally happening in society at-large, and what they collectively report is happening based on their experiences in their own jobs.
This in no way discounts the negative experiences women have had, and we should not shy from denouncing inequitable treatment. Yet these data also reveal that although most women believe they are being treated fairly, they also believe that most other women aren’t.

These data indicate that women have come to believe the myth that women are getting paid less than men for doing the same work. However, academic studies show that gender discrimination is not largely influencing wages, as I explain in the op-ed:

Although Census data show that women make less money on average than men, this fails to consider any information about how women and men choose to pursue a work/life balance, whether they enter a career that requires 80-hour work weeks or 40-hour work weeks, whether they take time out of the workforce to raise children, how much education they attain, whether they go into careers like investment banking or education, surgery or nursing, etc.
Studies that take these other factors into account find that the gender pay gap narrows to about 95 cents on the dollar. The remaining 5 cent difference might be due to discrimination, or it might be due to differences in salary negotiations, or other reasons. Harvard economist Claudia Goldin writes, “The gender gap in pay would be considerably reduced and might even vanish if firms did not have an incentive to disproportionately reward individuals who worked long hours and who worked particular hours.”"