Question

what are some references for this statement?

There is no gender discrimination in the United States, wages differentials are based on sound economic reasons.

Answer 1

The simple reason for the gender pay gap: work done by women is still valued less

Equal pay for equal work. It sounds so reasonable, it’s hard to believe that in 2016, we’re still talking about the gender pay gap. And yet the fact remains that there is no country in the world where women earn the same as men.

One of the arguments used to explain – and sometimes justify – this stubborn gap is the idea of choice. Women simply choose to study less lucrative subjects, enter lower-paying professions and stay towards the bottom rungs of the career ladder. While these choices might give them shorter working hours and greater flexibility, it also negatively affects their earnings.

The latest data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics does indeed show that women are under-represented in some of the highest-paying occupations.

It’s not that women engineers are getting paid less than men doing the same job: it’s that a childcare worker is getting paid less than an engineer, or so the argument goes. If that’s the case, the answer is simple: women should start moving into those careers that do pay well. Instead of becoming a social worker, become a software developer.

But that’s only part of the story. The fact is that even within those lucrative, male-dominated professions, the gender pay gap is still there. “There is a belief, which is just not true, that women are in bad occupations and if we just put them in better occupations, we would solve the gender gap problem,” Claudia Goldin of Harvard University told the New York Times.

As her research has shown, even when men and women do the same work, there’s still a gender pay gap – particularly in higher-paying jobs.