MP Mary McLeod entirely misunderstands the gender pay gap shocker!
MARY Macleod MP has just shown that she’s got absolutely no clue at all about the gender pay gap:
“The gender pay gap should not exist. But it does, as we were reminded today by the Chartered Management Institute report on corporate pay. It is simply unacceptable for a man to get paid more than a woman for doing the same job.”
It’s not just unacceptable it’s also illegal. And it also doesn’t happen.
Now there is indeed a gender pay gap. But it isn’t because the capitalist bosses are directly discriminating against women. It’s because men and women make different decisions about life. The average woman is indeed paid less than the average man but this is because the average women takes a break in her working life to have and rear children. Perhaps it shouldn’t be this way but that is the way that it is. Taking two or five of whatever years out of a 30 year working life is indeed going to make a difference to the pay earned. In fact, there is no gender pay gap for people in their 20s. There is also not one between unmarried no children women and men. But there is between all women and all men: the point being that we don’t so much have a gender pay gap as a motherhood pay gap.
As I say, perhaps it shouldn’t be this way. Maybe we’d like to do something about it. But in order to do so we’ve got to correctly identify why there is the gap. And it just ain’t about men and women being paid different amounts for the same job, whatever some dimbulb Tory MP thinks about it.
Posted: 4th, September 2013 | In: Money, Politicians Comment | TrackBack | Permalink
