[Oliver_W]

So a currently trending topic on Twitter is #EqualPayDay , where people are talking about the "pay gap", and how people believe that due to the differences in earnings between men and women, women are effectively working for free for the for the rest of the year.

What do you think to this? The differences in earnings between men and women are due to different career choices and working hours rather than anything else, so why aren't women being encouraged to work differently, rather than spreading the myth that men and women are paid differently for the same work?

[Vicky.]

I genuinely do not know enough about this pay gap to comment on it properly. All sources seem totally biased one way or the other. I do know that having women in higher management has been very rare for me to see which I assume would have an effect on earning potential however, I think this is likely to do with women tending to be the ones to take time off to look after kids while men (overall, obviously not all) just keep up with work as normal. So obviously if this is happening a lot then men will be promoted more given they are actually there to do their job, not on maternity leave I think if its caused by this, it will even itself out over time as more and it seems looking after kids is not seen as 'womans work' these days, due to modern men rather than dinosaurs.

[bitontheslide]

i think these days if a man and women are doing exactly the same job for the same company and one gets paid more than the other we would soon hear about it, so i don't believe its a widespread issue anymore

That's the easiest metric to measure and the only aspect that is approaching legally enforceable

[Alf]

My opinion is not allowed. But I must accept everybody else's.

[James]

It wasn't very constructive.

[Alf]

Originally Posted by James

It wasn't very constructive.

It was the truth.

[Alf]

Originally Posted by James

It wasn't very constructive.

Would you like me to pm you, every time I post, so that you can decide whether it's constructive or not?

[Oliver_W]

I will say everyone who replied to my tweet on te hashtag is being somewhat reasonable, I've not had any "you're just wrong misogynist REEEE" but just people being wrong or mis-attributing things to other things haha

[Toy Soldier]

I've literally never seen an example of a male and a female with the exact same job having anything but the same pay rate. Not in this country, anyway?

Also, in 2 years time my wife will be earning more than I do, and in 10 years time she is likely to be earning significantly more than I do .

Though to be fair, that's largely because I'm "lucky" enough to be in a job that is flexible and where getting the hours in over evenings / weekends is possible, which is what has made it possible for her to go back to university and me to be home during the day on weekdays for the kids. She stayed home for the first 6 years after our eldest was born and I worked and, if I had been in, say, a 9-5 work pattern then I can't see how it would have been possible for us to orchestrate her new career or for her to do anything at all other than casual work. So I can see how it happens and how it's a problem.

Then again our circumstances are slightly different in that with the youngest's additional needs, "normal" childcare options aren't available to us, when she's not in school she really needs to be with one of us 99% of the time. Though she can now be looked after by other family for a few hours so that we can have a life ... But we don't have family close enough by for it to be anything more than occasional babysitting, and even if we did, it wouldn't really work for her.

But yeah tl;dr I can fully appreciate that my wife would have been "trapped" in no employment / casual min wage employment and totally unable to develop a career if I hadn't been in a job that has abundant available "antisocial hours" that no one minds me hoovering up, because no one is like "HEY how come you get to work until half 10 every Saturday? I wanted that shift!"... ... Stupid job... Stupid work... I'mma quit as soon as I get her out earning I think...