There are very few places where equally qualified women genuinely earn less than men for the same job. When this happens, it is typically an individual situation: the man had the cheek to ask for a raise, the woman didn't, and the management saw no reason to take action.

Studies claiming that women earn less have to cheat to get this result. Tom and Mary are the same age, have the same education, and do the same job. Why does Tom earn more? Maybe because experience counts, but Mary took 4 years off to raise her kids. Or because she now only works 80%, and cannot be on call evenings and weekends. Or because her maternity leave disrupted the projects she was supposed to be responsible for, meaning everyone else had to pick up her slack. Or because...you get the idea.

Lastly, women are over-represented in precisely those fields that allow part-time work and flexible hours, and that allow one to get out of the labor force and back in years later. Needless to say, these tend to be lower skilled jobs, with consequently lower pay.

As long as people make the lifestyle choice that women mostly raise the kids, this will continue. As Amy would probably point out, this seems to be a genetic predisposition, so it is unlikely to change.

In my experience, the women who buck the trend:- who go into male dominated fields, put in the same effort, dedication and - yes - long hours. These women earn at least as much as the men. They are also very unusual, because this just isn't the way most women are wired.

Personal anecdote: I work in a male-dominated field (IT). We just hired a woman; she was pregnant when she interviewed. She really is good, if somewhat less qualified than the other (male) applicants. However, management most likely felt that they had to hire her, to avoid any appearance of discrimination. She is now - just a few months into her job - already gone on maternity leave, and expects to be able to come back part-time afterwards. Should she earn the same as people (mostly men) who don't pull this kind of crap?

It was not a teensy step, it was a big step for lawyers, and the anti- buisness people.
The real thing it did was change the time limit, back to longer than many companies keep payrol records. Wala, most companies then can't prove they didn't discriminate.

Intuition check: From the perspective of an employer concerned with the bottom line, why would you ever hire a man when you could hire a women to do the same job for 20% off?

If women really worked at such a huge discount, men would be unemployable.

Ah but Kevin you would be assuming buisnesses were greedy, Liberas don't they asume they are evil. So evil they would deliberately harm themselves to perform one more evil act, be it poisoning people or discrimination.

a_random_guy:

"Should she earn the same as people (mostly men) who don't pull this kind of crap?"

I know that is a rhetorical question, But, I'll add: Most likely if a guy pulled a similar stunt he would be out of work.

The surveys I've been able to find that control for hours worked and level of experience are showing that at least in the larger cities, women make 110-115% of what men do on a per-hour basis. This should not be surprising, since federal labor law decrees women to be more valuable employees -- no business ever got sued for employing too many women. The same surveys show men and women being at parity in mid-size and smaller towns. I'm not sure why women in these areas aren't getting the reverse-discrimination premium. It may just be a function of the big employment-law firms not bothering with the smaller markets.

The studies I have seen indicate that women in the younger age group (35 and below or so) are the ones that really get more pay than men per hour for the same job. And it also has to do with field (e.g. IT females make a lot or more). That may explain the big city vs not so big city Dave was speaking of.

The problem with the studies one often sees cited is that they just look at pay or pay+benefits and don't factor other things in. I think job has a lot to do with it. In my current job there is a lot of demand for early and late meetings that you can't miss. This morning I was in a meeting at 7am because that is the only time no one who needed to be there was a sleep - there were participates around the world. Many of the women I have known don't (or choice not to) have that ability - they need to get the kids fed and off to school at that time.

[a_random_guy:] Personal anecdote: I work in a male-dominated field (IT).

Personal anecdote, I work in a male dominated field (airline pilot).

Any woman who even barely meets the minimums requirements will get an interview and, absent glaring personality defects, will get hired. (Men with minimum qualifications don't stand a chance of even getting an interview; for more qualified guys, the odds of even an interview are like winning at roulette.)

Despite that, fewer than 6% of women are pilots. Since being an airline pilot is reasonably well remunerated, the consequence must be that, on average, the under-representation of women in the pilot profession means an over-representation of women in other, lower paying, occupations.

This is one example, and I am sure there are many more, of women making choices that create the "wage gap". But that "gap" has nothing to do with invidious discrimination — something to remember when you are trying to decide whether to vote for Obama or Romney.

But wait, there's more. In the airline business, quality of life is all about seniority, and income is all about upgrading at the earliest opportunity. Women pilots overwhelmingly choose seniority in a lower paying position (right seat of a smaller plane) over juniority in a higher paying position (left seat, big plane), and domestic over international flying (international pays more, but requires more time away from home).

In case that isn't already enough, women pilots drop trips more often. And male pilots are the ones picking up those trips.

So in my line of work, over a career, I'll bet, at most, women make less than 80% of what men get.

Despite being paid precisely the same amount of money for the same amount of work.

Any study (like this steaming pile of twaddle from the AAUW) that purports otherwise is a dispositive sign of either profound cognitive deficiencies, or blind adherence to collectivism.

[Joe J:] Ah but Kevin you would be assuming businesses [are] greedy, Liberals don't — they assume [businesses] are evil.

Depends. Legislation prohibiting age discrimination (Title VII?) came from liberals assuming businesses are greedy.

Wage gap nonsense comes from liberals assuming that businesses are evil.

Being a liberal means being able to assume any damn thing you please.

... fewer than 6% of women are pilots ...

how about

... fewer than 6% of pilots are women ...

funny how word order and sentence meaning are related.