The 22 per cent pay gap between British men and women is “morally wrong”. So says the head of the UK’s Equality and Human Rights Commission, Trevor Phillips.
Is it “morally wrong”? Well, it depends. If a woman is getting paid less than a man for doing the same job, then that is certainly morally wrong, unless, of course, she’s bad at asking for a pay rise.
It would also be wrong if women are denied promotion to highly paid jobs simply on account of being women.
But suppose the reason for the pay gap is that many women are content not to climb to the higher rungs of the career ladder because they have other priorities in life, or because they prefer to work part-time? That could explain the pay gap as well.
In fact, this is almost certainly the chief reason for the existence of the pay gap. It’s not the result of discrimination, it’s the result of women’s choices.
Assuming this is true, how would you set about closing the pay gap once and for all? The chief way would be to try and deny women their right to choose to work part-time, or to drop out of the workplace altogether in order to raise their children.
This could be done through social pressure (housewives are ‘parasites’), or through a set of policies that makes it difficult for women to become housewives, eg, rigging the tax system in such a way that it favours double-income couples over single-income couples.
Come to think of it, that is exactly what our own Government has done, and is doing.