[belorn]

Wikipedia do mention the distinction between unadjusted versus adjusted pay gap in the Gender pay gap article, but sadly the article is very sparse on details.

It is the adjusted pay gap that is disputed. No one is really disputing unadjusted pay gap, through some consider that unadjusted pay gap should include everyone including those unemployed. The problem with unadjusted pay gap is that it ignore context.

With context we get a very large variation in the data sets, and large variation in control variables. There is no standard in what variable to use with adjusted pay gap.

Variables commonly cited when comparing full time employed men and women is that men work almost an hour longer per day than women for the same job. Women also use about 50% more sick days, and if I remember right from a study from Norway, about 200% more likely to have children compared to men. Those that have children are then also more likely to stay at home to take care of them, which is a related issue but not the same as pay gap. Overtime is an other factor which correlates with pay raise, as is moving work location and changing employer.

A good sign when I look at such studies is if they can use the same data to predict whom will get a pay raise within the same gender group. The better they can do that the better they can account for those factors when comparing the gender groups to each other. Sadly very few studies does this.

[nkkollaw]

> A good sign when I look at such studies is if they can use the same data to predict whom will get a pay raise within the same gender group.

The ones that do don't see a problem. OP had to link the ones that don't to prove his point.

[dstrohmaier]

The point of linking these studies was that economists study these issues. As I am not an economist myself, I do not want to weigh in on the specific final conclusion the literature arrives at. All I can say, that multiple studies seem to find an unexplained part which is taken to be due to discrimination.

[belorn]

I think a good comparison is to look at global warming studies. They too have a lot of unexplained data which are unaccounted for which could be due to natural phenomenon, but their conclusion is that global warming is man made and those unexplained parts are just unaccounted variables.

A scientific method to address the mix of unexplained data is to use prediction models on the assumption that the theory is correct and see if it works to explain the data. In the case of global warming we know that the prediction model does not work and the measured data is significant outside of what a natural phenomenon would look like. scientists has thus mostly discarded the theory of natural phenomenon and instead looked to combine the multiple studies and find man made explanations for unexplained data.

The same thing was done with gender pay. If we assume gender discrimination is causing the gender pay gap then a more gender equal nation should predictable have a lower gender pay gap. What we get instead is the opposite, the so called gender-equality paradox, where the more gender equal a nation is the higher the gender pay gap becomes. We really should follow the same scientific standard as global warming scientists and discard the theory of discrimination as the cause of gender pay gap, but we don't. Instead we see "half" of people trying to explain the failed predictions with the injection that the more gender equal nations is in reality less gender equal, and the other half arguing that it doesn't matter that the prediction model do not explain the data.

This is where I think most contention lies in the discussions around gender pay gap.

[nkkollaw]

> The point of linking these studies was that economists study these issues

The sentence I said that triggered you was "0 economists are working on this problem", referring obviously to the pay gap caused by discrimination.

You have linked to inaccurate (as per comment above) studies that study whether there is a pay gap or not, and are inconclusive.

Since the pay gap as a problem--therefore not as a hard-to-measure occurrence but as a problem caused by discrimination--has not been proven, there are 0 economist working on this problem.

It's not been proven to be an actual problem that exists, and that's why no economist is working on fixing it.

[dstrohmaier]

I doubt your assessment of the literature. Since we do not seem to agree on this, I would defer to the opinion of specialists in this case. An independent panel of economists would thus have to settle the issue.

But your other argumentation is quite interesting. Do you also hold that 0 physicist ever worked on the theory of phlogiston? Or on ether? Neither of those to exist. Because your argumentation would also imply that. I would reject that suggestion. So even if I were to grant that this problem does not exist, which I do not, I would disagree with the conclusion of your post.

[nkkollaw]

> But your other argumentation is quite interesting. Do you also hold that 0 physicist ever worked on the theory of phlogiston? Or on ether?

The pay gap as caused by discrimination has not been proven to be a problem. That's why there aren't people working on solving it.

I honestly don't know what the things you mentioned are, but I fail to see how physics are related to this topic. However, if you really have to use examples a better one would be that I'm saying that there weren't a lot of scientists working on curing AIDS before AIDS appeared.