[klipt]

I'm pretty sure the origin of the wage gap is just that relatively, income is a bigger status booster for men than it is for women. Women have other status boosters like being seen as a good parent, and if you look at those dimensions there's a gap in favor of women. People are simply, on average, optimizing for what benefits them most in society, and those things are different for men and women.

This explains observations like, when a field becomes more lucrative, it attracts more men. Or when a field becomes less lucrative, men abandon it and it ends up disproportionately female. So even if there's equal pay for the same job, men will earn more on average by being more likely to pursue the higher earning jobs.

Of course, we could say the fact that society values different things in men and women is sexism. That's true, but I'm not convinced it's sexism exclusively against women: a man who'd rather spend time with his kids is also negatively affected by society pushing him to be a breadwinner instead.

In the end, do wages matter more than general life satisfaction (not sure if either gender does better here), or other measures like life expectancy (which favors women)?

[mbrodersen]

I agree. Also because men has to compete hard to be an attractive mate for woman. Woman have more choices than men and are smart enough to pick men who are more successful in life.