This would explain a difference in average or median pay across all jobs. But it doesn't explain the difference in industries and jobs unrelated to physical labor.
Those things show how prices/wages could be linked across industries through opportunity cost of the laborer. It doesn't suffice to explain how a sex pay gap could emerge. If hiring men were more expensive (because they have greater opportunity costs), then just don't hire them--hire the women, or whomever is willing to accept the wage you're willing pay for the particular labor services desired.
You wouldn't expect a supermarket to pay male cashiers more because the men could become miners.
But they might have to pay more for the people who haul heavy boxes around in the back, which might be male-dominated, leading to a pay gap for 'supermarket worker' if not for 'supermarket cashier'.
>It doesn't suffice to explain how a sex pay gap could emerge. If hiring men were more expensive (because they have greater opportunity costs), then just don't hire them--hire the women, or whomever is willing to accept the wage you're willing pay for the particular labor services desired.
Yes exactly. It would only explain a pay gap at the low end of the pay scale. It wouldn't explain it in the middle or high end.
It's an interesting speculation but the main reasons are child birth (women out of work for longer) and personality differences (agreeableness is known to negatively predict income irrespective of gender) explaining the within-occupation delta and different career interests (more nurses less engineers) explaining the broader delta.
Unfortunately social differences cannot be controled for differences in socialization. People instead reach for essentialism as an explanatory model. Essentialism is a rationalization not an explanation that better falls under the umbrella of reifications than as real and true knowledge.
When I graduated with my degree in electronics, I found the software industry paid much more than the electronics industry, so I entered the software industry.
If the electronics industry wants to hire me, they would have to pay higher salaries. So the salaries in one industry (software) can drive up salaries in another (electronics)
Admittedly, nobody's leaving programming to become a miner - but plenty of jobs pay less than mining, so it could explain a pay gap in some parts of the salary range. Especially in countries like Australia with big resource extraction industries.
Yes, a salary raise in industry A will lead to a salary raise in industry B. Industry B has no option to stop hiring people altogether, so they have to hire at the higher wage level.
But a gender gap in industry A will not lead to an gender gap in industry B. Industry B will just hire the cheaper gender until industry B has no gender gap.
Yes, it improves salaries. But it will improve salaries for both men and women at non-physically demanding jobs.
At non-physically demanding jobs, men and women are competing with each other fairly, so if the salaries demanded by one group go up, the employers will hire the other group until the salaries are equal.
Those things show how prices/wages could be linked across industries through opportunity cost of the laborer. It doesn't suffice to explain how a sex pay gap could emerge. If hiring men were more expensive (because they have greater opportunity costs), then just don't hire them--hire the women, or whomever is willing to accept the wage you're willing pay for the particular labor services desired.