Commentary
We’ve been reading about the gender pay gap for many decades. Now it has become wider for two years straight, the first such reported plunge since the 1960s. This has fired up yet another movement to do something about it: crack down on discrimination, mandate equality in pay, and formalize the rules on who gets a raise and who does not.
In an effort to avoid charges of discrimination, most large companies have instituted regimented systems over pay, mirroring systems in government and the military. The idea is that you must have objective markers that have nothing to do with gender, race, religion, and so on. It comes down to credentials, productivity measures, and seniority.
Such a system makes it very difficult to reward top performers if obvious merit cannot be documented by some idiotic mathematical formula. I once argued with a long-time HR gendarme who could not understand why anyone would resist such a formula.
“How else are salaries to be determined?”
My answer: “Supply and demand.”
I don’t get why this is so complicated.
As for the reason for the widening pay gap, is it not obvious? Brutal pandemic policies mandated business closures. Those who could work from home in “essential businesses” did so. If the job required physical presence, such as a child-care provider, the job was simply deleted. The worker—the woman—had to live off government largesse.
For a time, work-from-home felt like the ultimate emancipation. Same pay, no commute. It’s a dream, except that companies with big offices are not going to put up with that forever. The return-to-work policies changed everything and forced some serious decision-making, particularly among families with two incomes and children of school age.
The schools had been closed for up to 18 months and then two years. That put many working moms in the position of becoming tutors and essentially adopting homeschooling methods. That gave them a clear look into what was really going on at the schools. They did not like it.
As life normalized, these moms also found that childcare services had dried up. Many had gone out of business. Because government so heavily regulates this sector—caretaker-per-child rules, safety restrictions, licensing mandates, and playground equipment rules—they are not easy to start back up.
