Why Men Earn More on Average than Women—And Always Will¹

Abstract

The subject of this chapter—the relative pay of men and women in the workplace—fits well in this section of the book. Many readers might think that the wage gap between men and women in the workplaces of the world can be attributable totally to political, social, and economic forces that, when corrected, will cause the wage gap to evaporate. We dare to be contrarian, not on the facts of the wage gap, but on its eventual elimination. This is not to say that the wages of women and men will not converge somewhat over coming decades, but only that some gap will remain—mainly for evolutionary reasons that have not be widely considered but that the gender divide in today’s labor markets.