The UK gender pay gap

The UK government requires some companies to report the gender pay gap within their companies and only half of the companies submit their reports before the deadline. The reports generally show the females receive lower incomes than the males on average. However, I do not think the reports can fairly represent the issue of gender pay gap because of its design. The main issue in this report is too many variables are omitted in the reports.

The report represents the gender pay gaps overall and in several quantiles. However, we do not have any idea about what exactly causes the pay gaps. The differences in salaries could be caused by many factors, not only their genders. Without gender discrimination, we have to admit females and males are different. In addition, females and males do choose different career pathways. Some people may argue the different career pathways are caused by the gender discrimination that exists in our society; however, we cannot truly blame the companies that force the females to choose such career pathways unless if the companies forces females to fit in the positions that they do not want. In addition, de jure discrimination is much easier to be corrected, but de facto discrimination is extremely difficult to be corrected. The UK government wants to use the report to observe; however, if the government identifies it is a de facto discrimination, it should observe the early stage of people's live, such as education and entry jobs. Because after people overcome their early stages of career, their future incomes are far more predictable. Therefore, it is more important to observe the early pathways people choose rather than observe the entire labour population as a whole.