Discrimination by employers is not the cause of the infamous “gender gap” in wages: the fact that women get paid 77 cents for every dollar men do. That raw wage gap reflects many factors–such as how many hours women and men tend to work, their choices of occupation, and so on–that individual employers do not control. Liberals who have looked at the issue acknowledge this point.
Naturally, the Huffington Post went to actress Kristen Bell for insight on the issue. In her satirical video, she suggests that companies try ”pinksourcing”–cutting labor costs by getting women to do all the work at low pay. But she has come pretty close to illustrating a standard conservative argument against looking at the pay gap this way. Namely, why don’t employers pinksource? If companies can save that much money by firing men and paying women less to do the same work, why don’t they do it? Why don’t female employers do it? Why don’t investors demand it?
The answer is that the 23-cent pay gap doesn’t result from paying women less for the same work, and so the savings aren’t there to make.