California is set to enact a new law that will purportedly close the wage gap between men and women, which is allegedly due to discrimination (it’s not).
But unless this bill, the California Fair Pay Act, controls the choices women make in their lives (an absurd idea), then the bill won’t actually close the gap. It might, however, keep businesses from hiring new employees — especially women — due to increased red tape.
First, a review of some facts. The gender wage gap — reported as somewhere between 77 cents and 79 cents earned by women to every dollar that men earn — is not due to discrimination. It is due to the choices men and women make about their work habits. Women tend to work fewer hours than men and take more time off of work to have and raise children. Women also tend to take on lower-paying careers. These factors are often excluded even when comparing men and women doing the same work.
The White House knows this, despite the Obama administration and other Democrats continually trotting out the 77-cent figure in order to score political points and perpetuate the idea of a “war on women.”
Sarah Ketterer, co-founder and CEO of the investment managing company Causeway Capital Management, breaks down the facts in the Wall Street Journal.
None of these factors will be altered with the California bill. The bill does not force college women to major in fields that will earn them more money. The bill does not force women to work the same number of hours as their male counterparts. The bill does not force women to work through childbirth or not have children at all.
The bill does, however, force employers to document and prove that “every penny of wage differential between the men and women they employ is attributable to bonafide differences in education, training, experience, quantity or quality of work, and so on,” according to Ketterer’s analysis.
Ketterer also points out that factors like “quality of work” will be subjective, leading eager trial lawyers to “swoop in to turn every conceivable pay difference into a lawsuit.” The burden of proof will be shifted away from those making accusations of pay discrimination and onto the employers, who will be required to prove such discrimination is due to objective and subjective reasons.
The time and money spent on these cases and keeping such records could be spent hiring new employees, which, ironically would end up hurting women as well.
No doubt there will be many lawsuits brought forward after this law passes. The running narrative will be that many women face wage discrimination. The details revealed in the lawsuits will be important, but overlooked, and the media will attempt to spin any negative information about a woman’s performance as misogyny.
This is what the California bill will likely create. It will not close the wage gap, since it is due to choice not discrimination.
