For equal work, women are paid 15/20/25% less than men ”. Here is a very popular commonplace: it is recalled by B. Obama (2008), by the UN, by the State …
Regularly, collectives even call on women to leave their workstation around November 8 to protest against pay inequalities: women being paid on average 15% less for equal work, they would work on a voluntary basis 15% of the year.
But what is it really? And what are the variables taken into account in these smart calculations?
When we study the data, we realize that men and women tend to have very different backgrounds, both in terms of education and career choices.
At the same time, the choices do not appear out of nowhere: education influences tastes, abilities, affinities … What if the heart of the sustainability of inequalities were there?
In fact, if the existence of sexism is indisputable, its impact (even if we know it’s widespread) is poorly studied and life choices emerge currently as the main variable in France.
It is a cold reality that it is important to remind a moment when the far right is advancing. It is imperative to rectify the nonsense uttered by certain activists, who endanger the credibility of the whole fight against gender inequalities.