I did not overlook it. It is just that as a white male from an upper middle class family in a rich European country I am “well-off” according to all definitions of the word that I am aware of. I just pointed you to one example where people of my gender and nationality still need to fight for their equality (skin color and economic class aren’t really relevant in this particular case).
I will happily expend energy fighting for women’s equality in other areas, but I don’t like being told that I am universally privileged in my maleness, or that a gender-specific compulsion to military service is not discrimination against men, that I should not oppose it, or that I deserve that particular injustice because I am part of the otherwise privileged sex. (And I’ve heard all of those before, so please excuse my outburst if you didn’t want to imply any of that).
The generalization that as a male, I “never have to fight for equality” and that I’m “more equal from birth” is just painfully wrong.
The EU Commission uses the term “unadjusted gender pay gap” for the difference between average hourly wages between all men who work and all women who work. I assume that the government of Iceland uses something similar, because they most likely want to compare their statistics to the other Nordic countries (some of which are EU members).
I found a publication by the EU Commission here, but it is rather wordy and not very heavy on the statistical details.
If feel like digging through some references, the document states that the methodology is based on the methodology of Eurostat’s “Structure of Earnings Survey”, so you might find more detailed info there. BTW, there’s a German word for that: “Verdienststrukturerhebung”.
On the whole, the question is “why do women tend to end up in jobs that pay less”, not “why do women get less money for the same work”. The latter sometimes happens, too, but it happens a lot less than the former, it does not happen at all in some places (large corporations and public service with standardized wages), and it is measured by different statistics.
Unfortunately, this means that the reasons for the (unadjusted) gender pay gap are much harder to track down and it is a lot harder to know what can and should be done about it.
Is it wrong that nurses are paid less than managers, and if so, does it have anything to do with gender discrimination?
Is it wrong that engineers are paid less than managers (or are expected to become part-time managers if they want to get more pay)?
Is it the same work when two people have the same academic qualifications, but one person managed to convince the manager that they are better at their job and deserve more money?
If women are more likely to become kindergarten teachers than men are, is that a natural difference between genders, or is that something we should do something about?
I think those questions bring us deep into the area where well-meaning people of both genders can hold very different opinions.
Complaining that “men make more for the same work” and using the unadjusted number might be a good way to raise awareness, but it’s a lie, and it actually raises awareness for a different problem than the number says. I’m not sure if it actually contributes to solving any of the problems. It might put pressure on managers to make sure that they are paying fair wages, but it might also serve as an excuse (“The gender pay gap here is 14%, so how about you get 10% less than your male colleagues? That’s a win-win, right?”).
