Our thanks to Nigel for this:

Here comes the pay gap again. These two pieces neatly illustrate the chicanery with these figures. One article Men out-earning women: Five things you need to know – BBC News does a reasonable job of explaining that its not about being paid lees than men but about the different jobs, and choices made. Pointing out the really big issue is children when women seek a work/life balance.

Of course no one bothers to mention  the other choices made as the data also shows its the arrival of a child that propels men to seek better pay through promotion or additional hours. Yet next to it is this  Eight out of ten firms pay men more than women – BBC News which merrily uses weasel stats. to suggest women just  paid less with various lines like this  “At Easyjet, despite an improvement from last year, the average woman takes home just 53p for every £1 earned by men”. [J4MB: Hmm, might it possibly be because the vast majority of pilots are men? Should Easyjet pay their pilots much less, or their other employees much more? Maybe both? Of course the pilots would leave the company, but I’m sure Easyjet would operate fine without pilots.]

Of course what they don’t suggest, using their fancy footwork on stats, that because the most profitable sectors are those with the biggest pay gap, maybe its because they are “dominated by men” they are the most profitable! That is the correlation on their graph.

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