Pay Gap?

If you're concerned about gender equality, check out this piece from Reason. It's about the pay gap between men and women.

For those who just want the punchline, here it is:

June O'Neill, an economist at Baruch College and former director of the Congressional Budget Office, has uncovered something that debunks the discrimination thesis. Take out the effects of marriage and child-rearing, and the difference between the genders suddenly vanishes. "For men and women who never marry and never have children, there is no earnings gap," she said in an interview.

That's a fact you won't hear from AAUW or the Democratic presidential candidates. The prevailing impulse on Equal Pay Day was to lament how far we are from the goal. The true revelation, though, is how close.

Personally, I think this is good news. I guess that some people would rather still have an excuse to legislate equality, but sometimes the moral zeitgeist just works better.