This is where the gender pay gap starts – with teenage workers | Yasemin Besen-Cassino

We have heard about pay inequality from Hollywood to the BBC. My research shows it begins earlier than we suspected

From Hollywood stars demanding equal pay to the BBC cutting male journalists’ salaries, the gender pay gap has featured prominently in the news in recent months. We have all heard the typical explanations for it: “women have babies”, “women do more housework”, “they don’t negotiate”, “they opt out of the workforce”.

Many studies have tried to explain why men are paid more. The first set of explanations explain these pay discrepancies through individual differences. They argue that women’s lower pay is because they have fewer years of education or they are not studying the right topics, or because they have fewer years of training and on-the job experience. This is mostly explained through work interruptions due to parental leave, childcare duties and unequal distributions of housework.

Related: What’s to blame for the gender pay gap? The housework myth | Emma Griffin

The pay gap starts much earlier than previously reported

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from Children | The Guardian http://ift.tt/2HxCrsp