The pay gap stuff is bullshit with no real analysis.
I worked at a union shop where everyone was paid on a tenure based scale, and you qualified for advances as long as you had 500 hours of paid (working or not) time in a calendar year. There was literally no way to have a pay gap.
But… a group of women complained, and the company agreed to open a few female only promotions to buy them off.
The data supporting the position is pretty low quality, usually the figure cited is average median salary.
Medians without context are dangerous. If you’re trying to assert discrimination, something like adjusted hourly wage makes more sense.
Another stat will be total compensation male v. female; this is the statistic used to make this point in union shops with pay scales. Then the argument shifts to assert bad promotion practices.
I worked at a union shop where everyone was paid on a tenure based scale, and you qualified for advances as long as you had 500 hours of paid (working or not) time in a calendar year. There was literally no way to have a pay gap.
But… a group of women complained, and the company agreed to open a few female only promotions to buy them off.