From what I see, women who are valuable, sought-after workers are able to have equal or higher pay than men. The problem is, women often fail to become really sought-after employees until their 40s, because it’s harder for them to focus on the job while raising children earlier in life. For men, it’s more typical to focus on career alone, and therefore they become better specialists earlier.

Legislation protects women against gender and pregnancy-related discrimination. Often, the courts do too good of a job tipping the scale the other way and opening the doors to women abusing their privileges at the expence of their employers and co-workers. But, as long as a woman is able to perform the job duties, she is protected.

The main reason why women get paid less is because the employer takes bigger risks hiring them. Lower salary is simply a way to incorporate the risk. There’s no insurance out there that will cover employer’s expences for hiring, training, re-scheduling new workers in case a female worker becomes pregnant, or her child becomes sick and she has to miss work because of this. Women on average, while doing the same work as men, do it with more disruptions than men do.

I believe that, while it’s perfectly fair to explore other mechanisms to help women raise children, we should stop pushing for equality in salaries. Enough had been done, and more will only hurt overall productivity by creating the wrong incentives.