There is no magic, legislative or otherwise, that can change the value of a person's work. If the best someone can do is make forty-eight pins a day, and pins sell for a penny each, then the absolute maximum that person can earn is four shillings. If they are to be paid more then it has to come out of someone else's pocket. And if the price of pins drops to a halfpenny then the amount that person is worth as a worker will drop proportionately.

People who work as, say, hairdressers, get a relatively low wage because the if a hairdresser puts up their price there are plenty of other hairdressers who will provide the same service more cheaply. People who work as miners get a relatively higher wage because far fewer people are willing and able to do what they do. It's called supply and demand. Miners also work shifts, take risks and commit themselves to long-term employment. Hairdressers usually don't.

I have no problem with people choosing a career path which is relatively easy, flexible and accommodates itself to your out-of-work interests, whether those are having children or building a boat: but it is not realistic to expect a career of this sort to pay as well as one which requires twelve-hour-days, weekend work and heavy responsibility for the welfare of dozens or hundreds of people.

Jon J, got it in one. Any sector with low barriers to entry will be low paid and highly competitive. As soon as it becomes more difficult to enter the field to practise, prices go up. The barrier could be qualifications, capital, compliance with regulation, or even simply knowing the right people.

Gender doesn't affect that reality.

Of course unequal pay for equal work was disgusting. However it reflected the social pressure on men to hand much of this over to women, which was equally unfair, but never gets discussed.

Benk, lol ;)

There is a bit of research that actually shows that this debate about women earning less is a bit of a furphy.

The main reason apart from career path, is the number of actual hours in paid employment.

A typical example is that male General Practioners will out earn females, by the mere fact that they spend more hours working.

It is interesting how Johh Tons has constructed his arguement. By begining with historical examples and then about employment choices made by the genders, thus creates inequality.

Sorry John not interested in being manipulated.

@James H it is far from a furphy. Presumably both males and females are engaged in productive work that is of value to the community. If we avoid attaching a specific label to the work done but simply acknowledge that all work be it house work, gardening, painting the house or in the paid workforce is of value to the community then it does not matter a jot who does that work.
In a society where there is an equal distribution across the genders in unpaid work and paid work one would expect that the overall income patterns between males and females would not vary greatly.
Secondly we also have evidence that when a particular occupational area is feminized it loses ground with respect to income. The main example here is teaching. Once upon a time it was a predominantly male preserve thus if you compare the base rates for teachers and other occupations in 1968 with those prevailing today you will note that there has been a decline in teacher incomes, a decline that reflects the feminization of the profession. Equal pay has been achieved thus males who work in areas that are regarded as the preserve of women will, like their female colleagues, be on lower pay rates, simply because occupational areas that are dominated by women are seen as areas where people can be paid less.
It is by no means a simple problem but we can say that our society continues to place a lesser value on the contribution that women make to our society

Baygon, "What a load of bullocks".

All you are writing is following the typical gender oppression script thats main aim is to be inflammatory.

There other influences other than a profession becoming feminized as to why wages may not have increased as they should have.

Typically state and federal governments will often limit wage increases in order that they can move the money to other areas, such as giving their mates special deals and pork barrelling.

Politicans also have to fund their taxpayer funded superannuation some how.

One only needs to look at the level of neglect that has been experience by public schools and hospitals across australia to recognise that our politicans have not been putting very much of the public money from the public purse into public services.

If it is really true about women earning less, than why aren't employers (apart from the public service) employing more women and putting more men out on the dole?

After all most business is about the bottom line and they don't really care who does the work.