Report comment

Please fill in the form to report an unsuitable comment. Please state which comment is of concern and why. It will be sent to our moderator for review.

Comment

Yes, the thing is that the figures don't and can't show whether the genders are being "treated equally" because these figures don't show what each person is doing to earn his or her money. Inequality of outcome may be caused by inequality of treatment but on the other hand it might be caused by inequality of input on the part of the employees or partners concerned. The data on gender pay (or profit share) gives no way of distinguishing between the two possible causes.

You might as well say that the fact that more women than men are now qualifying as solicitors (and being taken on as trainees) proves that men are being discriminated against when applying for trainee-ships, but of course it shows no such thing, because we don't know whether men are applying for trainee-ships in equal numbers to women, or whether those applying are of the same quality. If we knew that men and women applied for trainee-ships in equal numbers and that the applicants were of equal quality across the genders, then the fact that more women than men are being taken on as trainee solicitors WOULD show that men were being discriminated against.

Your details

Cancel