Of course. How many times must this be investigated before people accept that discrimination plays a minute role in the pay gap. It could more accurately be described as a gender earnings gap.

**TL;DR Putting down the gender pay gap to personal choice ignores the structural inequalities that cause women to earn less** When it comes to the gender pay gap, there are two ways of measuring it: the non-adjusted versus adjusted pay gap. The latter accounts for differences in hours worked, occupations chosen, education and job experience. This means that the adjusted pay gap is much smaller, and also a more accurate representation of wage disparity between men and women. However, to put down the pay disparity that _does_ exist to personal choice rejects the fact that gender discrimination forces women to make certain choices. Some reasons why women are paid less include: • [Women are expected to bear the brunt of household tasks](https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2019/05/breadwinning-wives-gender-inequality/589237/), (even when they _are_ the breadwinners of their households) leaving them less time to seek out demanding and thus higher paid careers • The Motherhood Penalty: managers have been seen to [avoid hiring younger women to avoid the prospect of maternity leave](https://www.theguardian.com/money/2014/aug/12/managers-avoid-hiring-younger-women-maternity-leave), whereas men with or wanting children may even be given raises or promotions due to the expectation that they will be the main earner • [When an industry is female-dominated, it often has lower pay](https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/09/what-programmings-past-reveals-about-todays-gender-pay-gap/498797/) than if it were male-dominated • Female-dominated industries are perceived to be [less prestigious](https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/678518?journalCode=jole) • The [like-for-like gap in senior partner roles has been found to be 5% less for women in some companies](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-08-22/gender-pay-gap-alive-and-thriving-in-australia/7775244), despite the only difference in employees being their gender • [The gender discrimination women experience](https://realbusiness.co.uk/gender-pay-gap-still-evident-modern-day-working-world) in the workplace prevents them from progressing professionally, and thus financially The gender pay gap, as it exists now, is not based on choice. The choices that women make, [as this article further explains](https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2016/nov/08/dispelling-the-myths-why-the-gender-pay-gap-does-not-reflect-the-choices-women-make), don't contribute to why they earn less than men, as the factors that go into those choices are beyond their control. Gendered wage disparities are certainly smaller than they ever have been before - but that doesn't mean that the gap doesn't matter anymore.

**Rather than a personal choice, it is a personal choice influenced by societal attitudes and unconscious biases that have caused a pay gap** - According to this [Forbes article](https://www.forbes.com/sites/kimelsesser/2019/04/01/the-gender-pay-gap-and-the-career-choice-myth/?sh=2797fdf0114a), careers where there are a lot of females generally pay less - Furthermore, [this study] (https://gap.hks.harvard.edu/negotiating-gender-roles-gender-differences-assertive-negotiating-are-mediated-women’s-fear-backlash) carried out by Harvard Kennedy School, men report higher frequencies of assertive behaviour than females, suggesting that they exhibit this behaviour more frequently, not that women are incapable of being assertive. The study found that women have the same abilities to be assertive, but are more conscious of the context, indicating that it is a personal choice influences by societal attitudes.