I currently find an explanation based on incentives to be best in resolving why there is gender segregation in the work place and a strong correlation to pay grades.
The way women selects men is heavily weighted towards how much the man earns. According to dating statistics from dating sites, its the biggest single strongest attribute to predict if a message sent from a man will give positive response. This can also be seen in surveys around the globe, like one which said that 90% of women in china would not consider dating a man who earn less than the median income.
So if this incentive based explanation is true, lets make some test by making some predictions. If its true then we should see that boys during adolescence think in a higher rate than girls about selecting a profession based on earning potential. We should also see a higher number of young non-married men around the age of 20 trying to enter the work force as early as possible in order to improve their own status and impress the opposite sex. Those men should be more eager to get higher wages and attempt more risky ventures in order to compete with other men. The need and risk taking for higher wages would be correlated to how much other peers of the same sex earn in their perceived environment.
Increase pay in women dominated professions would lower the earning difference, but it would not change the incentives. In order to get that we would need to change our culture so that either women stopped prioritizing earning when selecting a mate, in which men would loose that incentive, or men need to prioritizing earning when selecting a mate, in which women would get that incentive applied on them.
It doesn't take much to see adverse selection at work, here. Men who accept lower salaries -- as salary equality more or less requires, during a certain interim period -- will disproportionately find themselves without mates, esteem, &c. Their influence will be correspondingly less. The men who figure out how to maintain higher salaries -- relative to other men, and to women -- will be the ones who most shape the communities they are a part of.
The way women selects men is heavily weighted towards how much the man earns. According to dating statistics from dating sites, its the biggest single strongest attribute to predict if a message sent from a man will give positive response. This can also be seen in surveys around the globe, like one which said that 90% of women in china would not consider dating a man who earn less than the median income.
So if this incentive based explanation is true, lets make some test by making some predictions. If its true then we should see that boys during adolescence think in a higher rate than girls about selecting a profession based on earning potential. We should also see a higher number of young non-married men around the age of 20 trying to enter the work force as early as possible in order to improve their own status and impress the opposite sex. Those men should be more eager to get higher wages and attempt more risky ventures in order to compete with other men. The need and risk taking for higher wages would be correlated to how much other peers of the same sex earn in their perceived environment.
Increase pay in women dominated professions would lower the earning difference, but it would not change the incentives. In order to get that we would need to change our culture so that either women stopped prioritizing earning when selecting a mate, in which men would loose that incentive, or men need to prioritizing earning when selecting a mate, in which women would get that incentive applied on them.