Mike Hosking: Why Julie Anne Genter's dream of bridging the gender pay gap just will not work?

COMMENTARY:

Before Julie Anne Genter was absent for maternity leave, she had a last burst of altruism yesterday with the launch of her dream of closing her salary gap [19659003] for a wage revolution.

The state will be flexible by default. We will come back to it.

By the end of the year, the gender gap to start salaries in the same roles will be gone, and there will be a big change in the gender division.

The hope is when this particular trick will be executed, the private company will follow, which will not be the case, but we will come back on it.

What she is trying to do here is the space and the time. It's a lot of theory, not a lot of reality.

She makes the critical mistake that the gender pay gap is based on sexism, while it is not the case

It is based on women who do not

Some of these jobs pay more than the jobs women want, and once you average, it's all about averages, not details. Once you average, women seem to lose.

Flexibility by default. What this means is that if a woman wants to work two days a week and three the next, Julie Anne is totally in agreement, which seems fine until the tasks do not be accomplished because too many people have to fill gaps

The work force is already stretched with a lack of quality people. Mixed and matched jobs are a panic waiting to happen.

And remember that the "money jobs" are those who have responsibilities and workloads and that they are not divided. They are the ones who change the averages of income.

Does Julie Anne really claim that she can be Minister of Women's Affairs on Monday and Wednesday and that Eugenie Sage will do it the other three days? This is not real

The assertion that all starting roles and wages will not have any difference is not difficult to do, given that this would happen mainly now.

Unless a man and a woman are pursuing the same job – but the guy has one more year of experience. Is it paid the same or not? Julie Anne says yes, the real world says no because it does not work and yes you have a woman at work but with less experience. So, who wins there?

All of this is of course motivated by good intentions but, unfortunately, the entire premise is flawed. The pay gap between men and women is not the scandal that they describe in the first place. They are artificially seeking to involve women in the work that they can or do not want. They seek to squeeze square blocks into round holes.

This is an ideological exercise conducted by people who have spent too much time in workshops and in front of whiteboards, not people who run their own businesses employing people.