Equal Pay for Equal Work?

We hear a lot of talk about the fact that women on average make less than men.  That brings out calls by Democrats for new legislation.  And it's used to portray Republicans as anti-woman when they oppose the legislation.  To really understand the topic, you have to look past national averages.

Equal Work:  By the very nature of national averages you don't get results that reflect equal work.  Look to most any school and you'll find more female teachers than male teachers.  Look to a construction site and you're likely to see more men than women.  Look to any hospital and you're likely to find more male doctors than female and more female nurses than male.  Look to the NFL and MLB and you find more males than females (especially since they're exclusively male.)
So to get an accurate reflection on pay statistics based on equal work you need to look to a particular profession, say physicians.  But even that doesn't give you "equal work" results.  The last time I worked in a hospital female physicians were more likely to be primary care doctors while specialties like surgery were more likely to be filled by males.  Should a pediatrician and a surgeon be paid the same?

Should there be any allowances made for why someone doing equal work might be paid less?  Let's take the case of basketball players.  We have professional women's and men's basketball leagues.  They both play basketball, a competitive game for a season.  Should the women be paid the same as the men?  If the case for Equal Pay for Equal Work demands it in any case, it would seem to be most applicable in the case of professional basketball.  However other factors create an environment where the pay differential between the two leagues is HUGE!

So how do you measure "equal work" with national level statistics?  You can't.

Equal Pay:  It's currently against the law to pay men and women unequally for the same job.  We no longer have different pay scales for women and men.  So the question really isn't related to that issue, there are already laws that apply.  The real issue is how do you set a value for differing types of jobs since there is a natural tendency for females and males to gravitate towards different work.

I came from a family with six children, five females and one male.  I gravitated towards a degree in accounting, became a CPA and served most of my career in senior management positions.  Four of my sisters became teachers.  Each got a masters degree in education and were good teachers.  How do you value their "work" verses the "work" I did.  Since none of us were paid by the hour, did we work the same number of hours a year?  Should we have gotten equal pay per hour or equal pay per year?  To ensure "Equal Pay for Equal Work" on a national average you have to ignore hours worked in salaried jobs and assign all work, regardless of what is involved, equal pay.  Until that happens there will be an "Equal Pay for Equal Work" issue.

It's just one more way Democrats attempt to maintain an advantage in the women's vote.