Income gender gap

In the context of economic inequality, the Income gender gap gender pay gap generally refers to the differences in the wages of men and women. There is a debate to what extent this is the result of gender differences, lifestyle choices (e.g., number of hours worked), or because of gender discrimination.

Statistics
A United Nations report found that women working in manufacturing earned the following percentages in relation to men in 2004. The statistics are based on wages for all male and female workers, regardless of age, experience, or other factors. The report states: "International comparisons of wage ratios presented here must be made with great caution. The coverage, definitions and methods of compiling wage statistics differ significantly from country to country. [...] Furthermore, earnings are very much dependent on the number of hours worked, and where female workers generally work a much smaller number of hours than male workers, this factor must be kept in mind when interpreting the wage ratio."

United States
In 2004, women's wages in the USA were 76.5% of men's wages. David R. Hekman and colleagues (2009) found that customers prefer white men over equally-well performing women and minority employees, which may help explain why white men continue to earn more than other types of employees.

Hekman et al. (2009) found that customers who viewed videos featuring a black male, a white female, or a white male actor playing the role of an employee helping a customer were 19% more satisfied with the white male employee's performance and also were more satisfied with the store's cleanliness and appearance. This despite that all three actors performed identically, read the same script, and were in the exact same location with identical camera angles and lighting. Moreover, 45 percent of the customers were women and 41 percent were non-white, indicating that even women and minority customers prefer white men. In a second study, they found that white male doctors were rated as more approachable and competent than equally-well performing women or minority doctors. They interpret their findings to suggest that employers are willing to pay more for white male employees because employers are customer driven and customers are happier with white male employees. They also suggest that what is required to solve the problem of wage inequality isn't necessarily paying women more but changing customer biases. This paper has been featured in many media outlets including The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, and National Public Radio.

Debate
However, some groups, such as the Independent Women's Forum, argue that the wage gap does not exist. For further information, see Male-female income disparity in the USA. Similarly, Thomas Sowell argued in the book, Civil Rights, marriage is the main variable driving the wage gap--that married women make less than other types of workers.

According to the Centre for Economic Performance (CEP) at the London School of Economics, it would take 150 years for the income gap between the two genders to close up due to discrimination and ineffective government policies. However this study did not compare equal jobs or conditions, rather the total earnings only and is generally considered to be an unrealistic comparison.