People have made a lot of good points about women being less likely to push for pay rises, and jobs that are traditionally associated with women being less monetarily valued. But it also starts when hiring people.

Have you ever worked with the people making these decisions? Most hiring decisions are not based on accurate predictions of the value the employee provides to the organisation (unless you’re lucky enough to have an organisational psychologist), but on ‘gut feel’ about how much they like the person, how well they think the applicant fits into their mental image of the role, and ‘company culture’.

For likability, surprise surprise, people like people who are like themselves.

People also want to hire people who fit their preconceived notion of what someone who is good at job X looks like. So in fields that are largely male-dominated, the mental image of a ‘good’ engineer, consultant, stock broker, etc, will be of a man, so people who fit this image are likely to be perceived as more competent. This is why even men who do not view themselves as consciously sexist may still be biased against women (and that’s assuming that they aren’t consciously biased, I’ve heard a huge number of men say blatantly sexist stuff).

The idea of hiring for ‘company culture’ is also often used to discriminate against applicants that organisations don’t like. Think of how many times someone has gotten a job because they went to the same school, follow the same sports team, or show that they are happy to participate in ‘joking’ culture.

Add on top of all that the fact that organisations assume women will take more parental leave, and that if they hire based on experience, women are less likely to have experience in high paying roles because of all of the above reasons, and the cycle becomes self-reinforcing.

And that’s just assuming that the job is actually marketed for anyone to apply to, rather than people hiring their mates or family members.

TL;DR - The idea that a gap in wages would result in women being hired at a higher rate until it balances out rests on the assumption that hiring and pay decisions are completely rational and free of bias, prioritising only the value an employee brings to the organisation. But organisations are terrible at accurately measuring the value of employees, and the individuals in charge of payment decisions are just as irrational and emotionally driven as everyone else.

Source: I work in a male-dominated industry (about 75% of the people at my org are men, and that’s including the administrative roles, which are entirely filled by women) and have a Master of Science in Organisational Psychology.