Good news, the Gender pay gap is solved. Bad news, it’s not solved.

Sometimes, a picture is worth a thousand words. So just take a moment to absorb the image above, which came from https://research.stlouisfed.org/publications/economic-synopses/2018/09/14/married-men-sit-atop-the-wage-ladder.

This is research from the Federal Reserve of St. Louse which did something not done before… separated wages into married and unmarried. It’s worth noting that unmarried men and women make the same amount (and married women are unlikely to be the dedicated earners in the family: https://www.bls.gov/news.release/famee.nr0.htm ) There is only a 3.5% likliness that a working woman will have a househusband, but a 47% chance a working man will have a housewife. (https://nation.time.com/2013/09/18/study-house-husbands-more-common-than-ever/ and https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2016/husband-and-wife-employed-in-48-percent-of-married-couple-families-in-2015.htm )

To put it simply, the gender wage gap exists because housewifes take care of homes, freeing up the working husband to focus on work.

Interestingly, at an average of 50k for both single men and women, and a 90k average for working men that likely have housewives, that means the typical housewife adds about $40k to the relationship yearly in stress reduction. Or another way to look at is is a good house-parnter nearly doubles the income of the primary provider, depending on how you want to look at it. Make sure to include that when you talk about spouse equality!

Hypothetically, a househusband would do the same, although there aren’t enough numbers to support this (although the stereotype of of strong executive women having househusbands may lend support to this idea.)

So the good news is simply, that there is no gender wage gap enforced by shady anti-women business practices.

The bad news, is that for all our efforts to close the gender pay gap, we’ve been focusing on the wrong thing. Incentives for companies to hire women or put women into higher paying roles doesn’t pan out when companies are focused on optimizing every workhour they have… they’re going to pay someone who is more focused (aka, less distracted by problems at home) to do work, because they want productivity.

So, if you want to end the gender wage gap, the solution is to encourage men to leave the workforce and let their wives be the primary breadwinners. And if you’re a woman who specifically wants to end the gender gap for yourself, get yourself a stay-at-home husband (or a stay-at-home wife, if you prefer, I don’t judge).