comment: >
  
  The question is, why is there a gap in occupational choice?
  For centuries, until about the 1970s, the only careers broadly available to women were nurse, teacher, secretary, and social worker. Women were systematically barred from most prestigious, high-paying fields (business, banking, STEM, etc).
  Now, only a single generation after we’ve achieved “equality,” we still see a very high ratio of women in the occupational fields that they were traditionally forced into for centuries (nursing, teaching) while we see a low ratio of women in fields that were traditionally excluded from for centuries (finance, engineering, etc).
  Now, what is more likely? That it turns out that women never wanted to be engineers or bankers after all, and they just aren’t very good at it? 
  Or is it that 40-50 years isn’t enough to entirely cleanse a culture of its ingrained ideas and prejudices around gender, and that there are still some residual effects from banning women from certain fields for hundreds of years, even if the explicit bans no longer exist?
  I’ll leave you with a personal anecdote—my mother is a very successful businesswoman in her 60s (the age of many successful CEOs and industry leaders). Yet when she was in middle and high school, all the girls in her class still had to take “Home Ec,” where they would learn to cook, clean, and sew.
  Do you not think being “trained” to be a housewife at the age of 13-15 might not seriously effect the later career choices of adult women?
context: /u/Blutorangensaft (OP) has awarded 3 delta(s) in this post.
  All comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.
  Please note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.
  ^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards >
  
  How do you think people are trying to change the gap? Because almost all of the initiatives that I've heard of stem (bu dum tss) from encouraging women to pursue more lucrative careers >
  
  First, some policy proponents demand a market-wide change of the valuation of different types of work, which I don't find realistic. The reason tech pays well is because it scales well. Social doesn't scale.
  Second, that's not the only argument I heard. I also heard the allegation that jobs are paid inversely proportional to the number of women in them, and that that needs to change. I can cite articles if you like, but that seems to be a pretty popular view. >
  
  I’m trying to understand what exactly what the assertion “the part of the gender pay gap that results from women and men being in different occupations should bot be closed” means, exactly.
  On the surface it sounds a bit like “different jobs can and should pay differently” which unless you are the most rabid of socialists is pretty clearly true.
  What about the factors that cause men and women to make occupational choices?
  Like women tend to choose jobs that are traditionally dominated by women, and ones that are extra forgiving of long absences and/or can flip to part time / reduced hours - all of which is highly correlated to childbirth and nursing of infants.
  Should we as a society be taking any step to alleviate and share that burden?
  The same question goes for different levels.
  The job pay gap mostly goes away at same level - but what we tend to see is women being and seeking promotion less or transitioning out of the workforce in their late 20’s.  Often for the same childcare related reason.
  Should we do anything here or not? >
  
  I'm not OP but I'm curious about this.  
  If I say society should not be taking steps to alleviate the decisions that women make in their life, you call them a 'burden' in some spots but you call them choices in other spots.
  If I did say that, was your point going to be we should be? >
  
  My phrasing - effectively “the choice to bear a burden” - was implicitly acknowledging it could be argued either way, and I was attempting to ask the question in a neutral way.
  I don’t have a well formed opinion here just yet. I tend to think that the ease of doing business - particularly making start-ups - is an enormous competitive advantage of the United States over Europe.  I also see that the attrition rate of women on maternity leave is really high even in the most comfortable & well paid jobs.  
  So I tend to think that you start to get diminishing returns in efforts to try to de-program the way people tend to orient their family lives along gender roles. >
  
  I wonder if it's actually attrition for women in general or if it's just women going the way they really want to anyway.
  I know I've spoken to many women, and my wife, and my sister in law. 
  I suspect it's fairly common that women who even had very professional jobs, find after they have had kids and go on maternity leave, they simply find "Oh... this is actually much more important to me".
  I wonder if they'd actually consider it attrition.  
  Would you want to deprogram that type of thought process?  I wouldn't think so really, on a personal level.  perhaps an argument can be made on a generalized 'societal' level though. >
  
  I meant attrition in the way HR department use it - just a synonym for “left the job”, not as a suggestion of them being worn down by stress or other.
  I do think it’s common for women in their early 30’s, once established, to prefer family - and that’s fine. >
  
  yeah, we probably don't disagree on much of anything then, I don't really see any problems occuring from any of this that needs solved, and you seem to agree that the choices women make are fine as well.