Pay discrimination only explains part of the gender wage gap

In Poland, women earn 91 cents to every dollar a man earns. In Israel and the United States, it’s 81 cents. In South Korea, it’s just 65 cents.

When you hear about the gender wage gap, you might think it’s the result of overt pay discrimination between women and men. “Equal pay for equal work” is a common rallying cry. But in reality, discrimination only accounts for a small fraction of this disparity. The rest of the story is much more complicated. The gender wage gap is about choice and opportunity. It’s affected by race. And it’s rooted in our social norms about women and family and motherhood. That makes it much, much harder to solve.

So why are women around the world paid so much less than men? And what can countries do to close the gap?

Vox tackled these questions on this week’s episode of our Netflix show, Explained. We have new episodes every Wednesday on topics ranging from dieting to the racial wealth gap to gene editing and more. If you like our videos, then you’ll love this show; it’s our most ambitious video project to date.

To watch, search “Explained” on Netflix or go to Netflix.com/explained. Click the “My List” button to make sure you don’t miss an episode.

The truth about the gender wage gap (Sarah Kliff, Vox)

What’s my wage again? (A Today, Explained podcast)

A stunning chart shows the true cause of the gender wage gap (Sarah Kliff, Vox)

Read Hillary Clinton’s Remarks at a Conference for Women in Business (Remarks by former secretary of state and presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, whom we interviewed for this episode)

Even with similar qualifications, women spend time on tasks that lead to lower pay than men (Allison Schrager, Quartz)

Greta: The Injustice of Unequal Pay (A commentary by Greta Van Susteren, whom we interviewed for this episode)

Katrin Jakobsdottir: Iceland gets tough on equal pay (CNN interviews Iceland Prime Minister Katrin Jakobsdottir, whom we also interviewed for this episode)

Can we have it all? (A TED Talk by international lawyer Anne-Marie Slaughter, also interviewed)

New Law In Iceland Aims At Reducing Country’s Gender Pay Gap (An NPR interview with Brynhildur Heidar, also interviewed)

How Rwanda beats the United States and France in gender equality (A World Economic Forum report on gender equality in Rwanda. We interviewed Rwanda UN Ambassador Valentine Rugwabiza and women’s rights activist Consolee Nishimwe for this episode.)

State of Working Women in the US (A C-SPAN discussion featuring economic researcher Veronique de Rugy, also interviewed)