I’ve heard both.
In: Economics
They’re actual things, but people commonly misunderstand what’s being claimed by them. It’s often pointed out that the wage gap is much smaller if you only compare men and women who are doing the same job for the same number of hours. This is true, but over-focusing on this fact may mean ignoring possibilities like:
– men could be more often offered better-paid jobs than women of equal competency, i.e. a ‘promotion gap’
– opportunities to develop job competency in the first place may not be equally available to boys and girls
– the number of hours women work could be more often compromised by socially-obligated work outside the workplace. (perhaps things like childcare and homemaking.)
These kinds of factors are included in the kind of sexism which people talking about the wage gap want to talk about, so excluding them might miss the point.
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