It's a false cause fallacy. I don't think LC is insane to derive the conclusions from the facts he gathered; as bearfan pointed out, ultimately we want to achieve the same thing, which is equality of opportunity and outcome in the work place, but we have different methods to achieve our goals.
That is really the key ... they suggestion that "just make companies pay everyone the same" seems like a decent solution on the surface, but opens up all kinds of problems and is based on some faulty stats. But, it makes for a nice bumper sticker.
You have a class of jobs that are straight pay hourly and everyone gets the same and is treated the same. The only way you get more is to either get promoted or just stay there for years and get an annual increase.
But, for professional jobs, and I am thinking of mainly IT, the way to get more is to either negotiate it at time of hire and switch jobs often. Especially working for a non IT company with an IT department, which is really most of those jobs (IT department for a retail store, finance industry, etc).
There are many factors in compensation beyond salary and even location bases comparisons are poor unless you really nail it down at the ZIP+4 level. San Francisco is a good example, working in the city pays more than working outside the city, but when I lived there, the extra money was not even close to worth it compared to the nightmare of commuting in and out of there across the Golden Gate on a daily basis.
I have seen people leave money on the table (and I have done this myself) for extra vacation time, you also need to factor in benefits, and you need to factor in the stability factor. Some people, and from my experience women do this more than men, of staying at the same place too long. You go in at salary X, get an annual raise, but the market rate for these jobs has generally outpaces the X annual raise. But, the benefit is you are in a stable situation, have most likely gained enough trust to work from home more, have a more flex schedule, be able to take off for kids things, you are just happy there, it is a good commute, or there is some fear of the unknown in switching jobs. Unless they negotiated down salary for more time off, the person with the same title that is most likely making the most money is the one most recently hired.
As an example, in my last job, I hired two mid-level DBAs a few weeks apart.
Person A wanted to work 8-4 Monday thru Friday, no weekends
Person B was okay working 8-6 and would cover occasional Saturday work.
Person A was a woman, person B was a man ... I offered person B more money, these are salaried positions. So for the stats, I guess I contributed to the gender pay gap because they have the same title and work in the same place, but did I really because the guy was working 10-12 hours more a week. If Person A, wanted to work the same hours as B, I probably would have paid her more because I think she had a better skill set, but being home by 4:30 was more important to her than the extra money.
The unintended consequence of essentially putting everyone under hourly rules is that flexibility is lost which for some is more important than an extra 5%,7%,10%, whatever %. I am not sure how this works in other professions, but it kills one of the best parts of IT. Most everyone I know at some point has left money on the table to improve other areas of their lives. I can promise you that some government pay decree would fuck this up royally. Fair or not, women still generally are the primary care givers to their kids and eliminating that kind of flexibility in an industry that pays well enough to take care of their family financially and allows the flexibility to be home more probably does more harm to women than it helps them.
