The truth is that women with children voluntarily seek employment with fewer hours (and consequently less pay). They do this in the U.S. and they do this in countries like Iceland and Sweden that have elaborate child care and parental leave policies.
See this City Journal article by demographer Kay S. Hymowitz. She deconstructs the data and finds the actual, apples-to-apples comparison is that women earn 5-7% less than do men with equal education and experience working equal hours in the same jobs. That isn't nothing, but it's a small fraction of the pay gap usually cited. There are occupations in which women without children make more than their male colleagues.
What Hymowitz shows is that the gender gap is more complicated, and less evil, than we've been led to believe. Here are two interesting quotes:
June O’Neill, an economist who has probably studied wage gaps as much as anyone alive, has found that single, childless women make about 8 percent more than single, childless men do (though the advantage vanishes when you factor in education).
According to a 2007 Pew Research survey, only 21 percent of working mothers with minor children want to be in the office full-time. Sixty percent say that they would prefer to work part-time, and 19 percent would like to give up their jobs altogether. For working fathers, the numbers are reversed.There is a lot more you'll enjoy in this article.
