The true wage gap is roughly 8%, he writes, while the rest reflects different working patterns reflecting different life choices made by men and women. Women choose different occupations, often with shorter working hours, less travel and fewer hazardous conditions, and they are more likely to interrupt work lives for child-raising.
The 8% is certainly suspect, but not nearly so serious as 20%. It is more in the range of "problems we need to keep an eye on" and less in the range of "stop everything, this is a tragedy requiring immediate and drastic action."
Samuelson seems not to consider the over-time decline in inflation-adjusted wages in occupations formerly mostly male that now employ large numbers of women. For example, journalism. Perhaps much of this decline is attributed to the basic microeconomic factor of increased labor supply without increased market demand, which normally results in lower wages.
