In a piece on the BBC web site, Daniele Palumbo & Clara Guibourg, calling themselves ‘Data Journalists’ have undertaken analysis published on this premier news channel of the UK about male and female pay.

However, neither appears to have had any solid grounding in numeracy (both having studied ‘journalism’, ‘humanities’ etc.), which probably accounts for the wording of the article. In spite of the fulsome descriptions of the roles they have undertaken since graduating (per LinkedIn) , neither has managed to hold a job for much more than a year. In fact, Danielle (a male) has managed 25 jobs listed in 7 years, which must be something of a record, and might have the agent at the Job Centre raising his eyebrows should he find himself on the dole.

To the point: the headline in the article is “The vast majority of firms pay men more than women“. This is either deliberately calculated to deceive or very sloppily worded, in spite of Danielle having had an astounding number of jobs as a journalist.

What does it mean? Any rational semantic analysis would conclude that the firms do not pay men and women equally, and this would surely be the interpretation of the casual reader.  This is simply and patently nonsense; the law has required equal pay for men and women in equivalent jobs for the last 40 years, and the majority of firms in the land conform with that law.

Lefties (and particularly a group of harpies on the labour benches), Momentum members, feminists and journalists who never progressed beyond kindergarten arithmetic (like the pair in question)  all seize this issue to make a point by conflating the Gender Pay Gap with companies somehow having a deliberate policy to short-change the fair sex.

For many reasons, but mostly not of corporate’s own making,  the gap is driven by current social structures and norms, in that companies employ more women in lower paying jobs than they do men. It’s nothing to do with “paying men more”

Companies can only do so much. Airlines can employ more women pilots (if they can  encourage them to follow the profession), and government (probably the worst offender) can employ more female judges. But in spite of their best efforts, women will have to choose to not have part time jobs, and seek jobs where they might not find the sacrifices needed for greasy salary pole climbing  unattractive; then so be it. Ultimately, the Gender Pay Gap will be in the hands of women themselves.

But to the article ? I suspect deliberately worded to be disingenuous, and to send the anti-corporate message so increasing pushed by hacks and politicians. We should expect better of the National broadcaster.