Adam Smith Institute Blog has an intersting post on the new statsitics emerging from the UK Equal Opportunity Commission which carry the news headline, Women in private sector paid 45% less than men, says equality watchdog. But in actual fact they compare part-time female workers with full-time male workers. If they do the more sensible comparison of part-time female workers with part-time male workers, the conclusion will be a complete reversal of the fact and numbers: the part-time pay gap is actually 28% in the public sector and 10.9% in the private.

This of course does not mean that the gaps do not exist, and also not that these data tell the whole story. As Tim Worstall of the Adam Smith Institute puts it:

Quite the most horrible thing about this is that there is indeed a gender gap in wages and we'd rather like to know why. Is it because employers discriminate against women? Or against part-timers, the majority of whom are women? When that part of the Government concerned with such issues deliberately conflates the two for propaganda reasons we'll never find out.