On February 27, days before International Women’s Day, the Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA) issued The Gender Pay Gap Report. It claimed to uncover a 21 per cent gap in pay between men and women across Australia and offered a detailed account of the so-called ‘pay gap’ within each company.

It’s common knowledge that Gough Whitlam legislated equal gender pay and this gender pay gap report was never intended as a detective novel looking to uncover companies that broke the law.

After more than two weeks of heated discussions, criticism, and even acknowledgement by the WGEA CEO Mary Wooldridge herself that the gender pay gap does not measure the difference in pay for the same job, the question remains, what does that number measure and does it measure anything at all?

Senator Matt Canavan has dismissed the report as utterly superfluous. I concur, to an extent. It fails as a direct measure of wage inequality, yet it inadvertently sheds light on the divergent paths chosen by men and women in their professional lives – highlighting not wage disparity, but the liberty of occupational choice. The report reveals a variety of preferences in job type, leadership roles, and work hours, which naturally result in disparate incomes. Hence, we are not witnessing constraint, but rather the exercise of choice.

Consider Qantas, which has been vilified for a purported 39 per cent wage gap. Media narratives advocate for increasing female representation in traditionally male roles like pilots and engineers. But is that what women really want? The airline industry is predominantly staffed by male pilots and female flight attendants. This isn’t a tale of the oppression of women, but of gendered freedom.

I spoke to a young and vibrant Qantas flight attendant Anna, 24, who has been dreaming of this job for many years and now loves her job and is proud to be working for Qantas. I asked her if she aspired to be a pilot, and the definite answer was no. This is not because of gender discrimination, it was her choice and her dream to be a flight attendant. She further admitted that being a pilot is a huge responsibility, stress, and involved a lot of study which she does not see as something that will make her happy. Further, she revealed that she aspires to have a family in the future, and due to the nature of the pilot job requirements and commitments, she does not see how she would be able to fulfil her aspiration of a happy family to the full extent.

Anna’s perspective underscores a vital point: freedom of choice is paramount. The prevailing discourse on the gender pay gap, urging women to infiltrate male-dominated sectors, neglects individual desires – many of which include family-building and work-life balance. The issue isn’t about capability or access. It is about respecting personal preferences, but the rhetoric surrounding solutions to the gender pay gap is not interested in that. It promotes a prescriptive approach to women’s career choices, which is reminiscent of the planned economies of yore. Recall the USSR, where occupational freedom was a foreign concept, and unemployment a crime – driven by a desperate need for labour. Last year’s Intergeneration Report indicates a similar trend, with women’s workforce participation rising alongside a decline in fertility rates – a silent trade-off. The rhetoric of the Gender Pay Gap Report risks echoing the inflexibility of planned economies, like the USSR, where occupational choice was limited and linked to state needs.

The Gender Pay Gap Report did not measure gender pay discrimination and never was designed to do so, but it was not completely uninformative. We have seen a clear gendered profile of the labour market yet driven by choice. Women still can choose between career and family. Moreover, they can choose to have both in different proportions that fit their dreams and aspirations. However, the interpretation of the report results tells us that there is an inequality is not in the pay but in the respect for the choices women make with a growing preference for choosing career and male-dominated professions and increasing shame for preferencing traditional family roles.