Planning doesn't work using the 30,000 foot view

The World Economic Forum tells us all that the gender pay gap in Britain is appalling, we really should be doing better. The problem with the claim being that they’re using the wrong figures. Which is something that Hayek rather warned us about, those well removed from the actual action of the economy never will have accurate information about said economy.

That the WEF is a private sector group sitting on a Swiss mountain doesn’t change this basic fact about the pretence of knowledge:

The UK has fallen six places down the global rankings for gender equality. Despite successive prime ministers pledging to take decisive action to tackle the gender imbalances in politics and wider British society, the UK has dropped from the 15th most equal nation in world to 21st.

That we’re 21 out of 149 doesn’t bother us it has to be said. But there’s always that little detail that this level of abstraction manages to miss:

The Global Gender Gap report 2020 said the gender wage gap in the UK was 16%, compared with 7% in Sweden and Norway. In the UK, more than three times the number of women are in part-time roles compared with men.

Well, yes, that is missing something important. The UK gender pay gap for those in full time employment is some 9% or so at present. It’s also true that the UK economy has much more part time working than most others.

Which is why we are all abjured to use not the blended - part and full time - gender pay gap but one or the other. Because it is simply a truth that part timers get lower pay per hour than full and thus if there’s a structural difference in the labour markets the blended number will not be comparing like with like.

We have actually had the UK’s Statistics Ombudsman, Sir Michael Scholar, snarling at Harriet Harman for making this mistake.

And if the WEF is incapable of getting the important details like this right then why should we listen to them at all?