The oft-cited wage gap between men and women is misleading and fails to account for the values that women and men place on the life choices they make. After accounting for measurable differences in labor market outcomes, and considering more difficult-to-measure preferences, the wage gap nearly disappears. While women’s gains in education and earnings have reduced the gender wage gap, parenthood has played an outsized role in the differences between men’s and women’s labor market outcomes, accounting for up to two-thirds of wage differentials. Instead of trying to impose the outcomes of one person’s or one gender’s choices and aspirations onto another, policymakers and employers should help to expand the freedom and opportunity of all workers and all families to pursue their unique desires.

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