The occupation that tops them all

Claire Cain Miller at the New York Times gets the key issue with the gender pay gap:

Flexible, predictable hours are the key — across occupations — to shrinking gender gaps, according to the body of research by Claudia Goldin, an economist at Harvard.

Although in most respects women have made dramatic progress towards equality over the past half century, there is one trend that has counterbalanced the other wins:

Jobs increasingly require long, inflexible hours, and pay disproportionately more to people who work them. But if one parent is on call at work, someone else has to be on call at home. For most couples, that’s the woman — which is why educated women are being pushed out of work or into lower-paying jobs.

The fact that medical doctors have high scheduling flexibility is why…

Female doctors are likelier than women with law degrees, business degrees or doctorates to have children. They’re also much less likely to stop working when they do.

Medical doctors of both genders get high pay, growing demand, rewarding work, high respect from the rest of society, and flexible scheduling. Not bad if you can stomach it.