do wonder, though, what happens that prevents women from taking up the higher paid jobs, which I guess is the other side of the discussion to the one you are raising.
yes, a different question. In Australia for a couple decades, they encouraged STEM for girls and they were really successful at onboarding them into the subjects and they performed well. "Problem" was, once the time came to pick university courses... very few of them chose STEM fields. There are differences in people in many ways, people have natural preferences.
It is very common that, in sectors dominated by women, in the sense of more of them, the higher paid jobs are filled by men. Nursing and teaching are good examples.
Flexibility perhaps. Women might naturally (on average) have a bias for having more work freedom for having children, whether they choose to have children or not. Flexibility generally comes at a price and in work, it often means less responsibility (management level perspective here). There are also big differences in investment strategies, with men being more risk seeking, women more likely to save - does this translate into work areas too? perhaps men negotiate differently, willing to walk away if they don't get what they want, while women might say that while it is a bit under, it is better to have something than nothing. Many potential reasons for disparity, especially when considered over the span of decades.
It would be interesting to see a high level view of the differences in how men an d women consume and spend and, what they spend on. In my opinion, it is hard to justify treating people as individuals, if they demand equality.