Is there a gender pay gap in accounting? At least in public I feel like that'd be hard to see, with salaries pretty standardized for LoS and location.

I'm not convinced there's much of a gender pay gap in life, let alone public accounting.

Yes, there is a gender pay gap. Perhaps your firm is proactively making sure not to pay women less than men. That doesn't mean the pay gap is gone in all companies and in all trades and professions. I've seen enough stats that insist the pay gap is real to feel it must be true. Even when controlling for women who have less education and less experience and work in lower paying fields, women make less money than men. One thing I've come up with that might explain it is that professional women perhaps work less (unpaid) overtime because we are more likely to be primary caregivers (kids, elderly parents). I think public accounting might be one of the fields with a smaller gap. The gap is 100% real in industry. Perhaps women don't know what they should be asking for in terms of salary.

Blatant gender pay gap? Not so much. But it would be willfully naive to ignore the effects of things like traditional gender roles on career trajectories, not to mention the gender/color skew if you look at almost any firm's partners.

If women really get paid pennies to every mans dollar, wouldn't a shareholder conscious company just hire women?

Female here. There is a gender pay gap some places, but it's no longer due to misogyny like neofeminism would want you to believe. It's all due to the choices women make: chosen career fields, time off, and not negotiating pay as aggressively as men.

@BDO I totally 100% agree. But I refuse to call that a pay gap as people intend it to sound. A gender pay gap insinuates that people are making less BECAUSE they are women. I think the gender pay gap does not exist in those terms. Yes, women make less in a lot of instances, but, it is due to choices made and less aggressive negotiation. I think there is, more so, a "choices gap" than a gender gap which would stand true regardless of sex.

My wife is in the same firm with longer tenure but is a POC and obviously female. She makes almost half what I make. Yes there is a gap

I always refer people to Bill Burr when they talk about the wage gap.

In big 4 in US, no pay gap at the beginning of your career. Then as you move up the ranks, the pay gap does start to widen. Most partners are men, and most often than not, their favorites tend to be guys like them too (women are guilty of liking women like them too, relax). When it comes time for ratings discussions, the powerful partners, which are usually men, will stick up for their favorites, which are usually men. They then will get the higher ratings and as a result the higher raises.