What is the truth about the gender wage gap?

Most people who follow gender related news are probably aware that the U.S government states there is a gender wage gap of about 23 cents, or that women only make 77 cents for every dollar a man makes.

These were overall statistics for all types of employment it appears, but the stats seem rather vague to me because I’m not sure if these stats consider issues such as time worked, ability, accomplishents, educational level, etc. For example, male nurses make more than female nurses.

However, from reading this article and others it appears that male nurses make up nearly half of all the nurses that move on to higher education within that field, despite the fact that male nurses only make up less than 10 percent of all nurses.

I also know that in my field as a maintenance technician, while I had only worked with few women within the trade, that men typically do the more dangerous jobs, at least from my own experience over nearly twenty years. I also know that when it came to management jobs from my experience that the men typically would do extra things that the women would not do, such as getting certified on various industrial equipment, attending company approved schooling, etc.

I’m not saying that the above examples, including my own, disprove the gender wage gap. I’m also aware that in some careers that female board members typically start out on a lower salary than their male counterparts. I was just hoping for a straight answer and wondering if these alternative factors were considered when determining that women get paid less than men for doing the same jobs.