Introduction
The holidays are coming up, and by this point, most people have already bought gifts for everyone they know. Some of these gifts might not be the same price, however. A shirt and pair of gloves for Jill may cost, say, $10 more than it would for Jack. Although this is a silly example that could be easily attributed to other factors, such as brand and size, price inconsistencies like these actually range from hundreds of different goods and services across the world. Overall, these point to a general trend of a price disparity uniquely impacting women: the pink tax.
What is the Pink Tax?
The term “pink tax” refers to a form of gender-based price discrimination, where products marketed toward women are more expensive than those for men. According to a 2015 government study analyzing 794 gender-specific products from nearly 100 different brands and spanning 5 different industries, women pay 7%, 4%, 8%, 13%, and 8% more for toys and accessories, children’s clothing, adult clothing, personal care products, and senior/home health care products, respectively. Another government study, conducted in 2016, found that dry cleaning of women’s dress shirts was upwards of 90% more expensive than for men’s.
The analysis concludes that over the course of their lives, women pay thousands of dollars more to purchase the same products that men do. This disparity is not unique to the US— for instance, in the UK, an analysis found that women’s deodorant and facial moisturizer were 8.9% and 34.28% more expensive on average, respectively. This has led to organizations like the UN to call for the elimination of the pink tax to ensure that women can achieve “full and equal participation in the economy.”
The issue of price discrimination is exacerbated by the gender wage gap. According to the World Economic Forum’s 2022 Global Gender Gap Report, only 5 out of the 146 countries analyzed had achieved a gender gap score above 0.80 (in which a score of 1.0 would indicate full wage parity). Overall, the report found that it would still take around 132 years to achieve full gender parity. In the US, the pay gap adds up to almost $10,500 a year and approximately $500,000 over a lifetime. Therefore, women make less across the board, while still paying more for the same products that men do.
At this point, you may ask: if this price disparity is so bad, why don’t women just buy men’s products? In some cases, such as for razors, many do. However, differences in societal expectations surrounding consumption by gender often limit women’s choices in this regard. For instance, women in the workplace tend to consume expressly feminine products in order to fulfill that space’s gendered expectations. This is because things like makeup, clothing, and grooming play a significant role in how women are perceived in the workplace, thereby determining their professional success. When women’s success is determined by their conformity to gender stereotypes, companies can then make and market certain products specifically with women in mind, and rack up prices.
The Debate Surrounding the Pink Tax
Although it seems fairly simple, like most issues, the pink tax is much more complicated than it seems. In fact, some economists have argued that the pink tax is not the result of gender price discrimination, and rather, the result of other factors such as product differentiation, which is when a producer changes aspects of a product to attract particular consumers. For instance, a producer may alter the packaging of a product in order to appeal to women, which would then increase the cost of manufacturing and marketing the product, and then lead to higher prices for the consumer. This claim only adds up for certain industries, however. In the case of services such as dry cleanings and car repairs, product differentiation clearly does not explain why women pay at least twice as much for the exact same services. Another potential driver of the pink tax that is not related to price discrimination would be tariffs. Because imports of women’s goods are on average taxed 0.7% more, the prices of the products are higher. These gender-based tariffs on imports are controlled by Congress, and having existed since as early as the 1950s, may be a legitimate reason for why distributors price women’s products higher.
Other economists believe that some level of price discrimination is not entirely bad. In fact, it is an ideal outcome because it indicates that companies are able to charge different prices to different people, based on how much they are willing to pay. For instance, if Jill is willing to pay $20 for a shirt, and Jack is only willing to pay $10, then it would be in the company’s best interest to sell the shirt to Jill for $20 and to Jack for $10. Overall, this practice ensures that “more of those people who want to buy the good are able to buy it,” and embodies the belief that, “If you can make money off of it, you should.” The response to this, obviously, is that it is inherently unfair for women to pay more for the same product. Moreover, this idea relies on the assumption that women are completely willing to pay more. In reality, many are unaware that they are paying more than men are, and societal expectations on what is considered feminine greatly limit women’s choice in this matter.
Related Policies
Thankfully, in the past few years, the pink tax has begun to gain the attention of US lawmakers. In six different states and local governments (California; Miami-Dade County, Florida; New York; New York City; Guam; and Illinois), there are laws that specifically address the pink tax, prohibiting gender-based price discrimination for goods and services. On the federal level, President Joe Biden signed into law the National Defense Authorization Act in 2021, which aimed to address a $5,500 price disparity between women’s and men’s military uniforms. And in Congress, the Pink Tax Repeal Act is intended to set a national standard against gender price discrimination, although it has not yet passed.
Conclusion
The pink tax is a form of gender price discrimination that has negatively impacted women’s day to day lives. Coupled with other forms of discrimination such as the wage gap, it contributes to the exclusion of women from the economy. Hopefully, future legislation will continue to make progress in this area, and ensure equal rights in every aspect of one’s life.
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