That's not true at all. Sometimes the cost is more for men. But almost universally the costs of the same item are more for women than for men. The running joke is that if you take the same volume of shaving cream, stick it in a taller narrower bottle, and add a label with purple and butterflies; you can slap a higher price on it.

Look at pockets. Women rarely find clothes with pockets. When they do the pockets are usually very inadequate. Their pants use less material but cost more.

Alternatively, their clothes often take more materials to clean, so drycleaners cost more for women's clothing. Haircuts cost more for women but they usually take more time and materials as well. So there are often hidden considerations that complicate how we judge and view this matter. At the end of the day it costs more if manufacturers can get away with charging more without losing sales.

"Pink tax" is a thing, though. Not just in North America.

As I recall there have been a number of studies done on this... and they fall into the "technically true" if you looked specifically at gender within a given work pool and discounted all other factors then this is the answer you arrive at.

Unfortunately, every single one of these that I have personally read ... all suffered from the fact that other factors play a part in that somewhat disingenuous number. If roles are factored in - these numbers begin to fall apart. As mentioned elsewhere in this thread: women have maternity leave... and following that can look to exit the workforce or move to part time. Compensation can be different between these categories. Continuing down this path: in a household that is dual income - it has been traditional to see the woman leave the workforce for child rearing opposed to the man. So looking at a given workforce, specifically at a given role in that group may still have a disparity in experience and time in the position (and thus compensation.) Lastly there is the bane of all - starting compensation negotiations. It is my understanding that generally men are more aggressive / assertive during this phase in the hiring process.

In short: this is stupidly difficult to generate fair and correct numbers for this type of metric and RARELY does it behoove the party running that inquiry to get the details right. The more accurate the results: the less sensational the number. Now to be clear: I do believe that there are cases where there are unfair practices taking place - but they are the exception... not the rule.

At the end of the day - if we made it commonplace to be acceptable to discuss compensation.. And put some more workers rights laws into place... We'd have a system where everyone could have a fair shake in a job, equally.

I'd be happy to be proven wrong with some numbers that have actually factored in these variables. With regard to OPs statement: that number looks strikingly familiar to one horrifyingly old and incorrectly run survey.

Evidence? Or just "trust me bro"?

"at average" is waaaaay to vauge and can mean so many different things...

Something that large I'm assuming you're using something like comparing 50 year old men to 50 year old women. Where some women that have spent a decade or two out of the workforce raising children. Or even something that ignores industry/position.

If corporations could pay 15% less to a woman than a man with the same experience and qualifications...

They'd only hire women.

If I’m not mistaken, the gender pay gap has already reversed when you look specifically at Millennials and Gen Z. On average, women in these generations are both more highly educated and earning more than their male peers. That makes sense anecdotally too. Thinking back to my time in school, it definitely wasn’t us guys who were thriving in that environment.