A new congressional study confirms that not everything has changed since September 11. Governments continue to waste their time and taxpayers’ money in the endless search for statistical disparities between men and women.

Rep. Carolyn B. Mahoney, a Manhattan Democrat, commissioned the General Accounting Office (GAO) to conduct a study comparing the managerial salaries of men and women. The study, released January 23, found exactly what the congresswoman wanted it to find—a gap between the salaries of male and female managers. Moreover, the study says this gap has grown since 1995, as much as 21 cents for every dollar earned. Women continue to be scarce in managerial ranks and mothers have “lost the most ground,” said the study which considered 10 industries.

In the entertainment business, the study claims, women earned 62 cents for every dollar earned by a man, down from 83 cents in 1995. In the communications field, the figure is 73 cents, down from 86 cents. And so on, all completely predictable and without significance of any sort. In the first place, personal differences, effort, and choice ensure that statistical disparities between men and women, like those between any individuals or groups, will be the rule rather than the exception. Statistical disparities, contrary to the prevailing orthodoxy of political correctness, do not by themselves indicate discrimination, which is what Rep. Mahoney and her colleagues are driving at. Rep. John Dingell, Michigan Democrat, is beating the drum for hearings on the study, calling it a “family issue.” In a way, it is.

Women make decisions about the kind of career they want. With the feminist movement losing clout, those decisions increasingly involve children, and professions that enable women to spend more time at home. Attempts to resurrect discrimination claims based on dubious statistics serve to devalue women’s choices, such as family, volunteer work, and self-employment.

Education, years of experience, and number of hours worked per week are other variables that effect salaries. When men and women have the same education and continuous time in the work force, the salary gap disappears. For example, studies by the Pacific Research Institute, Independent Women’s Forum, and others have revealed that in economics, my own field of study, women earn 100 percent of what men earn. In architecture and environmental design, women earn more, a full 109 percent. In engineering, a supposedly male dominated field, women earn 99 percent of men’s earnings; they earn 97 percent in chemistry and 94 percent in computer and information sciences.

How these women could have fared this well in the face of rampant discrimination remains a mystery. On the other hand, it is easy to explain the persistence of often-refuted charges of salary gaps between men and women. Politicians, pressured by militant feminists, deploy government bureaucrats to create a salary-gap crisis, which they say is getting worse. This is supposed to evoke a public response of “do something.” Then comes the legislation, which in this case will be some kind of equal-pay statute.

“We didn’t spread the wealth,” said Rep. Mahoney. “We grew the disparity.” But since Rep. Mahoney and her colleagues didn’t create any wealth, they couldn’t very well spread it. Neither did they grow any disparity. What happened was that women made independent decisions, in some cases to work as managers, in other cases to do other things. Women’s decisions should be respected, not used for yet another government crusade.

The market, not some equal-pay index, should set salaries. Companies should hire managers based on qualifications, not gender. In cases where discrimination does exist, the law already provides for a remedy. For politicians eager find gaps and fix them, however, there are legitimate fields of inquiry.

Governments exist to protect life, liberty, and property, not to find discrepancies between their assumed norms and reality. One would think that a congresswoman from New York would be particularly interested in the gap between the number of terrorists we have apprehended and the number still at large in the United States. The INS has no clue to the whereabouts of thousands who entered the United States legally but overstayed their visas. Maybe the GAO, adept at finding gaps that don’t exist, could locate these people.

Sally Pipes is the President and CEO of the Pacific Research Institute, a California-based think tank. She can be reached via email at spipes@pacificresearch.org.