Earlier quoted context omitted.
As mentioned elsewhere, doesn't this article sort of refute the idea that women don't negotiate salary well if their pay for the same rank/role is just 1% different than that of their male counterparts?
True, but it could support the idea that women don't negotiate for promotions as well or as often. Or that they are less likely to be promoted in general, for whatever reason. Whether the underlying reason is innate personality, socially-conditioned personality, or sexism, this seems like the simplest explanation for why the pay gap looks the way it does.
That definitely seems possible. I have also read some interesting stuff around how women tend to end up a few years behind their male counterparts due to child care, maternity leave, and them choosing not to take less demanding positions to spend more time with kids. There is a lot in there to unpack and you could still argue it is a societal discrimination thing (women are expected to do more child care duties), but that is not an argument supporting pay discrimination at a corporate level, but more of a societal shift that has to happen between child rearing partners. I don't know if this matches up with data and studies, but just logically, it is inevitable for a woman to have to take at least a little more time out than a man due to the biology of child birth and child rearing.
I think all of this points to women not attaining the same rank/position as the key factor in gender differences, not a discriminatory pay gap.