I can’t speak for these numbers, but when we do them we account for these things. Obviously pay isn’t going to be fair, but it should be less unfair than it is at many places.

Part of the reason women get paid less where I currently work is because they ask less. That doesn’t mean every white man is paid much better, because not all men ask either. In general, however, you can generalise across experience, productivity, seniority and so on and say that some groups are paid less. There are a lot of factors which play into this beyond people not asking. Our metrics also show that employees who ask less frequently or are in general less assertive are also much less likely to leave their jobs. As such it becomes less of a risk to not give them raises. Risk of employees leaving is a factor you consider when balancing your budget, and I’m sure you can imagine other things which may play into this, some of which, shouldn’t.