employers shall not discriminate against employees because of their gender or sexual orientation in the case of paying wages. Employees shall receive equal pay for equal work or equal value. However, if such differentials are the result of seniority systems, award and discipline systems, merit systems or other justifiable reasons of non-sexual or non-sexual-orientation factors, the above-mentioned restriction shall not apply. Employers may not adopt methods of reducing the wages of other employees in order to evade the stipulation of the preceding paragraph. Criticism Criticisms of the principle of equal pay for equal work by women include criticism of the mechanisms used to achieve it and the methodology by which the gap is measured. Some believe that government actions to correct gender pay disparity serve to interfere with the system of voluntary exchange. They argue the fundamental issue is that the employer is the owner of the job, not the government or the employee. The employer negotiates the job and pays according to performance, not according to job duties. Others contend that men are perceived to be high performers based on the same skill that a woman would have been able to do. A private business would not want to lose its best performers by compensating them less and can ill afford paying its lower performers higher because the overall productivity will decline. However, the Independent Women's Forum cites another study that prognosticates the wage gap possibly disappearing "when controlled for experience, education, and number of years on the job". The difference between equal pay for equal work and equal pay for work of equal value According to the Washington Center for Equitable Growth using data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, occupations that are more male dominated tend to be paid better regardless of skill or education level. For example, it often requires a similar level of skill and education to be an electrician as it does to be a nurse. However, electricians, a male-dominated field, earn more than nurses, a female-dominated field. In situations where, for example, the electrician is performing their job 200 feet above the base floor of an offshore oil rig, then pay should be higher because the risks are likewise higher. However, this doesn't explain the gap between the average work of electricians. A criticism to equal pay for work of equal value is the lack of proper comparation mechanisms, it is based on