Wyoming politician claims women 'earn less because they take too much sick leave'

'Historically [women] tend to take every sick day that’s available with them, and that’s a gender thing,' says the State Representative

A Wyoming politician has caused controversy by claiming the gender pay gap is due to women being worse employees.

In an interview with Better Wyoming, Gerald Gay said female workers always "take every sick day that’s available".

The 60-year-old state representative for the 36th state district said statistics "written in stone" back his assertions.

He said: "Men and women have different ways of going about taking time off - moms for maternity leave and that sort of thing.

"Women are always going to take their full maternity leave, and there’s the dependability issue about whether they’re going to show up for things."

"Historically [women] tend to take every sick day that’s available with them, and that’s a gender thing."

In his re-election campaigns video, the Republican politician has stressed his support "traditional marriage" and "traditional families".

Mr Gay added: "They look at how many sick days you get in a year. Say you get 12 sick days a year. If they go for two years and they’ve only taken three sick days, they’re going to cash in the remaining 21 sick days.

"Some of the misuses and abuses that go on there, and it’s predictable, it’s statistics that are written in stone."

When the Casper Star-Tribune asked him to clarify his remarks, Mr Gay said: "Women in the workforce traditionally take a disproportionate amount of their sick days off for other reasons than sick days.

"They take Junior to the hospital or go see Johnny’s soccer game."