“PINK TAX” AND GENDER EQUITY: A CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF GENDER-BASED DIFFERENTIATED PRICING

Abstract

This article questions the commonly assumed premise in the rhetoric of the "pink tax": whether the higher price paid by female consumers should be attributed to gender or to the choice of differentiated products. It stems from a critical dissatisfaction with how the debate on gender-differentiated pricing has been conducted, often based on confirmatory assumptions, insufficiently rigorous methodologies, and inferences that exceed empirical support. Through a critical legal-economic analysis, the work examines the empirical bases that underpin the concept of the "pink tax," identifies the methodological limitations of the most widely discussed studies, especially the report from the New York City Department of Consumer Affairs (2015), and proposes an explanatory framework grounded in structural economic factors such as product specificity, economies of scale, perceived sophistication, and niche segmentation. The exploratory price research covered 13 product categories, revealing that price variations according to gender do not follow a univocal trend, sometimes women's products cost more, sometimes men's, and sometimes there is equivalence, thus weakening the hypothesis of intentional discrimination as the predominant cause. The conclusion does not deny the existence of gender inequalities in the market, but emphasizes that the discriminatory hypothesis should not be adopted as a standard explanation without due consideration of objective variables related to costs, functionalities, and marketing strategies. The observed phenomenon reveals the complex and legitimate dynamics of price formation in a segmented consumer economy, and not a hidden tax systematically directed at women.