Whether they realize it or not, men now have a direct stake in policies that advance gender equity. Most of the wage gap between women and men is no longer a result of blatant male favoritism in pay and promotion. Much of it stems from general wage inequality in society at large.

IN most countries, women tend to be concentrated in lower-wage jobs. The United States actually has a higher proportion of skilled and highly paid female workers than countries like Sweden and Norway. Yet as a whole, Swedish and Norwegian women earn a higher proportion of the average male wage than American women because the gap between high and low wages is much smaller in those countries.

Establishing a “livable wage” floor would immediately reduce the gap in average pay between American women and men. But it would also boost the wages of millions of low-income male workers, who earn a much lower percentage of the average male wage than their counterparts in other wealthy countries. In 2009, one in every four American workers earned less than two-thirds of the national median hourly wage, the highest proportion of low-wage work in 19 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development countries, according to the economist John Schmitt of the Center for Economic and Policy Research.

Another source of the gender pay gap is the lack of reliable, affordable child care, which forces many mothers to stay home or work part time even when they need and want full-time work.

Prioritizing child care would not just be a boon for mothers but for millions of fathers as well. The highest proportion of stay-at-home moms is found among women married to men in the bottom 25 percent of the country’s income distribution. Most of these women cannot afford to work because of the high cost of child care, even though their partners and children would benefit from the increased income.

Putting women first would mean strengthening America’s social safety net, because a higher proportion of single-mother families live in poverty here than in any other wealthy country. But a stronger safety net would help single-father families and two-parent families, too, because these families also have higher poverty rates than their counterparts in other wealthy countries.

Putting women first would also mean changing unemployment insurance rules that leave many part-time workers ineligible for benefits and disqualify people who leave a job due to a family member’s medical emergency. Women are especially affected by such rules, but the expansion of part-time and temporary jobs since the 1970s has left a growing number of male workers vulnerable as well. And a recent Pew poll found that almost 30 percent of fathers had reduced their work hours and 10 percent quit a job to care for a family member.