Will Pay Equity Raising Womens Wages through a Variety of Mechanisms - Essay Example

Will pay equity raising women’s wages through a variety of mechanisms including claim for equal pay, equal pay for work of equal value/comparable worth, and re-valuation of women’s work.

(Literature Review: 2038 Words)

“Our goal is to build an innovative economy. That means making the most of all our skills and talents… The decisions of our daughters and grand-daughters should not be constrained by out-moded ideas about what women and the work we do are worth.” (’s Minister of Women’s Affairs, July 2002)

The progressive tendencies in a society are gauged by the extent to which it is willing to do away with its inbuilt biases and prejudices that restrain the individual and collective productivity of the various gender and race groups residing and operating within its ambit. The provisions against unequal pay and sex discrimination at work are infact enshrined within the Treaty of Rome that constitutes the fundamental source of law for the entire European Union (EU) (Ingeborg. 1999). The ramifications of the Treaty of Rome are supranational in context so far as the issue of unequal pay is concerned. It includes within its ambit all the workers in the member states, including the employees and the employers operating in the French overseas departments (Ingeborg. 1999). The laws enshrined in this document include the parties to employment residing outside the European Union (EU), provide they haled from the EU and perpetrated discriminatory acts within the EU. The guidelines exuded by these provisions are expected to have wide ranging implications in the imminent future, considering the fact that a large number of states from the erstwhile Eastern Europe like Hungary, Poland, Romania, Estonia, Cyprus, Bulgaria, Lithuania, Latvia, etc. have either become members of the European Union or are expected to do so in the near future. One of the primary objectives of the statutes incorporated in the European Equality Law is to ensure gender equality and to promote non-exploitative employment. The urge for the equal pay for women has its moorings in the long cherished Western ideals of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, democracy and liberty that are expected to constitute the foundation of the future European society and business world.

Going beyond the Western perspective, the international community is very much aware of the denigrating impact of the unequal pay on women and its drastic consequences on the overall social and economic growth of nations. Employment equity for women has been recognized as an undeniable fundamental right by the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the United Nations. Infact this revitalized interest in the pay equity in the European Unions has its roots in the ongoing international agenda.

“ILO research shows that occupational segregation by sex is an extensive and enduring feature of labour markets, and a major source of market rigidity and economic inefficiency.” (Anker. 1997)

Infact the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of (All Forms of) Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) held in 1979 exhorted the member states to take adequate action to ensure equal wages, professional training and promotion opportunities for women. CEDWA is unanimously considered to be an all encompassing international bill of rights for working women. It was conceived by the United Nations Human Rights Division and was adopted by the General Assembly (Linda. 2004). The nations that eventually ratified or will ratify CEDAW will be legally bound by its practical provisions and implications.

“The 1995 Platform for Action adopted by the United Nations World Conference on Women at included equal pay for work of equal value and occupational segregation (Linda. 2004).

There exists a large chunk of vested interests, especially in the private sector that allay the fears about unequal pay and occupational segregation as being exaggerated and hypothetical. However, there exists no dearth of statistical and documentary evidence that unravels the massive magnitude of pay inequity and instances of gender bias in the private firms in Europe, and . Despite it being 33 years since the Sex Discrimination Act 1975 was introduced in the , the fulltime female workers in the earn 82 percent of what their male counterparts earn. (Jowell. 1994). The situation is equally gross in where female workers on the average earn 80 percent of what the male workers earn (Nicol. 2003). As per a recent government report, more then 40 percent of women in the Ireland less then GBP100 as compared to fewer then 20 percent of men (Minihan. 2001). In the , the female employees earn less then 77 percent of what is earned by men (Congressional Testimony. 2007). Despite the equal pay legislation enacted in in 1956, pay disparities continue to be rampant there (Braha. 2006). A June 2003 Income Survey in showed that women’s average earnings per hour were 87 percent of those of men (Linda. 2004). Infact the impact of such pay inequities is worsened when analyzed in a race related context. The same survey found out that impact of unequal pay structure was much worse in case of Pakeha and Maori women (Statistics New Zealand. 2003).

It was also found that though the pay equity was relatively low in the young workforce, it significantly accentuated and stabilized in case of the women nearing their retirement.

Various census and surveys have shown that at all levels of academic achievement, women do earn less then men in a majority of the labour markets all across the world. Occupational segregation in the job market was a widespread phenomenon and those professions which predominantly employed women do attracted less wages. The 2001 census in New Zealand showed that the most common professions for women were sales assistant, general clerk, secretary, registered nurse, primary teacher, cleaner, caregiver, information clerk/receptionist, accounts clerk, and retail manager while the ten predominant professions in case of men were sales assistant, truck driver, builder/contractor, crop/livestock farmer/worker, labourer, dairy farmer/worker, retail manager and slaughterer (Linda. 2004). Not only this crowding effect was found to be rampant in the labour markets, but it was also seen that the jobs that were dominated by women were traditionally deemed to be worth less by most of the employers. The job segregation in case of the women was particularly determined by their traditional roles in the family as caregivers, home makers and emotional pacifiers. Due to a rampant bias prevailing against women, the skills exhibited by them in these traditional roles were found to be dubbed as natural feminine traits rather being recognised as a genuine work related skills deserving appropriate remuneration. Thus there exists a clear percolation of the existing social biases against women into the labour market. What is deemed to be worthwhile is often determined by the rampant social notions and biases. A similar trend was found to be prevalent in the where it was uncovered that certain specific professions were dominated by people of a specific gender (Congressional Testimony. 2007). It was seen that 95 percent of the child care workers were women while 95 percent of the mechanical engineers were men. The fields pertaining to which women possessed special skills were popularly and derogatorily dubbed as “women’s work” and the wages in these job segments were meticulously devalued without giving any reasonable explanation or logic. “Maids and housekeepers for example, 87 percent of who are females, make about $ 3000 less each year then janitors and building cleaners, who are 72 percent males (Congressional Testimony. 2007)”. In this context, it may be mentioned that any attempt to enforce low pays in professions that specifically or particularly employ women or ethnic minorities is clearly and unambiguously deemed to be indirect or structural discrimination by the Unite States Supreme Court and the British House of Lords, based on the judgements rendered by them in many epoch making and historical litigations.

Various factors have been identified that contribute to unequal wages, job segregation and gender bias in the labour markets. The most salient factors of these are like the role played by women as the primary child caregiver in the family, discrepancies in the levels of academic achievement by women due to being busy in their traditional domestic roles, lack of experience due to being busy with family obligations and the traditional occupational segregation between the men and women in the labour markets the world over (Dixon. 2000). Still these factors leave about 10 percent to 50 percent of the gender pay gap unexplained. Though ample steps have been taken by the governments and the businesses to address the first there factors responsible for keeping the women underpaid, a strong political will and institutional backup is required to deal with the still looming factor of occupational segregation. However, allocating unequal wages to women’s choices and qualifications would amount to being to simplistic and facile. A large chunk of this disparity is unleashed by the discrimination and the constraints that women have to deal with in their social, professional and family lives.

“A 2003 survey by U.S. Government Accountability Office found that, even when all the key factors that influence earnings are controlled for – demographic factors such as marital status, race, number and age of children, and income, as well as work pattern such as years of work, hours worked, and job tenure – women still earned, on average, only 80 % of what men earned in 2001 (Congressional Testimony. 2007).

The phrase “equal pay” does not merely refer to some legal or financial issue faced by women. Infact it has deep seated connotations that have to do with the general well being, job satisfaction, financial and emotional security and the status of the women in the society. “Equal pay, infact, has come to represent an entire galaxy of complaints revolving around work, fairness and gender (Goodman. 1997).” The issue is indicative of the deep seated indignation, anger, frustration and anxiety that women had to deal with all these years. The stakes have been heightened by the altered economic and social status of the women in business. Unequal wages not only cause frustration and resentment amongst women, but they have far reaching and severely debilitating consequences in the sense that they leave women with less money in the old age as compared to men. Ms Broderick, the Australian Sex Discrimination Commissioner expresses this dilemma by saying that,” I have had women particularly older women sobbing in front of me telling me their stories of retirement savings or a lack of retirement savings or really disparities in retirement savings between women and men (Ecofeminist. 2008).

The heightened importance gained by this issue is obviously manifested by the spate of pay inequity related litigations throughout the developed world. Hence it has become vital for the governments and the businesses to recognize the barriers to equal participation of women in the workforce and to do away with them on a priority basis. The gender pay gap is measured using the Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE). Even though the younger women have closed the gender gap in education in recent years, the difference is still more significant between men and women above forty years old. The recent changes in the university and professional colleges curricula encourage young women to opt for non-stereotypical careers. The Equality Act 2006, which came in effect in the in April 2007, introduced a gender duty on public authorities to promote gender equality and eliminate unlawful discrimination and harassment.

Though the research has established beyond doubt that statutory measures do help in narrowing the pay gap, still a lot needs to be done to mend the lacunas and flaws in the Equal Pay Acts enacted by various nations in the Europe, and . Supportive policies like increased childcare provisions and the provision for parental leave will definitely go a long way in addressing the gender pay gap. Another important factor that could help is a more coordinated sharing of household responsibilities by the couples. Though being vital and predominantly effective, legal and fiscal measures are not enough to narrow gender pay gap on their own. What is required is an accompanying change in public perception and mindset pertaining to women specific skills and the way the contribution of women to the economy is gauged and assessed.