Solutions to the gender pay gap

By Soroptimist International of the Americas

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Despite decades of anti-discrimination laws and changes in the policies of companies and businesses worldwide, women are still not earning as much as men do in the workplace. As such, a gender pay gap exists across the globe. It is a complex problem calling for multi-level solutions. Some of these measures include:

Education

One of the most important strategies for ensuring that girls and boys will have equal income-earning opportunities as adults is to give them equal access to education. Also needed is promotion of careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics in ways that appeal to women and girls, as well as encouraging girls to take advanced courses in mathematics. In addition, increasing resources for non-traditional skills training and improving access to vocational training – especially for single mothers – is critical. Also important is providing information to girls and young women still in school about career options, as too many have been discouraged from pursuing higher education and/or job training for occupations not traditionally held by women.

A domestic worker, Bangalore, India | Photo: © International Labour Organization/Dutta B.

Girls and women, however, should feel free to study for careers in teaching, nursing and care-giving, and other so-called “pink ghetto” jobs, and not view this work as demeaning or insignificant. Jobs do not need to be defined as successful “solely in terms of the money, prestige and obvious power available in some traditionally male jobs.” A world with nurses and teachers is equally as important as a world with lawyers and accountants. These jobs need to be financially remunerated and valued according to the work itself and not according to gender.

While women and girls in developed nations have made great strides with education, sometimes surpassing men, school curricula in developing countries need to be free of gender biases. As such, governments, parents and international donors “must work together to ensure that schools are girl-friendly.” This includes, among other measures, ensuring there are schools near girls’ homes (to mitigate long and dangerous commutes) and making school facilities safe from gender-based violence.

Supporting working families

Long work hours have a disproportionate impact on women because they are still the main care providers, “thus reducing their options as to whether they work, where they work and in what types of jobs they work.” As such, governments, industry and businesses need to create more family-friendly workplaces and workplace policies. The issue is critical as it impacts women’s earnings, and as such, work places need to consider more flexible hours; provide parental leave and paid leaves of absence for sickness and family care; offer affordable, high-quality childcare arrangements; and encourage the development of more part-time jobs that pay well and also have good benefits. Not only are such policies/benefits good for working mothers, but they also benefit businesses that need to attract a female workforce if they want to survive the retirement of large numbers of “baby boomers.”

In addition, if working mothers earned as much as men, their income would increase by 17% and their poverty rate would halve from 25.3% to 12.6%. Also needed are supports for women-headed households. “Families headed by single mothers who face discrimination and lower earnings in the labour market are much more likely to live in poverty.” Therefore, these women need improved childcare support and access to vocational training.

While many businesses provide family-friendly environments, the culture of that organization may still foster backlash, guilt and discrimination. Some women workers feel that organizations pay lip service to family-friendly policies, but there remains an unspoken feeling that employees who use these policies are not as committed to the organization. Others have stated that while employers offer balanced work/personal policies on paper, employees often find it difficult to take advantage of these policies in reality.

Better data and analysis

Although there are sufficient studies to show that women tend to work more and earn less than men, more detailed analyses of the issue are needed. Governments need to collect and share reliable national earnings data from which the respective national gender pay gaps can be calculated and compared. This would allow the “identification of possible ways of dealing with the problem in a targeted manner and to identify possible improvements to existing legal frameworks likely to lead to a significant reduction in the pay gap.”

Training women to ask for more pay

Women need to assume that most things in their lives are negotiable, and that they don’t have to accept the status quo as rigid and settle for what they’re offered. “This one mental adjustment can produce extraordinary results for women.” In addition to thinking of the world as a more negotiable place, women can begin thinking differently about negotiation – seeing it as an opportunity to benefit everyone involved rather than as an aggressive or adversarial act. “In this way, they can reframe their negotiations in ways that make them feel more comfortable with the whole process.”

Today’s younger generation of women, may be more comfortable with discussing their salaries and their earning power as a whole, and as such, may negotiate for better salaries. For these women, salary information is openly discussed, at least among friends. Several workers under 25 said that “greater salary transparency among friends only makes sense in an age when so much information is freely available online.” Such sharing of salary information helps women to know when to push for a raise, when to start looking for another job or when it might be necessary to pursue legal action.

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● Extract from the Soroptimist white paper: The Gender Wage Gap