Lets do some man bashing!!! (Male and Female Pay Differentials)

Member Name: michaird

Product:	Male and Female Pay Differentials
Date:	27/02/03 (298 review reads)
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Sorry, I lured you here under false pretences, I'm afraid there isn't going to be any man bashing, I'm far too nice for that kind of thing.

I'll start of by saying that men and women have a legal and moral right to receive equal pay, equal treatment and equal opportunities within the workplace.

But lets have a look at some raw statistics.

Women working full-time earn 18% less per hour than men
Women working full-time earn 25% less per week than men
Working part-time earn 39% less per hour than full-time men
Women's average weekly income is less than half of men's

Shock horror, doesn't that sound awful, lets all go out and burn our bra, sue the bastards to get what we deserve!

Oh dear, tut tut tut, that's not the way it works at all I'm afraid. You see raw statistic are dangerous, they don't actually mean anything, they're numbers and number are meaningless without a story.

Not so long ago the news was ablaze with the revelation that even in this day and age the lifetime earnings of the average woman would be between £142K and 241K less that that of the average man. Sounds awful doesn't it? But you have to ask yourself why.

Firstly you have to take into account the kind of jobs women do. More women are employed in low wage, low skilled work that men. Around about the same time figures were issued stating that the bottom ten manual jobs in the UK were staffed 78% by women and the bottom ten non-manual jobs were staffed 78% by women. Also roughly a quarter of women are employed in administrative, secretarial positions. These types of role are traditionally much lower paid than the high skilled manual work and senior official/manager work that is dominated by males. The gender split in associate, professional and technical employment appears to be roughly equal, this makes sense as the lower limit pay differential of 142K applies to higher skil
l
ed (and therefore probably the professional) workers.

So it seems that part of the pay differential is accounted for by the differing career choices taken by men and women in the UK with women overall making up the majority of lower paid, lower skilled workers.

Secondly hours worked is a factor. The simple fact is that on average men work more hours than women do. In the last quarter of 2002 the average number of hours worked for a man in full time employment was 35 compare with only 30 for a woman. Women also make up the majority of part time workers in the UK, with around 1.5 million female part time workers compare to half a million male part time workers. Incidentally, again in professional areas male and female working hours appear very similar and the women outstripping men in the percentage that work more than 50 hours per week or more.

So then some of the pay differential can be accounted for in the fact that men often simply work more hours than women, of course this doesn't necessarily mean they do more work but when making pay award that extra few hours that were put in over the assessment period will always show up favourable regardless of how productive it was.

Thirdly, family. When you leave work to have a family you will lose out on pay. It's as simple as that. If you take four years of work while your children are young, or even if you work part time, you will be increasing that pay differential You cant expect to come back to work afterwards and be pay the same salary as a man who now has four years experience over you, it just isn't practical. However, more and more women are forfeiting that time at home with their children in order to come back to work, economic inactivity among women has fallen by 7% in the last 19 year with a corresponding increase among men of only 4%. Things are changing slowly, but very slowly, despite the changes in attitude and expectation the majority of family dut
ies ar
e still bourn by women, with only 4% of men out of work to look after a family compared with 28% of women.

To me this seems unfair on everyone, men, women and children. When we ask for equality it works both ways, while a woman should be entitled to the opportunity to work and succeed as men do, men have an equal right to take of the family. But it doesn't seem to be happening, women find that they have to work harder and longer to achieve that same professional success of men and men find that they are stigmatised if they decide to be the child carer. So even though a woman may not their family circumstances to impact on their career it looks as if they still, significantly, do.

So while family commitments still explain some of the pay differentials let hope that the small trend of women working and men caring for family's continues, when this is more equal women will have more of a chance to close the gaps that are opened when they take time to have a family.

So on top of these reason for pay differentials there is also one other factor. Discrimination. The equal pay task force estimates that between 20% and 50% of the percentage pay differentials is due to gender discrimination in pay.

The way to counter act such discrimination is through transparency, of pay levels, pay awards and salary graded through organisations. Also it is not up to anyone but the person discriminated against to fix the problem, we have the equal pay acts, we have the option of tribunal and we also have the right to tell them to stick their poxy job up their arse and go and find a new one (I've done that twice now). If you find that you are being paid less for the same job than an equally qualified, equal experiences and equally productive male then its your job to be forthright and determined enough to pt that right not just for yourself but for every other person you work with. If it can be done without a tribunal so much t he
better
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Between 2000 and 2001 women's pay increase faster than men's at 4.6% and 4.1% respectively. If this trend continues then over time the pay differential will all but disappear. If those people being discriminated against ensure that their wrongs are righted then employers with no longer be able to get away with unfair pay differences. But unless typical career choices of women, the weighting of family commitments and the hours worked by women change over time it is unlikely that women will ever achieve true economic equality in the workplace.

I started off by thinking one thing but all of my research has lead me to the conclusion that is it the responsibility of women to change their attitudes and approach to working in order to achieve equality in the workplace, no one else can do it for you.

I'll just finish of by saying that I do earn more money than my fella (quite a lot more) and I work fewer hours. He will be giving up work to look after any kiddies simply because we couldn't live on his salary.

Sources: the office of national statistics, the low pay unit, the equal pay task force (all available online if you look hard enough)

(P.S. all of the figures and assumptions here are based on Mr and Mrs Average, I know that these people don't really exist and only general assumptions can be made. Everyone's circumstances are different and I'm sure that there is infinite variety in those that are reading this, remember Mr and Mrs Average okay?)

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