How are we faring? Equality in the workplace

How are we faring? Equality in the workplace
16 Apr 2009
Some 38 years since the Equal Pay Act came into effect, women are still, on average, paid less than their male counterparts. According to government figures, the median gender pay gap has fallen from 17.4 per cent in 1997 to 12.6 per cent in 2007 (mean figure from 20.7 per cent to 17.2 per cent). It seems clear from this that women are still facing discrimination in their pay or are encountering other barriers to earning more than meet the eye. The Government Equalities Office (GEO) cites several reasons as to why women are being paid less. These include: differences in educational levels and work experience; women being more likely than men to have career breaks to care for children and other dependants; many women working part-time; and willingness or unwillingness to spend time commuting, which puts constraints on earning potential.In addition, says the GEO, "women's employment is highly concentrated in certain occupations (60 per cent of working women work in just ten occupations)".The GEO continues: "Those occupations which are female-dominated are often the lowest paid. In addition, women are still under-represented in the higher paid jobs within occupations - the glass ceiling effect."Despite the apparently narrowing gender-pay gap, this still makes for depressive reading. Recent analysis of Department for Transport driving licence figures by the RMI National Franchised Dealers Association suggests more women than men are buying new cars. Ladies, think about which of your work colleagues can afford to buy the fast car, and which have the battered family saloon or MPV with seats smeared with melted chocolate biscuits and a glove box not opening to reveal a swish fridge for beer or champagne but plastic toys? According to a recent study carried out by sociologists Elizabeth Gorman of the University of Virginia and Julie Kmec of Washington State University, British and American women think they have to work harder than men. In addition, television presenter Konnie Huq (formerly of Blue Peter) and agony aunt Denise Robertson have agreed that women feel they have something to prove in the workplace.Responding to research by Sky Learning that revealed boys are more confident in school exams but perform less well, the duo said girls and women "panic" about under-achieving.Ms Robertson said: "I wonder if it's because, until comparatively recent times, girls were only supposed to be pretty, be able to cook and get married."Now that we have achieved equality perhaps girls feel they have something to prove, they've got to do well, whereas the men assume that they will do well."They agreed that this attitude gravitated from school into the workplace: Ms Huq said: "I do feel that women are often perceived as much more conscientious than their male counterparts. "It's a relatively new phenomenon that we have equality and so women often have to live up to that."Looking to our leaders for inspiration may be just the thing: Blair's Babes was all the rage in the early years of his career at number 10; however women are still under-represented in the House of Commons (19.6 per cent).Spain, in fact, became the first European country in modern history to have a government comprising more women than men in April 2008. This is perhaps more important a development when you realise, as the Independent points out, that under General Francisco Franco (who died in 1975), a woman could not open a bank account, apply for a passport or sign a contract without her husband's permission.


Blogger Black Buzz says:
This is a great article that appeared in the University of Virginia Today Daily Report Newsletter. Women continue to be victimized by the gross double standards in all the systems of pay equity in the workplace. When will the practice of treating women as second class citizens cease? It seems to me as though the women's movement which is presently moribund needs to be reinvigorated with new blood and bold ideas to meet the ever evolving workplace pay disparities. The National Government and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission have had a very supercilious attitude about enforcing the law in the area of employment discrimination on the basis of sex or gender(female) in the systems of pay equity. Males hold all the operative power in all the institutions in our society. So when and how will conditions of male hearts change to treat women as first class citizens who should be able to enjoy all the benefits of first class citizenship without regard to their sex or gender?