A critical analysis of pay differences between men and women

A critical analysis of pay differences between men and women

• Introduction

The difference in average pay between men and women is still prevalent in many countries all over the world despite the enactment of equal pay legislation over 40 years ago. For instance a study done by Keystone Research Centre, a Harrisburg-based think tank, revealed that female workers in Pennsylvania earn 80 cents for every dollar their male coworkers make. This scenario is similar in other states in United States of America. This was however an improvement from 71 cents in 1989 and 61 cents in 1979 (MCKAY, 2004). This therefore shows that the problem has been in existence for a very long time.

According to MCKAY (2004) at the current rate of change it will take 50 years for women to earn a dollar for each dollar their male counterparts make. This rate of change is erratic and tends to reverse gains made by women in their efforts to resolve the average pay difference between men and women.  Women in Pennsylvania in 2004 earned 75 cents for every dollar their male coworkers made which came down from 77 cents earned by women for every dollar earned by men in 2002 (MCKAY, 2004). This therefore means that an increase in pay for women in a given year is often followed by a decrease in succeeding years and that offsets gains made in previous increases. This scenario has ensured that the gap in average pay between men and women remains over the years.

Yet another research done by Chartered Management Institute   in the period preceding 2011, found that average pay for managers in the United Kingdom is more than that of their female counterparts by over 10,500 pounds in same jobs in a year (The Lawyer, 2011). According to the report women managers earn about 31,895 pounds whereas men managers   earn 42,441 pounds in a year (The Lawyer, 2011). The report puts the full-time pay gap between men and women in the United Kingdom at 15.5% in general (The Lawyer, 2011).

2). Reasons for the average pay difference between men and women

According to the foregoing it is evident that average pay differences between men and women is evident in many parts of the world despite enactment of Equal Pay Act of 1963 over 40 years ago (ALKADRY & TOWER,  2006).  The reasons for this pay gap can be classified as historical whereas some reasons may either cut across the two periods or are fairly modern. For purposes of our analysis we have divided them into historical and modern reasons for the average gender pay gap.

1. a) Historical reasons to Gender pay difference

The problem of pay difference between men and women started many years ago. Prior to World War I women activists opposed equal pay for women because they thought the move would prevent women from accessing jobs or limit the number of employment opportunities available for women in the labour market (HENDERSON, 1992). As at 1896 feminists were pushing for job opportunities for women at whatever wages women would get and even opposed those regulations that tended to regulate  labour offered by women believing this would reduce the available job opportunities for women in the labour market (HENDERSON, 1992). The trade unions, mostly made up of men, during the same period also opposed equal opportunities for women on the premise that women would hamper men’s efforts in  negotiating for higher pay because women would readily accept lower wages than men (HENDERSON, 1992). Trade unions were also trying to protect jobs of their members believing that women would replace men by accepting lower wages. They favoured the policy of equal pay for equal work to lock out women from male dominated jobs because men knew that they would end up producing more than women and hence earn more (HENDERSON, 1992). Men also opposed the idea of recruiting women in the trade unions for fear that women would undercut them by accepting lower wages (HENDERSON, 1992).

Another contributor to the pay difference was a theory advanced around the same time by Victorian Social Theorists who advanced the theory of the law of non-labour.  Victorian Theorist postulated that men must labour and struggle to live whereas women should neither labour nor struggle for their existence and this they said was backed by natural law (HENDERSON, 1992).  The Victorians believed and encouraged the practice of sexual division of labour which led to the profiling of men’s work and women’s work (HENDERSON, 1992).This led to men allocating themselves jobs that  are challenging and pay highly whereas women took over low paying jobs thus aggravating the problem of average gender pay differences between men and women (HENDERSON, 1992).

In fact by 1915 women jobs had mainly been grouped into three main groups namely domestic group, textile and clothing group and miscellaneous group (HENDERSON, 1992).Jobs which fell in these groups were generally devalued by society and attracted low wages as compared to jobs in the military, science,  politics and engineering which were dominate by men (HENDERSON, 1992).

1. b) Modern Reasons for the average pay difference between men and women

Many reasons have been advanced by many researchers in modern times in an attempt to explain why this difference  in pay between men and women still persists even after the enactment of equal pay legislation over 40 years ago (The Lawyer, 2011). According to MCKAY (2004) the factors contributing to the differences in average pay between men and women include differences in education levels, in job training and in work force experience.  According to research done by Institute for Women’s Policy Research there are also differences caused by the different occupations and industries that women and men tend to work in (MCKAY, 2004).

The jobs that women generally take up  tend to pay less than the ones men take up and there also exists in many societies around the world a cultural devaluation of the work women do such as pre-school education (MCKAY, 2004).Women are still unrepresented in high paying jobs related to science, mathematics and engineering as well as in top business and public positions (MCKAY, 2004). Some organizations have even gone high tech   in discriminating against women by ensuring women are assigned fewer tasks , get lesser training, are assigned fewer clients  and  mentors than men and especially in societies where there exists  imminent threat of sanctions from the government and the public if an organization is found to be discriminating against women, (MCKAY, 2004). Women are also more unlikely to push for higher wages than their male counterparts thus making them earn less than their male counterparts (MCKAY, 2004).

Yet another compelling reason why the pay difference persists is the unwillingness or inability by many employers to obey the sets of legislation put in place to address the problem (International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management, 2004). For example in the United Kingdom the findings by the National Management Salary Survey in 2003  revealed that despite the existence of the widely known Equal Pay Act of 1963,  equal pay for managers has  not  been implemented in many organizations. The survey showed that in all levels of management women earned less than their male colleagues in the same job starting from the board room level, middle managers level and even at the operation managers’ level (International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management, 2004).

According to the Lawyer (2011) women are less unlikely to negotiate for higher wages than men when offered a job for the first time or even at in times when they are being promoted. They readily accept the offer the employer puts on the table first without negotiating and rarely seek to have their pay increased in subsequent years.  Companies often aggravate this problem by entrenching women discrimination either consciously or even subconsciously in their annual pay review processes (The Lawyer, 2011).

The Lawyer (2011) also attributed the prevalent average gender pay differences on the length of service in organizations between men and women. In many organizations pay schemes are generally based either in part or as a whole on the length of employment workers have in the organization.  Women generally tend to change jobs more frequently than their male counterparts  in order to accommodate childcare responsibilities and hence their average length of service in any one employer are lesser compared to men (The Lawyer, 2011).  This leads to women getting lower salary increments compared to men in the same job. The recession has also aggravated this problem (The Lawyer, 2011). In many instances many senior women lost jobs due to retrenchment than their male counterparts. Even where they did lose jobs, the organizations were found to be either unable or unwilling to increase the pay they gave to women employees (The Lawyer, 2011).

According to ALKADRY & TOWER (2006) pay differences among men and women have generally been occasioned by among other factors glass ceiling and position segregation. It is important to note that this reason cuts across historical and modern times. Gender pay differences have been caused traditionally by the fewer number of women compared to men occupying higher paying jobs in top management in organizations and even in the government (ALKADRY & TOWER, 2006).

Women generally dominate low paying jobs normally ranked in the lower levels in organizations and these generally involve support staff, doing clerical work, and junior supervisory roles (ALKADRY & TOWER, 2006). Women have tended to enter employment even in public service through lower ranking positions which tends to segregate them unlike men who enter through higher ranking jobs. Women are viewed as caring and understanding which prevents them from taking up positions in the higher ranks in the public service which are often subconsciously portrayed as being masculine (ALKADRY & TOWER, 2006). The ability of women to climb the corporate ladder and take up higher paying jobs is hampered by domestic constraints and other socio-cultural factors (ALKADRY & TOWER, 2006). Men tend to do less household work than women and it appears acceptable to society. Women are more likely to take career  breaks to look after their children than men would and are also more unlikely to take up jobs that require a lot of travelling away from home  because they want to be near their homes at all times to look after their children (ALKADRY & TOWER, 2006).

Skewed employment policies, career progression policies and assignment to work place mentors in favour of men only serves to ensure men are promoted to elite positions than women leading to pay differences between men and women (ALKADRY & TOWER, 2006).Even where women tend to progress in their careers, the rate at which this happens is lower than men. This in a way put a glass ceiling on women and contributes to the pay difference between men and women. The fact that women are segregated and clustered in lower paying positions ensures that women are paid less than men who occupy higher paying top level elite positions in organizations (ALKADRY & TOWER, 2006).

ALKADRY & TOWER (2006) found out that the problem of agency segregation also leads to pay differences between men and women. Gender typing of women has tended to dictate occupations that women pursue and the organizations or agencies they work for. The perceived view that women are caring tends to lock women in organizations or positions that offer education and social services and also pay poorly (ALKADRY & TOWER, 2006).This view has tended to ensure women dominate clerical jobs, social service jobs, nursing jobs and teachings jobs which pay much less than jobs in the law enforcement agencies, science and engineering agencies and also political jobs which are viewed as masculine and are dominated by men (ALKADRY & TOWER, 2006).

ALKADRY & TOWER (2006) noted that there also exist human capital barriers that cause the gender based pay difference. These are related to education, responsibility, experience, age, and leadership abilities and they determine the pay for either men or women. Educations levels do determine the pay for an individual in an organization. Even though it cannot be said that women are lesser educated men tend to get far more education than women in terms of quality and quantity (ALKADRY & TOWER, 2006). Men are more likely to work for much more years than women due to the fact that women are constrained by domestic responsibilities. In terms of responsibility men have an upper hand due to the fact that they have more experience due to length of service than women and tend to be given more responsibility than women. This brings in additional pay for men than for women (ALKADRY & TOWER, 2006).

3). Measures to resolve the gender pay differences

Varied legislative measures have been adopted to try to reverse the wage gap. Federal laws including the Equal Pay Act of 1963 ensures equal work for equal pay. This has attempted to resolve the pay gap even though generally analysts have experienced challenges in determining how to value work to determine what constitutes equal pay for equal work (ALKADRY & TOWER, 2006). Another important legislation is the Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which  bans discrimination on employment based on sex (ALKADRY & TOWER, 2006).The responsibity of enforcing the two laws rests squarely with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) (ALKADRY & TOWER, 2006).

Law suits by the Employment Opportunity Commission have tended to have more impact than the laws themselves. However over the years the number of laws suits filed by the Employment Opportunity Commission has reduced as compared to private law suits arising from these acts (ALKADRY & TOWER, 2006). Since many people generally shy away from discussing pay, women end up never knowing whether they are being paid less or not than their male counterparts or whether they are being discriminated against in pay matters. The remedy to this is that women are encouraged to discuss pay openly and according to the Equality Act of 1963 they can file a suit in the event they realize they have been discriminated against in terms of pay (The Lawyer, 2011). The Equality Act contains provisions that demand mandatory equal pay audits. If these measures are implemented expeditiously then the pay difference would be reduced  drastically (The Lawyer, 2011).

Another attempt to address the gender pay gap should be done through setting up measures to stop undervaluation of work performed by women. The SACS industry case in Australia is a case in point where the Full Bench of Fair Work in Australia ruled that employees in the SACS industry were paid salaries below employees employed by the Government performing similar tasks. They also noted that the disparity was due to under valuation of the work performed by the women employed in the SACS industry (TODD & PRESTON, 2012). The case was possible due to enactment of FairWork Act of 2009 in Australia which was enacted to ensure equal remuneration among the sexes (TODD & PRESTON, 2012). The case resulted in increase in pay in the SACS industry by between 19 to 41 percent (TODD & PRESTON, 2012). Addressing the tendency by employers to undervalue work performed by women is an important step in addressing the average pay difference between men and women.

Other notable efforts to reduce the gap between pay for men versus what is paid to women has been made in many countries. For example in the United States of America Democratic Senator Barbara  A. Mikulski  championed the  Paycheck Fairness Act   which attempted  to improve on the 1963 Equal Pay Act by trying to limit the circumstances under which women can be paid less than men by their employers (FRITZE,  2012). The proposed Act was meant to also empower women to sue employers who discriminate against them in pay and are able to proof their cases in court (FRITZE, 2012). This Act however faced a lot of opposition from certain interested groups who felt that it was ambiguous and too punitive and would inhibit industry (FRITZE, 2012). The spirit in such laws as the proposed Mikulski Act should not be left to die because they were attempting to address a grievous matter. Drafters should come up with a replacement Act which captures the ill the Act is trying to cure and which when enacted and implemented expeditiously will go a long way in addressing the pay gap between men and women.

Yet another measure that can be used to address wage disparity between men and women can be learned from the Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co (ERMIE, 2011). In this case Lily Ledbetter was clearly discriminated against by her employer due to her gender. Her supervisor denied her pay increases each year by ensuring her job evaluations were unfavorable. Thus she could not get a pay rise unlike her male colleagues and could not be promoted (ERMIE, 2011). The government should enact laws to ensure performance rating/appraisal for women is not biased because of gender biasness of the supervisors. This will ensure women can progress in their careers like men do and assume higher ranks with time.

The Ledbetter case inspired the drafting and eventual enactment of The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009 (LLFPA) which was thoroughly debated before it was enacted (ERMIE, 2011. The most vital contribution of the legislation to resolving average pay difference between men and women was that it included an amendment to the definition of unlawful employment practices and it defined instances when they occur (ERMIE, 2011. This act thus demystifies unlawful employment practices and empowers women to seek legal redress in the event they are discriminated against because of their gender.

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