Month of March is designated as Women’s History Month and March 8th was International Women’s Day, with marches and rallies happening nationally. Theme for the Women’s Day this year was #BalanceForBetter, and the theme for the month itself is “Visionary Women: Champions of Peace & Nonviolence” as chosen by National Women’s History Alliance. The theme honors “women who have led efforts to end war, violence, and injustice and pioneered the use of nonviolence to change society, and advocating peaceful coexistence.”
When we talk about balance and justice, it is important to note that in just about every occupation in the US, women earn less than men. The Equal Pay Act (EPA) of 1963 was aimed at abolishing wage disparity based on sex. President John F. Kennedy signed it into law on June 10th 1963. The Equal Pay Act provides that ‘employers may not pay unequal wages to men and women who perform jobs that require substantially equal skill, effort and responsibility, and that are performed under similar working conditions within the same establishment”. It goes on to say that “It is job content, not job titles, that determines whether jobs are substantially equal” (Reference: U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission). Even after half the century of EPA in effect, gender pay gap exists and gender discrimination remains a significant cause of the pay gap.
The Women’s Bureau of Department of Labor indicates that women working full time in 2014, on average still make 79 cents compared to every dollar men make. This number went up to 80% in 2016 and to 82% in 2017 based on research analysis from Pew Research Institute. When other coexisting factors like education, occupation, hours worked are accounted for, women still earned seven percent less than men. Wage gap although narrowing over time, widens even further when broken down by race. Black women make $0.63 for every dollar, while Latina women earn $0.54 cents. Worse even, this pay gap remains consistent throughout a worker’s lifetime. In U.S. overall women will have to wait till 2119 while Latina women would have to wait until 2233 and black women until 2124 to achieve pay equality (Institute of Women’s Policy Research). Globally, women earn about 57% of what men earn and the World Economic Forum predicts gender pay gap will take another 217 years to close!
Because of higher labor force participation by women and greater educational achievements, the wage gap has gotten smaller over the years, but progress has been slow in the past decade. Gender segregation across occupations, underrepresentation of women in software and executive level jobs and the fact that women have additional duties beside work are all contributing factors. There is lack of adequate support system in place for women to get paid family leave or obtain child-care assistance from their employers. Based on Pew Research Center 2018 data, 39% of mothers take significant time off and 42% reduce their work hours to care for a child or a family member. About 25% quit work altogether. In contrast, only a quarter of fathers take any time off for child/family member care. An interesting article on Forbes lists gender pay gap statistics from top athletes, actors and CEOs, which just shows no woman or industry is immune to gender inequality.
“A balanced world is a better world.”
Although factors noted above are commonly sited barriers for existing gender pay gap, interesting gender economics research by Claudia Goldin, a professor of economics at Harvard University, reveals that statistics citing annual earnings between male and female full-time, full-year workers don’t tell the full story of what’s causing the gender pay gap. According to Professor Goldin, providing flexible work hours and structuring jobs in a way that enhances work-life balance will have a better shot at narrowing the gender pay gap.
Although raising awareness about gender pay gap is helpful to get legislator’s attention. A more practical and organic way to reduce the gap, would be what Professor Goldwin suggests – employers offering work-life balance options with work hours flexibility, work form home, substitute employees and rethinking the status quo. As it is, employers are noticing that this strategy works better for millennial workers and to retain talent, they have no option but to offer those perks. This change is evident in tech companies in Silicon Valley and can be a model for work industry to follow.
A balanced world is a better world. What can we women do in the mean time?
We can surely celebrate each other’s achievement, raise awareness against gender bias and take action for equality. Like Subia wrote in her Voicebowl article on Women’s Day “Let IWD this year be a reminder of the inequality that is still a part of our society and raise our voices for women’s issues in any way we can. Also, remember to honor the famous, infamous, ordinarily extraordinary women in your lives who made way for what we call, womanhood”
