“If you’re a woman, you will earn less than a man,” observed Theresa May in her first statement as British Prime Minister. An Institute from the Fiscal Studies confirms this fact. True, some progress has been made: the difference between the average hourly pay of men and women fell from 28% in 1993 to 18% last year. But during those two decades, the gap between men and women with higher qualifications hasn’t closed at all. Women with degrees still earn 20% less per hour than men, while those with A-levels earn 25% less.
The biggest losers are mothers. By the time their first child is 12, they earn 33% less than men per hour. That discrepancy might reflect “mothers missing out on promotions, or simply accumulating less labour market experience”, according to the IFS. Training, progression and promotion are much harder to come by if you work part-time, which might be die to simply not being present a lot of the time. Whatever the reason, we seem to have “a big problem in the way we organise work in the UK”. (Based on an article by Paul Johnson, director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, in The Times, and Gemma Tetlow in the Financial Times, London).
Why is this? Is it so everywhere in the world? If so, why? Civilisation should be based on equality of reward for equality of effort. Are men still clinging to the idea of control of everything in sight, except baby rearing? If true,I simply cannot understand it. If women want to run the show, please let them. Why die young from stress and over-work if someone else will do it for you? Share, and in sharing divide the income equally, according to ability and effort. I can think of so many rewarding and creative things one can do while the ladies are shouldering the burdens of employee management, customer complaints and finance. Let them get on with it if they want to. But even if they don’t want control over everything they should have equal pay. This is a very basic Epicurean principle.
I absolutely agree that pay discrimination based on gender is absolutely wrong. I believe its already illegal, but those laws need to be more effectively enforced.
But there’s very little evidence that pay discrimination accounts for a substantial proportion of the gender pay gap. More significant factors include: difference in career choices, men work more overtime, men work in less comfortable and more dangerous working conditions, which is why men are more likely to suffer from workplace injury and death. Men also typically take fewer days off, and as you quite rightly point out, are less likely to take career breaks due to having children.
I’m ail in favour of breaking down barriers that prevent women from going into certain jobs. But I’m afraid that as long as we have a culture where women (whether out of pure choice or societal expectation), do the lion’s share of looking after children, we will always have a gender pay gap. Even in the Nordic countries, where men have a greater duty to spend time with children, a pay gap persists, albeit a smaller one than in the UK. The only way to end it is a total rethink of gender roles in our society. This cannot be enforced by government; only when people choose to change their attitudes and lifestyles will women be able to work as much as men. I’m not saying that efforts to end the pay gap aren’t well intentioned, only that politicians must acknowledge the limits of their power.
What I’m absolutely opposed to is any kind of quotas or ‘positive’ discrimination. This is a violation of the freedom to choose different careers. Its also a breech of the fundamental human right to be treated equally in the economy. In particular, the Labour Party’s use of all-women shortlists when selecting candidates to become MPs disgusts me, because it could potentially prevent better qualified men from entering Parliament. Such efforts are simply papering over the cracks, rather than getting to the root of why there aren’t more women in politics.