Introduction
For much of recorded human history, women have been oppressed and their voices have been silenced. When the gender equality movement arose, it brought hope for millions of women worldwide. From the beginning of the gender equality movement in 1848, women were given the right to own property and the right to vote. Equality of the sexes was made part of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the UN and over the years, the gender equality movement has managed to make significant strides in changing the perception of women in society. Despite all this progress however, the movement has not achieved its ultimate goal of equality. This can also be seen through the gender wage gap which discriminates against women.
In 2022, a report published by The World Economic Forum said that at the current rate of progress, it would take 132 years to reach gender parity in pay. Worldwide, women make 77 cents for every dollar made by men. Only one country in the entire world has been able to close more than 90% of its pay gap. These statistics are the best we have seen since the creation of the Gender Inequality Index in 2006.
It has been 60 years since wage discrimination based on gender has been criminalised. It becomes important to understand the factors that have held up this gap and continue to act as a wall in the path of achieving a world built on the principles of equal rights, tolerance, and liberty.
Disproportionate burden of unpaid care work
A significant reason for the gender wage gap is that families in “modern societies” still buck traditional gender stereotypes, even in the case of highly paid women. Despite a lot of advancements made in the workplace, women continue to bear more familial responsibilities including childcare, cooking, cleaning, taking care of the elderly, etc. compared to their male counterparts. The ideology that women have to be the caregivers is especially prevalent in India with a recent Pew Research study proving that 34% of Indians believe that women must carry the burden of household work, with 43% believing that men must be the primary income earners. When women do not follow this hierarchy, 73% of them face social disapproval.
The graph given above shows how women spend more than double the time compared to men on unpaid care work. This limits economic opportunities for women, especially in India where such social stigmas and familial responsibilities account for 68% of the wage gap between men and women.
Additionally, women take ten times more temporary leaves than men upon the birth of their child worldwide, and this often results in missed promotions, salary hikes, etc. Leaving the workforce to take care of children also results in the depreciation of their existing skills, lower accumulation of human capital, and lesser time remaining in the workforce if they rejoin, reducing the present value of their labour and as a result, reducing their wages.
The above-mentioned study by Sanghamitra Buddhapriya found that 95% of Indian working women faced familial responsibilities which hindered their chances at achieving seniority in their career, and over 61% weren’t able to utilise their full potential due to time spent on unpaid care work.
These factors result in losses of $23,620 per person all around the world, and women in developing countries make a cumulative $9 trillion lesser than men due to the pay gap. Not only does this contribute to the deepening of the already ingrained inequality in society, but it has also led to women around the world facing poor standards of living with 388 million females living in extreme poverty in 2022. This “feminisation of poverty” is a result of the ever-existent gender wage gap.
In 2022, a study conducted by Joanna Syrda, a professor of economics at the Bath University School of Management in the U.K., showed that among married couples with children, the likelihood of divorce increased by over 50% in families where women earn more than men, therefore, disincentivizing women from taking up high-paying work.
Economic Prestige of Jobs Held by Women
Studies have also shown that the cause of the pay gap is not as simple as women being made to take lower-paid jobs due to familial responsibilities. Data shows that professions whose demographic is often male-dominated tend to have higher pay than those that are female-dominated, no matter how similar the qualifications. Over 60% of the janitors in the US, for instance, are male and a recent study by the UCLA labour department showed that female janitors make $12.21 an hour, whereas male janitors make $14.08 per hour, with 45% of private sector female janitors likely to be under the poverty line. Such gaps are not confined to a particular industry and continue to exist as we move up the social ladder, even when men and women go into the same field, as shown in the diagram below.
The graph above shows the pay gap for executives in top managerial positions in the United States, showing how even women at the top of the income ladder continue to be paid less than their male counterparts. In fact, a recent report found that wage gaps are highest at the top of the corporate ladder, with female executives making 38% less than men in the same position. According to a study by IIM Ahmedabad, this gap exists even at the top of the ladder for educated women because a common perception is that the main responsibilities that women should undertake are unpaid care work. Discrimination caused by this ideology is largely resultant for the gap in earnings in high-income jobs. This holds true not just for managerial positions, but for all high-income positions as shown below.
All these studies show that some jobs pay less only because women take them. For example, jobs in recreation parks or camps experienced a fall in wages of 57% between 1950 and 2000 as it became a more female-dominated industry. In the same time period, the wages of ticket agents fell by 43% as women began joining this industry. The same happened in the field of computer science, where most early programmers were women. However, as it became a predominantly male field, it proceeded to become one of the most lucrative careers in the world.
A crucial reason for this is the relationship between gender and prestige. In 1984, a study published by Sharon Shepela and Ann Viviano argued that “women are paid less because they are in women’s jobs and women’s jobs are paid less because they are done by women”. This argument was strengthened by Hillary M Lips, whose paper in 2013 conclusively proved that the human capital model (a model stating that the cause for the gender pay gap was the lack of expected lifetime labour force participation for women leading to lower investment in their human capital) could not account for the entire gap in wages. For example, the feminisation of psychology, i.e., the process of more women taking up occupations in said field, resulted in the “decline of the field” as stated by the American Psychological Association in 1995. Economic factors at the time led to falling salaries and this meant many men left jobs in the field of psychology. These jobs were filled by women, which resulted in a further lowering of salaries and consequently, status. Such factors are clear indications of a psychological bias – perhaps subconsciously, a gendered belief codes professions of prestige in male colours and cements the ideology of work being less important because it is undertaken by a woman.
Conclusion
Even as the most developed and educated parts of the world continue to have a greater awareness of such inequalities, the wage gap persists. Women are made to stay out of work, earn less, and are consequently penalised for earning more. Even though women do not take up poorly paid jobs, they often become poorly paid, solely because they are women. Behind the data that says that the gender gap has been reducing, a simple fact remains – women will continue to be paid less than men as long as women are thought to be less.
References
U.S. Department of the Interior. (n.d.). Women’s Rights Movement. National Parks Service. Retrieved January 24, 2023, from https://www.nps.gov/wori/learn/historyculture/womens-rights-movement.htm
Sandroff, R. (2022, December 6). Milestones in gender equality. Investopedia. Retrieved January 24, 2023, from https://www.investopedia.com/milestones-in-gender-equality-5114037
United Nations. (n.d.). Gender equality. United Nations. Retrieved January 24, 2023, from https://www.un.org/en/global-issues/gender-equality#:~:text=a%20human%20right-,Gender%20Equality%20was%20made%20part%20of%20international%20human%20rights%20law,Assembly%20on%2010%20December%201948.
Mitchell, T. (2022, October 27). 3. gender roles in the family. Pew Research Center’s Religion & Public Life Project. Retrieved January 20, 2023, from https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2022/03/02/gender-roles-in-the-family/
Buddhapriya, S. (2009). Work-Family Challenges and Their Impact on Career Decisions: A Study of Indian Women Professionals. Vikalpa. https://doi.org/10.1177/0256090920090103
Center for International Development at Harvard University. (n.d.). Retrieved January 20, 2023, from https://www.hks.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/centers/cid/files/publications/faculty-working-papers/women_work_india_cidwp339.pdf
Polachek, S. W. (2004, April 13). How the Human Capital Model explains why the gender wage gap narrowed. SSRN. Retrieved January 22, 2023, from https://deliverypdf.ssrn.com/delivery.php?
Chitra Unnithan / TNN / Updated: Nov 3, 2013. (n.d.). For women, more education means salary discrimination at work: India news – times of India. The Times of India. Retrieved January 22, 2023, from https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/for-women-more-education-means-salary-discrimination-at-work/articleshow/25148884.cms
Miller, C. C. (2016, March 18). As women take over a male-dominated field, the pay drops. The New York Times. Retrieved January 22, 2023, from https://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/20/upshot/as-women-take-over-a-male-dominated-field-the-pay-drops.html
STOPER, E. (2016). Women’s Work, Women’s Movement: Taking Stock. The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. https://doi.org/10.1177/0002716291515001013
UCLA Labor Center, Maintenance Cooperation Trust Fund unveil new report on California janitor working conditions. UCLA Labor Center. (2023, January 19). Retrieved January 22, 2023, from https://www.labor.ucla.edu/press-release/ucla-labor-center-maintenance-cooperation-trust-fund-unveil-new-report-on-california-janitor-working-conditions/
Lee, M. (2022, February 18). Gender pay gap persists even at top of corporate ladder. The Balance. Retrieved January 22, 2023, from https://www.thebalancemoney.com/gender-pay-gap-persists-even-at-top-of-corporate-ladder-5219734
Yahoo! (n.d.). The gender pay gap is largest for highly educated women and executives: Why are women being punished for success? Yahoo! Finance. Retrieved January 22, 2023
The gender pay gap: Concrete indicator of women’s progress toward … (n.d.). Retrieved January 22, 2023, from https://spssi.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1530-2415.2003.00016.x
About the Author
Aadi Mendiratta is a Grade 11 student from DPS International, Saket who is highly driven to create impact in the social space. His areas of interest are finance, gender, and women empowerment.