CLOSING GENDER PAY GAP IN THE WORKFORCE

17 Oct 2023 7 mins Download PDF

Professor Goldin’s work:

1. Goldin demonstrated how and why gender differences in earnings and employment rates have changed over time, by analysing 200 years of the United States’ archives.
2. Significant observations from her work:
   1. Female participation in the labour market exhibited a U-shaped curve rather than an upward trend over the entire period.
   2. The economic growth occurring in varied periods did not translate to reducing gender differences in the labour market
   3. several factors that are influencing the supply and demand for female labour include:
      1. Opportunities for combining paid work and a family
      2. Decisions (and expectations) related to pursuing education and raising children
      3. Technical innovations
      4. Laws and norms
      5. Structural transformation in an economy.
   4. She highlighted that both men and women lose.
      1. “Men are able to have the family and step up because women step back in terms of their jobs, but both are deprived.”
      2. “Men forgo time with their family and women often forgo their career”.
3. Pay gap
4. Gender-blind recruitment
5. Role of the contraceptive pill in women’s career trajectories
6. Inequity within couples triggered by unequal care-giving
7. “Greedy jobs” that require high intensity and complete focus at an age when women must contend with their desire to nurture children.
8. Mention of “quiet revolutions” in the labour market of the US.
   1. Four distinct phases were mentioned in the Quiet Revolution that transformed women’s Employment, Education and Family.
      1. Late-19th century till the late-1970s: Evolutionary phase where married women’s employment rates increased.
      2. Mid-1960s: Revolutionary phase where American women started working because they found a sense of worth and meaning from their careers rather than making additional money for families.
   2. Three aspects of women’s choices grew over different phases:
      1. “Horizon”- while planning education the woman perceives that her lifetime labour force participation will be “long and continuous or intermittent and brief.
      2. “Identity” — whether woman derives a sense of personhood from her professional identity. (Shift from “jobs” to “career”).
      3. “Decision making”- women are fully autonomous in making their labour market choices. 

Bridging the gap:

1. Reservation
   1. It enforces affirmative action and equity as the first step to equality. 
   2. Though the claim that it leads to inefficiency or incompetency arise, they are short term, and can be removed soon after opportunity for skill building is made available.
   3. The claim of incompetence due to reservation is a misplaced notion, as statistics show that,
      1. women perform much better than men in academics
      2. women graduate from colleges than men
      3. more women enter the workforce than men.
2. Women’s Reservation (128^th Amendment) Bill, 2023:
   1. Though India was early to adopt universal adult suffrage, the role of women in political arena has been minimal.
   2. The no. of women in leadership positions dips low not because of their incompetence, but because of the hegemony of men.
   3. The bill shall act as the first step towards actualising gender parity.
3. The bill seeks to empower women who remain marginalised in the political discourse.
4. It shall pave way for a New Egalitarian society that envisages equal rights for both men and women as endorsed by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) to achieve gender equality
5. Women-centric policy making and holding government accountable in women-related issues can become effective with more representation of women in the parliament.
6. The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), considered an International Bill of Rights for women, in Article 7 upholds women’s right to hold political and public office.
7. Creates conditions for a revitalised democracy that bridges the gap between representation and participation

How India can Overcome these Challanges:

 Here are some steps India can take to address the issue of gender pay gap:

• Implement pay audits - Regular auditing of pay scales and salaries by neutral third parties can identify and rectify cases of pay disparity between genders. Mandating pay audits can promote pay transparency.
• Gender pay gap reporting - India can pass legislation making it mandatory for companies above a certain size to publicly report their gender pay gap metrics and action plans to reduce the gap. This creates accountability.
• Normalizing salary discussions - Encouraging open conversations about pay and compensation at workplaces can make pay structures more transparent and highlight any biases.
• Strengthen anti-discrimination laws - India must expand the scope of its equal remuneration laws and stringent enforcement to ensure women are not denied equal pay.
• Promote work-life balance - Providing better childcare support, flexible schedules and remote work options can help women manage familial duties along with careers and reduce pay gaps stemming from breaks in employment. 
• Increase women in leadership - Companies must be encouraged to hire more women in senior management positions through diversity policies and incentives. Women leaders can champion change.
• Career coaching & mentoring - Programs focused on nurturing skills and opportunities for women right from education to employment can enable their career growth and negotiation skills.
• Changing social attitudes - Government and civil society efforts are needed to change social attitudes and combat conscious and unconscious gender biases that feed into pay disparity.
• Increase female labor participation - Getting more women in the workforce itself will reduce the gender pay gap over time.