Equal Pay for Equal Work
The gender pay gap differs in different states, markets and industries; women’s subjugation is the only constant.
The modern waves of the globalisation and advanced industrial revolution have created immense space for women in the workforce. Women today are involved in almost all fields of work. This, however, did not happen overnight. It is a result of a long and tedious journey.
In the 19th century and most of the 20th century, women were limited to low skilled jobs, and were sardonically looked down upon. Their attained feats were forcefully relegated due to lack of education, skills, and opportunities. Fortunately, with changing times, women today have reached higher education levels that have paved their way to achieving skills for different jobs. Feminist movements over decades have enabled women to go out in the world and stand shoulder to shoulder with their male counterparts.
Despite the progress, there are still a lot of challenges that women face in making space for them at almost all stages.
India’s Unequal Reality
Women constitute almost half of the Indian population (nearly 48%), yet their total representation in the workforce is limited to just one-fourth. According to the Monster Salary Index (MSI), women are paid 19% less than men in India. A report by MSI revealed that the median gross hourly salary for men in India in 2018 was ₹242.49, while ₹196.3 for women, meaning that men earned ₹46.19 more than women.
According to the Gender Gap Index in 2020 report, India slipped to the 112th position from the previous 108th rank in 2018. The report outlined that it is going to take India close to 100 years to bridge the gender gap in politics, economy, health, and education. The country ranks 149th in economic participation and opportunity, and 117th in wage equality for equal work in a similar, grim fashion. However, it should not be overlooked that these reports merely analyse the overall mean or average difference between the wages of men and women (also interpreted as explained or unadjusted pay gap). To put it simply, they convey that there is unequal pay for equal work between men and women.
There certainly is much more to the gender pay gap than the phrase “unequal pay for equal work”.
While it is evident that the average wage of a man is higher than that of a woman, the underlying reasons are explored and broken down by the concept of an unexplained pay gap or adjusted pay gap. The adjusted pay gap cannot be measured using a straitjacketed formula because, unlike the unadjusted pay gap (which simply is the overall difference in the average pay for men and women), the adjusted pay gap takes into consideration the:
Employees age,
Education level,
Years of work experience,
Location and many such external factors.
Many people often perceive the wage gap and unequal pay as one concept. But, the gender pay gap stems from the difference between the number of men versus women who work, whereas unequal pay refers to when women are paid less than men for doing the same job.
Unequal pay for equal work is the first thing that comes to one’s mind when pondering the gender pay gap. While it is a significant contributor to the gender pay gap, it is not the only facet to this massive problem. There are many layers to it; the gender pay gap depends upon many socio-economic factors.
Hindrances through social and cultural norms
To understand the concept of the gender wage gap better, one needs to understand what it amounts to. The age-old stereotype of the man being the sole bread earner of the family is one of the primary reasons contributing to the wage gap. Social and cultural norms have always acted as a barrier for women in reaching their highest potential. Education for girls is not given much importance either even today. The wide gender disparity in India’s literacy rate, i.e. 84.7% for men and 70.3% for women (NSO, 2018), speaks for itself.
Girls are also made to drop out of school at a young age. Apparently, higher education is not a necessity but a privilege for many girls in India. Lack of formal education results in the absence of traditional skills needed to enter and be a part of the standard market. This further holds them back in securing good-paying jobs and positions of power and supervision. Overwhelming domestic responsibilities, especially motherhood, restrict a woman to work. This leads to the women compromising their performance or taking up a lower-paying job with flexible work hours. Some opt to drop out of work altogether.
They may rejoin after some years, but they lose years of working experience and acquired abilities. To adapt to the work environment from scratch proves to be difficult for most women. In this process, they lag behind their male counterpart, who has now escalated to a superior position.
De facto penalisation of womanhood
A study conducted by sociologists of the University of Massachusetts concluded that ‘Lost Experience’ accounts for almost half or more of the wage penalty globally among women, especially mothers. The case of mothers who manage to balance their work and raise a child is often viewed as incompetent and not dedicated enough in both their domestic responsibilities and professional responsibilities. In a publication that considered good wife and mother’s societal norms, respondents from India characterised good motherhood as a mother putting her care responsibilities uppermost.
Simultaneously, respondents felt that working mothers are discriminated against for abandoning their children and that children may be negatively affected by their mother’s absence (Muñoz Boudet et al., 2013). This phenomenon is called the motherhood penalty. The motherhood penalty is significant to the gender wage gap because studies found that employed mothers are the women that account for most of the gender wage gap. (Glass, Jennifer, 2004).
Further, assigning gender roles to and feminising specific jobs segregate men and women in their employment. Women are expected to take up jobs as teachers, nurses, caregivers, and Anganwadi workers that cater to nurturance’s gendered nature. These are relatively low-paying jobs compared to vocations like engineers, pilots, finance analysts, and jobs that are considered noble, masculine, or “real jobs”.
Merit bias
To think about it, men are paid more on a job that more or less has a similar nature or requires identical skills. For example, a caregiver’s job and a material handler in a warehouse are not that different. The caregiver takes care of a person, and the warehouse worker takes care of materials or stock. Both jobs are methodical and don’t need advanced skills. Yet, a female caregiver will usually be paid lesser than a male factory worker.
Talking about gender roles, most women are further expected to do hours of unpaid work like taking care of children, endless household chores, and helping their husbands in their work if asked. These tasks take up a lot of time and effort, but sadly, they are not viewed as work but just as their obvious duty or obligation. In the Time Use Survey, 2019, conducted by the NSO, women in India spend about five hours a day on unpaid domestic work, or thrice as much time as men.
Moreover, women in the informal sector, especially agriculture, engage in all kinds of agriculture work from sowing to harvesting as part of their domestic duty. Of 79% of women involved in the agricultural sector, 60% work without any guaranteed pay or recognition (Agarwal,2005). In her work, Unseen Workers: Women in Indian Agriculture, Ghosh noted that while women do most of the backbreaking work in agriculture, they are not recognised as farmers. Instead, they subsidise this work in unpaid family farm labour or as underpaid wage labourers.
Straight-up gender bias and transparent discrimination
Finally, the most significant contributors to the gender pay gap are straight-up gender bias and transparent discrimination. A 2015 meta-analysis of studies of experimental studies of gender in hiring found that “men were preferred for male-dominated jobs (i.e., gender-role congruity bias), whereas no strong preference for either gender was found for female-dominated or integrated jobs”.
The gender pay gap differs from state to state, market to market, industry to industry, and sector to sector. Some women are privileged by class and caste factors to have been paid equally as men without the above-stated factors curbing their economic growth, while some bear the brunt. Overall, rural female workers in the informal sector are at the lowest while the urban formal regular male workers are at the topmost rung of the ladder.
“The gender pay gap is one of the many indicators of gender inequality in a country” (Education International, 2011).
On that note, there is always light at the end of the tunnel. One should not ignore the Constitution’s many provisions prohibiting unequal pay for equal work and discrimination in providing employment opportunities. One of them being the Equal Remuneration Act, 1976, now replaced by Code on Wages, 2019, with ERA being a part of it. The code upholds the value of equal pay for the same work or work of similar nature.
Long way to go
As mentioned earlier, it will take many years and efforts to practically see a considerable, positive change in women’s societal attitude in the workforce. However, laws can only make a difference when applied in real life. The participation of women in the workforce has positively affected the economic growth of India and worldwide.
Yet, surveys find that 84 per cent of Indians agree with the statement: “when jobs are scarce, men should have more right to a job than women ‘’ (Pew Research Center 2010). Such attitudes negatively affect women’s participation in the workforce and reflect social norms that reinforce women’s traditional role and mediate the way institutions treat women, and sustain gender inequality in the labour market.
Consequently, stereotypes that should have been shunned a long time back still linger around. All said and done, the most crucial factor that will aid in narrowing the gender pay gap will be women taking charge. It is when women consider themselves as active members and equal contributors to society that a right step in the fight direction is possible. The question is- how long until that happens?
Views are the writer’s own and do not necessarily represent the viewpoint of Volunteers Collective.
Written by Masira. Masira is a guest contributor for Volunteers Collective (Write for Democracy).
