Guest blogger, Miriam Deasy, alumni of the 2015 Back2Businessship Programme discusses why motherhood alone cannot be held responsible for the Gender Pay Gap – it is far more complex and we need to look carefully at ‘traditional’ roles within the family.
Economists have a joke about finding money on the floor. When someone goes to take it an economist says “Don’t bother, if it really was money on the floor someone would have picked it up already”.
This is because Efficient Market Hypothesis assumes all, or at least most, players in the market are rational. Markets need not be perfectly efficient, but most players behave as if they are, engaging in pack like behaviour and working off the same, unchallenged assumptions. The majority would assume an anomaly could not exist for any length of time as the market responds and updates appropriately. Something of value on the floor? It’s not really possible, don’t bother with it.
The Gender Pay Gap is a straightforward calculation looking at what all men working get paid per hour for the hours they work, compared to what all women get paid per hour for hours worked. It’s not a myth, it hasn’t been debunked. Increasingly, and to great confusion, the term gender pay gap is being used as if it is interchangeable with the term equal pay. Equal pay for equal work is a separate construct. It has been legislated against since the 1970s. If you can compare apples with apples i.e. equally qualified and experienced individual workers doing the same work for different pay then you’ve got legal redress.
The Gender Pay Gap has further confusing aspects. It is not present for women in their twenties. Increasingly, women earn more than men, initially. It kicks in at some point between 28 and 35. It persists in kicking in at this point. The same women that were earning well during their twenties (15 years ago) are not earning so well when compared to their male peers now that they are all over 40. It gets worse when women move into their fifties. There was an expectation that as time passed and the girls who hold their own and often outperform at school, university and through their twenties poured through the system we would see the gap disappear. Time has passed. It’s not evaporating. At the current rates of improvement, women won’t reach economic parity with men until 2133, according to the World Economic Forum. The gap’s causes include: the part-time pay penalty, women’s disproportionate responsibility for caring and the concentration of women in highly feminised, low paid sectors like care, retail and cleaning. Many dismiss the Gender Pay Gap with the argument that “You can’t expect cleaners to be paid the same as CEOs”. Nobody expects that. The underrepresentation of women in high paid positions of power and responsibility at the top of the pay and power pyramid is met with an overrepresentation of women in low paid sectors. We have no visible progression. The gap has plateaued in the UK for four years at 19.2%.
Part societal, part outdated working cultures, part domestic, part an issue of value, part perceptions of commitment, part conscious bias, part unconscious bias, it’s money on the floor that no one is picking up. Talents are wasted and skills are underused. The resource that is women is undervalued and underutilised. The longer term implications of women earning less over the course of their lifetimes are dire. They expose them to a higher risk of inadequate pensions and poverty.
It’s easy to say the gap is because of babies. But it’s not just babies, all care, care of any loved one care of our babies, children, elderly or infirm contributes to the gender pay gap. Anne Marie Slaughter is especially good on this. The value of care, the cost of care and the penalty for caring all feed the gap and hamper women’s ability to progress. Traditionally the domain of women, it doesn’t have to be that way forever. Even with babies, the biological bits that only a woman can do are confined to immediately before and after the birth. Men can and do care just as well as women, they haven’t historically, they’re not supported in doing so and it’s not been normalised enough yet. Millennials are very vocal about wanting to.
Any caring responsibility gives rise to a choice: outsource or fulfil in house. Care is expensive and rapidly rising. £60 per day per child at a nursery or with a childminder. Childcare in the UK is the highest in the world (tying with Ireland) according to the OECD. Costs of childcare are paid out of taxed income. The breakeven points are high. It prohibits many from working for a time. A London Business School Survey found that 70% of women feel anxious about taking a career break. Many people work through even when they see no money after taxes and care costs.
Working practices in the UK are the most rigid in Europe according to the IPPR. Where flex exists it’s negotiated for in existing filled roles, it’s rarely advertised in new roles.
There is definitely scope for more creative and imaginative approaches.
Last week the Women and Equalities Commission headed by Maria Miller, MP proposed 4 gamechangers:
1. All jobs should be made flexible from the outset unless there is a strong, persistent business case against.
This would help anyone with caring responsibilities manage the logistics that go along with ensuring seamless care prevails. It would reduce the stigma of asking for special treatment that is often interpreted as a lack of commitment. Flex entails empowering people to manage their own schedules and measuring their output. Presenteeism and productivity do not correlate.
2. Fathers and second parents should get three months’ well paid, non-transferable leave to support more equal participation in childcare.
This would support and empower the second parent in the home, allow time for bonding with children and enable a smooth transition back into the workplace at the end of a mother’s maternity leave. It would help normalise a more proportionate share of domestic duties across both parents. The financial burden of care costs would be alleviated for an additional three months.
3. The government should set up a “National Pathways to Work” scheme to get women back into employment after time out.
Returners from career breaks find it extremely difficult to re-enter the workforce, many find it impossible. Employers don’t like gaps. They prefer to hire people with jobs and current experience.
4. Industrial strategies for low-paid jobs done mainly by women such as care, cleaning and retail to increase productivity and drive up wages.
One of the UK’s lower paid occupations, 80% female, but it’s a big and growing industry with many within on zero hour contracts. There are concerns about pensions looming for many undertaking care on a poorly paid basis.
Going back to the economists with money on the floor – Picking the money up off the floor entails not exhibiting the same biases and restrictions as the rest of the market, daring to evaluate the value in a different way and being smart enough and brave enough to explore an anomaly.