Fury over gender pay gap?

[hmmm]

"Women who work part-time are paid 40 per cent less per hour than men in full-time jobs, it was revealed yesterday. The gap has stayed the same for 25 years, the Equal Opportunities Commission reported.

In the Netherlands it is just seven per cent.

The Commission blamed a reluctance to offer women flexible hours for top jobs. And they said it forced women who spend time with their children to take lesser-paid positions. Chief executive Caroline Slocock said: “There’s no reason part-time work should be lower paid.” "

The gap is also pretty big in full employment and at the current rate of catch up I think I remember someone saying it would take over another fifty years for women to catch up with men's pay - and those statistics were with men and women who work the same job, same hours, same qualifications etc.


Thoughts?

[Manic23]

You're lucky you get paid at all...

Now get back in the kitchen and get my dinner on

[Shouldn't really have said that]

I think that that's pretty fair.

It simply means that the women have to work as hard as men in order to earn the same amount.

[novium]

[s]Unregisted User hmmm wrote on 11:25, 17th Jul 2004:
"Women who work part-time are paid 40 per cent less per hour than men in full-time jobs, it was revealed yesterday. The gap has stayed the same for 25 years, the Equal Opportunities Commission reported.

In the Netherlands it is just seven per cent.

The Commission blamed a reluctance to offer women flexible hours for top jobs. And they said it forced women who spend time with their children to take lesser-paid positions. Chief executive Caroline Slocock said: “There’s no reason part-time work should be lower paid.” "

The gap is also pretty big in full employment and at the current rate of catch up I think I remember someone saying it would take over another fifty years for women to catch up with men's pay - and those statistics were with men and women who work the same job, same hours, same qualifications etc.


Thoughts?


I've read a few studies that suggest that one of the biggest reasons TODAY that women make less money is that they are less willing to make demands... to negotiate. I can't remember the exact numbers, but most men will be offered X starting salary and then ask/demand more, while women are really likely to accept the starting offer.

Why this may be so is an interesting question. Is it one of those societal things? You know, unconscious but still there? I can't think of how exactly to say it, but I can give an example of another one of the societal things. When little boys get scraped knees or whatever, they are on the whole told things like, "It's just a little scratch. It isn't so bad. You can tough it out." and little girls are told, "oh, you poor poor thing. That must really hurt. Let's put a bandaid on it."

[bubba]

Isn't another main reason for the gap maternity leave. Not descriminination for women for having children, move that having a child means you need to take time off work and so you miss out on promotions and opportunities.

[Prophet Tenebrae]

It's most likely a combination of all these factors - we're only just know starting to see women reaching the higher echelons of management and it's just a trickle... I'd say that until women are more firmly entrenched in upper management that this problem won't go away.

[Guest]

[s]Unregisted User novium wrote on 07:09, 18th Jul 2004:
I've read a few studies that suggest that one of the biggest reasons TODAY that women make less money is that they are less willing to make demands... to negotiate. I can't remember the exact numbers, but most men will be offered X starting salary and then ask/demand more, while women are really likely to accept the starting offer.


Actually the main reason that women earn less is beacuse they often have to accept lesser paid jobs with better hours so they can spend time with their children.

Example before I was born my mum had a well paid job for a private company. But as a mother she was told she would be entitled to no emergency days off if I was ill, no flexitime to build up time to work from home and she had less holidays.

So she took a lesser paid job for the council - doing exactly the same amount of work but on flexitime. This enabled her emergency time off is needed which she could catch up on and flexitime to have days at home working to be with me and then later on with my younger siblings (she was now older also, and unlike me my siblings had a dad around).

She is well respected in her profession to the extent that many people go to her from advice. One young woman was round recently describing how she is working for a provate company as long as she can before having kids and moving to work for the council in the same job to save up a lot of money, while her husband will stay working (the same job) for a private company longer.

Obviously some men want to spend time with their children and change jobs too but it is much rarer. I had no idea it happened so much until I looked around at all the people my Mum now worked with - a vast majority of women even though it is a male dominated profession, and all of them mothers. Before when in a private company I can only remember two other women amongst all the men there who were of all different ages (there were only young women).


So that's a main reason why women still earn less than men, beacsue often they have to change jobs or cannot advance to the next post (another problem my mum has) if the hours are inflexible. Now while my mum wouldn't dream of taking back her old job and not see so much of my siblings as they grow up, I imagine, well I know that the extra money is really much needed.

Should women be given more "perks" than men? Well no. but I do believe that parents should at least be given more flexitime - where's the harm in that? They still work the same amount after all. But in many male dominated professions sympathy for mothers is not high with many feeling effectively forced out into lesser paid jobs.

[Haunted]

It sounds like women get paid the same for the same job as men, thus its all fair. If you need to take more time off work or get better hours then thats just life, sounds fair to me. I wouldnt even call it a problem

[Guest]

[s]Unregisted User wrote on 11:30, 18th Jul 2004:
Actually the main reason that women earn less is.....


Eek, I meant "a main reason" not "the main reason".

[suspicious]

[s]Haunted wrote on 16:32, 18th Jul 2004:
It sounds like women get paid the same for the same job as men, thus its all fair. If you need to take more time off work or get better hours then thats just life, sounds fair to me. I wouldnt even call it a problem


And are you male or female?

[Midget]

Am I allowed ot give away a Sinner's sex? Haunted's male. Although there has been some confusion in the past.

[Haunted]

quiet you

[Saki]

[s]Haunted wrote on 16:32, 18th Jul 2004:
It sounds like women get paid the same for the same job as men, thus its all fair. If you need to take more time off work or get better hours then thats just life, sounds fair to me. I wouldnt even call it a problem


I agree that, if you want to have better hours for family reasons, you ought to be willing to take a pay cut for it (and I'm female, if anyone thinks it's relevant) because I don't think it's fair for parents to get special treatment. On the other hand, I do think that there's still a problem with society's attitude that a working mother should take more responsibility for children than a working father. How often do you even hear the phrase "working father"? When more couples move to equal parenting responsibility, we'll see things changing, but the issue is not so much with employers (IMO anyway) but within couples.