While significant progress has been made in the emancipation of women at the workplace, there are still certain obstacles that prevent female workers from achieving their full potential. Malta’s gender pay gap stands at 11 per cent on average, and efforts need to be made to close this gap for the benefit of the economy and, more important, for the well-being of society.
The President’s Foundation for the Well-being of Society has commissioned a very well-produced video to dispel the many myths which exist concerning the gender pay gap. Gender pay gap is not to be confused with equal pay for equal work which is now enshrined in the principles of our legislation. It is the difference between the average gross earnings of female and male employees.
Most studies on this issue agree that women do not face the same level playing field as men when it comes to career progression. Caring responsibilities and the burdens of motherhood are universally accepted as the primary cause behind the gender pay gap. Early in their lives, most women have to absent themselves from work to give birth and take care of young children. When they return to work they often have to deal with caring for elderly relatives or sick children – a responsibility that few men shoulder.
It is also a fact that employer bias against women, especially women with onerous family commitments, taking up senior positions in business is an undeniable reality. The boards and management committees of most organisations are still filled with mainly male professionals depriving qualified women of earning the higher salaries paid to male senior executives.
When professional women take career breaks to raise their children, they often find out that on their return to the workplace their skills may have become obsolete. Legal and technological developments in many professions make it necessary for workers to submit themselves to continuous professional development. Some employers are beginning to offer their female employees on child care leave the opportunity to continue working from home and also attend training courses to ensure that their skills are updated. This practice is certainly the way forward for professional workers.
Many of the more poorly paid occupations are those traditionally done by women, requiring skills traditionally regarded as ‘feminine’, such as people skills and caring skills. This reality is why one finds more women working as nurses, teachers and shop assistants. A wide-held perception is that women ‘choose’ these jobs because they offer more flexibility or are more family-friendly. This reasoning could encourage employers to discard their responsibility to change the culture of their organisation by supporting women who have additional family duties.
However, what will help women to earn as much as men is a change in business culture. The pressure of around-the-clock work culture in which people are expected to answer emails at 11pm and take cell phone calls on Sundays is increasing. The challenge of balancing work and family life is a more daunting task for women than for men.
Pay discrimination by gender is illegal. However, we need to change the culture where discretionary areas in determining pay like starting salaries, pay on promotion, pay for performance and ad-hoc pay decisions, such as retention bonus are used as tools by employers to pay women less than men.
This is a Times of Malta print editorial