It can also be caused by a lack of programmes to support women’s return to work after time out of the labour market for maternity leave, and the lack of gender responsive public services like affordable childcare so women can go back to work if they choose. The pay gap can also be caused by hiring and promotion decisions in the workplace, which favour men and non-mothers. This can relate to reduced working hours and/or employment in jobs with more seemingly family-friendly working hours, which tend to be lower-paid. While women are, on average, paid less than men, this disparity increases with the number of children a woman has. This traps women in low wages, with little opportunity for career progression and decent work.
These jobs often come with poor working conditions and fall outside of labour laws, so provide no access to health care, maternity protection or paid leave and put women at higher risk of violence at the workplace. Informal workĪround the world, women are significantly overrepresented in informal, insecure jobs, like cleaning, caring and garment/textile work. On average, women around the world carry out at least two and a half times more unpaid household and care work than men. This includes cooking, cleaning, fetching firewood and water, and taking care of children, sick relatives and/or the elderly.īecause of the disproportionate amount of unpaid care and domestic work that falls on women and girls, they have less time to spend on paid work, or expanding the skills and qualifications they would need to gain higher-paid employment opportunities. Even if they do, this does not guarantee them a good job when they leave school, due to persistent gender stereotypes and the sheer shortage of decent work in many places.
Equal pay day statistics full#
This is commonly compounded by discriminatory practices in the workplace, which tend to favour men in hiring decisions for higher-skilled, higher-paid jobs, and prevent women from gaining promotions and pay rises.Ĭhidi King, Director of the Equality Department of the International Trade Union Confederation, has observed that when women enter the labour market, their role as workers is often “seen as subsidiary or supplementary to their principle role of ‘homemakers’.”Įven where women have equivalent or better qualifications than men, their skills are not valued the same as men's and their career progression is slower.”įurthermore, systemic inequality means that globally, girls are less likely to get a full education than their male counterparts. These are often also occupations (like factory assembly, nursing or early years childcare) that are seen as easy to fit around women’s unpaid care and domestic work.
As such, they are not seen as occupations that require a huge amount of training or upskilling, and therefore they are not seen as warranting higher wages.
Equal pay day statistics manual#
Systemic gender inequality is the ultimate root cause of the gender pay gap.ĭue to gender stereotypes and social norms, women are often trapped in low-skilled jobs with low wages, perceived as well-suited to women’s manual dexterity, attention to detail and caring nature – assumed to be every woman’s traits. Why is there a gender pay gap? Systemic inequality
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