When we talk about the wage gap between men and women, we talk about the medianThe “median” is the “middle” value in the list of numbers arranged in numerical order of smallest to the largest. wages of men and women who work full time.
The International Labour Organization (ILO) estimates that women on average continue to be paid about 20 percent less than men across the world.
Researchers have identified a couple of reasons for the gender pay gap.
Reason 1: Different career paths.
As per ILO stats for 121 countries, there are many occupations around the world that are split by gender.
E.g., women dominate careers/positions such as personal care workers (88% women), health associate professionals (76% women), teachers (68% women), etc. and these jobs tend to be lower paid.
On the other hand, men dominate careers/positions, which are higher paid, such as chief executives (72% men), Information-and-Communications-Technology (81% men).
Reason 2: Motherhood.
As per a report by The Economist, in Britain, 70% of women scaled back their work hours or switched to a less demanding job after a child was born, while only 11% of men did the same.
In Australia, it was 56% women and 19% men, and in France, it was 55% women and 13% men.
A survey in the US on households with two-working-parents found that for every household where a man took care of kids’ schedules, looked after sick kids, handled the majority of household chores, there were 7 where the women did the same.
The gender pay gap that is attributable to motherhood varies in different fields, e.g. jobs that require specific hours (sales, marketing, finance, operations) have been found to have a higher pay gap.
For a scientist or someone whose work is self-directed and doesn’t need coordination (and, therefore, no specific hours), the gap is not as wide.
The job of a pharmacist is said to support this argument emphatically: In the 1970s, when the pharmacies used to operate during certain hours (9 to 5, for example), women pharmacists used to earn 66% of men pharmacists.
Today, when pharmacies are owned by large chains and are open for longer durations (adding more hours-flexibility), women pharmacists earn 92% of what men pharmacists earn.
More women in non-traditional careers and higher involvement of men in child care are two possible ways to stop women from holding back their careers.
