FCE
Econografos
Nº 17 Febrero 2012
‘Women’s liberation seems to be only for the rich’, a discussion from Political Economy “La liberalización parece ser sólo para las ricas”, una discusión desde la Economía Política
Karen García Rojas ¡Escribe y publica la FCE te apoya!
Econografos Escuela de Economía N° 17 Enero 2012
“WOMEN’S LIBERATION SEEMS TO BE ONLY FOR THE RICH”, A DISCUSSION FROM POLITICAL ECONOMY Por: Karen Andrea García Rojas.1
Abstract On average women are paid less than men for equal work in every country in the world. In Colombia, the average of the wage gap seems to be between 10% and 13% although women have surpassed men in average years of education. A part of these gap can be explained because of men are greater represented in better paid disciplines, but the main explanation, 'the subjective one', relevant with gender wage discrimination, could explain more than the half of the gap. Historically, the female has had to cope with the existence of a stereotyped division of work, which has assigned her, specific roles with deep traditional roots. For women it has not been easy to get rid of these cultural patterns, which not only involve employment discrimination by employers, but also involve, in general, doubts and dilemmas that make them less competitive in a world dominated by men during centuries. There are several papers about the gender wage gap in Colombia. But this field only considers women professional workers, it means, high and middle classes. If they are in that situation, what happen with the lower classes‟ women? This essay constructs a discussion since a political economy critical view, around the difficult situation of labor gender discrimination and particular situations of female workers in all social classes, making a comparison between the roles and dilemmas of women workers of different classes; under the recognition that low class women face a deeper and more dramatic discrimination. In the lower classes, women's situation is far to be „liberation‟, although in some social circles there is the wrong idea that work gender discrimination „is over‟. In general, lower classes‟ women do have a low possibility of independence, autonomy and gender consciousness, because of the difficult access to quality education and formal jobs. Moreover, there is evidence which proves that executive women and women in leadership jobs have been decisively supported by the domestic work to get 'success' in their careers; which shows that in our society there is a gender gap by social class: the dynamics of modern capitalism has allowed, in general, the improved of the welfare, independence and equality for women in upper class (although there remains a gap with their male counterparts), but has not brought the same benefits to lower class women.
Keywords: gender wage gap, subject of degree, gender identity, social classes, domestic work, informal work, double workday, gender patterns and dilemmas, patriarchal capitalism.
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JEL Classification: A14, J16 J24, J31, J71
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Research product of seminar: Political Economy of class, gender and race guided by Stanley Malinowitz. Economic student. Universidad Nacional de Colombia. E mail: kagarciar@unal.edu.co
Universidad Nacional de Colombia Sede Bogotá - Facultad de Ciencias Económicas
“LA LIBERACIÓN PARECE SER PARA LAS RICAS”, UNA DISCUSIÓN DESDE LA ECONOMÍA POLÍTICA Resumen En promedio, las mujeres reciben salarios más bajos que los hombres por igual trabajo en todos los países del mundo. En Colombia, el promedio de la brecha salarial parece estar entre 10% y 13%, a pesar de que las mujeres han superado a los hombres en los años promedio de educación. Una parte de la brecha puede explicarse debido a que los hombres están mayormente representados en disciplinas mejor pagadas, pero la principal explicación, la „subjetiva‟, correspondiente a la discriminación salarial por género, podría explicar más de la mitad de la brecha. Históricamente, la mujer ha tenido que hacer frente a la existencia de una división estereotipada del trabajo, que le ha asignado roles específicos con profundas raíces tradicionales. Para las mujeres no ha sido fácil deshacerse de estos patrones culturales, que no sólo implican discriminación en el empleo por parte de los empleadores, sino que implican además, en general, dudas y dilemas que las hacen menos competitivas en un mundo dominado por los hombres durante siglos. Existen varias investigaciones sobre la brecha salarial por género en Colombia. Sin embargo, estas sólo consideran a las trabajadoras profesionales, es decir, mujeres de clases altas y medias. Si ellas están en esa situación, ¿Qué pasa con las mujeres de las clases bajas? En este ensayo se construye una discusión desde un punto de vista de economía política crítica, en torno a la difícil situación de la discriminación laboral de género y las situaciones particulares de las trabajadoras en todas las clases sociales, realizando una comparación entre las funciones y los dilemas de las mujeres trabajadoras de distintas clases, bajo el reconocimiento de que las mujeres de clase baja se enfrentan a una discriminación más profunda y dramática. En las clases bajas, la situación de las mujeres está lejos de ser una „liberación‟, aunque en algunos círculos se tiene la idea equivocada de que la discriminación laboral de género „ya no existe‟. En general, las mujeres de las clases bajas tienen baja posibilidad de adquirir independencia, autonomía y conciencia de género, debido a la dificultad de acceso a educación de calidad y puestos de trabajo formales. Por otra parte, existe evidencia que demuestra que las mujeres ejecutivas y en cargos directivos han sido decisivamente apoyadas por el trabajo doméstico para alcanzar el éxito en sus carreras, lo que demuestra que en nuestra sociedad existe también una brecha de género por clase social: la dinámica del capitalismo moderno ha permitido, en general, el mejoramiento del bienestar, la independencia y la equidad para las mujeres de clase alta (aunque sigue existiendo una brecha con respecto a sus pares masculinos), pero no ha traído los mismos beneficios para las mujeres de clase baja.
Palabras Clave: brecha salarial de género, carrera profesional, identidad de género, clases doble jornada laboral, patrones y dilemas de
Clasificación JEL: A14, J16 J24, J31, J71
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sociales, trabajo doméstico, trabajo informal, género, capitalismo patriarcal.
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Rector Moisés Wassermann Lerner Vicerrector Sede Bogotá Julio Esteban Colmenares
Facultad de Ciencias Económicas Decano Jorge Iván Bula Escobar Vicedecano Académico Juan Abel Lara Dorado
Centro de Investigaciones para El Desarrollo CID Director Jorge Armando Rodríguez Subdirector German Nova
Escuela de Economía, ni a la Facultad de Ciencias Económicas, ni a la Universidad Nacional de Colombia.
FACULTAD DE CIENCIAS ECONÓMICAS
·1952 - 2012· CENTRO DE INVESTIGACIONES PARA EL DESARROLLO - CID
Escuela de Economía
“WOMEN’S LIBERATION SEEMS TO BE ONLY FOR THE RICH”, A DISCUSSION FROM POLITICAL ECONOMY Por: Karen Andrea García Rojas Women earn less than men in every country in the world. The Global Gender Gap Report 2011 found that in Colombia the situation is very serious: the country ranks 94 in the index of wage equality for similar work in a sample of 135 countries (Hausmann, Tyson & Zahidi, 2011). In Colombia, working women earn 7.1% less than men, according to the BID‟s study “Gender and Ethnic Wage Gaps in Latin America” published in October 2009. The average gap in Latin America is of 17.2%. The study found that in Latin America, men earn more than women in all age groups, all levels of education, all types of employment (independent, employer or employee) and all sizes of business. This happens even though women have surpassed men in average years of education: the education gap between women and men has almost disappeared, and according to the conclusions of several researchers, such as the BID‟s economist Hugo Ñopo, Latin American women have exceeded the average time of men‟s education. The same result was found in a study by the economist Ximena Peña, a Colombian expert on the labor market. This study revealed that in Colombia the gender gap in education has not only closed, but on average women have exceeded men in the level of studies conducted and completed. Between 25 and 40 years old, there are more women than men with college degrees: for every four men with higher education there are five women in the same condition. Despite this, the researcher found that the wage gap between men and women with university education in Colombia amounted to 19% in 2008.
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First, from early on in their career, women earn lower wages compared to their male counterparts; this gap is on average 10.7%. Second, gender differences in subject of degree explain at least 34%, and up to 41% of the average wage gap. Finally, the gender gap for
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But there is also the idea that those differences can be explained because of the greater representation of men in higher paying careers, such as engineering. Baron and Cepeda (2012) found interesting results by using information for recent college graduates in Colombia in 2007 and 2008. They found that those differences by careers do exist, but they only explain just a part of the gap:
Econografos Escuela de Economía N° 17 Enero 2012
recent graduates exhibits glass ceiling effects, as women at the top of the distribution face higher wage gaps (12% at the median and 15% at the top). A smaller proportion of the gap can be attributed to field of study at the top, 31%, than at the middle of the distribution, 42%. On average, thus, field of study explains 3-4% higher wages for men relative to women (p. 10).
It suggests that the subjective „gender factor‟ could explains more than the 50% of the gap in recent professional graduates. In general, according to PNUD, no country in the world has ensured that women earn the same as men for equal work and equal levels of skills. There are several formal papers about wage gap and gender issues for professionals and formal women workers, it means, women of high and middle classes. Baron and Cepeda (2012) found that the gap is even deeper in high levels of income, and less explained by the career election. But these „educated‟ women are the fortunate portion. But women of lower classes suffer a special degree of inequity, not only because of wage differences, which are difficult to measure in those classes, where the informal employment is predominant, but for the fragility of their degree of access to education, access to a formal job, autonomy and independence.
Why the gap? Ximena Peña suggests that since the persistence of a clear pay gap is not due to limitations in the training of women, it may respond to the traditional problem of discrimination. However, many sectors have the misperception that in Colombia, job discrimination against women has almost ceased to exist. A survey of the company Yanbal, for example, found that women between 18 and 25 years of age in general do not feel that there is gender discrimination at work in Colombia.
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The truth is that although the inclusion of women in the labor market has improved markedly over recent decades, the differences in gender-based employment are still very disturbing. The existence of more jobs for women of course implies that there are fewer housewives and more women in employment. For most middle-class women in general this is something positive, because they are more likely to go to work and earn a proper wage. Thus women reduce their economic dependence, which is positive for women in Colombia, where domestic violence against them exhibits high rates.
Universidad Nacional de Colombia Sede Bogotá - Facultad de Ciencias Económicas
While capitalism has resulted in the inclusion of women among income workers, the situation for workers in general is not satisfactory: "As good economists, we can say that the effect for women has been positive if we keep all else constant" (Stanley Malinowitz, Phd., Interview) Professor Malinowitz points out that the increased volume of female employment has occurred because the rise of Neoliberalism causes a dynamic where men are paid less than in the past. Consequently, a single wage is not enough to sustain the whole family, so it may be noted that wage labor for some women is more a necessity than a right. This is in agreement with research by Peña, who points out that a woman‟s salary is still perceived in some circles as income 'complementary' to that of men, using this to justify the lowest wages. This is compounded by the fact that women exhibit lower bargaining power for their wages, a fact which has been proven in publications like the book "Women Do not Ask" by Linda Babcock, professor at Carnegie Mellon University. Historically, the female has had to cope with the existence of a stereotyped division of labor, which has assigned specific roles with deep traditional roots. For women it has not been easy to get rid of these cultural patterns, which not only involve employment discrimination by employers, but also involve special persistent doubts and dilemmas that make them less competitive in a world dominated by men during centuries. The expert in gender studies María Consuelo Cardenas has found in her research on the characteristics of women in management positions that personal factors, such as lack of confidence in her own capabilities in the context of education in terms of a role assigned by society, constitute a consensual limitation for women in their jobs and to negotiate fair wages.
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An interesting finding from a study of the psychologist and professor at Los Andes, is that most executives analyzed were female college graduates. "When you identify in the literature the benefits of female education in schools versus co-education, it is mentioned that women can better express their leadership qualities when they are against women than when they have to compete with men, and that then facilitates performance."
Econografos Escuela de Economía N° 17 Enero 2012
Additionally, as suggested by Professor Malinowitz "Women in general are still in charge of childcare and domestic chores organization, so in most cases seek a more flexible job, being at a competitive disadvantage in terms of job performance." Because of this, companies choose not to hire women or to pay them less, providing a way to limit the cost of absences of women due to addressing domestic and family commitments, and for situations such as maternity leave. Malinowitz indicates that unlike wage labor, in domestic work the distribution has changed very little: "In this way, women must bear an additional burden of working hours at home in which the man participates usually very little."
A gap within women While for all social strata, the trend is that women remain the most responsible for childcare and housework, for women workers of the high strata, especially those who hold leadership positions, it seems more to be work that mainly deals with the logistics. Cardenas and Durana (2009) developed a study on a sample of 94 Colombian executives, whose careers were predominantly of Business Administration and Economics. They found that the vast majority of women in leadership positions at the first, second and third levels have managed to be promoted in their careers thanks to the significant help of domestic service. "Most respondents (93.4%) have domestic workers: 96.3% in the first, 91.7% in the second and 90% in the third level" (p. 37, translation by the author).
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Cardenas and Durana concludes: "The participants who had exercised a position on the first level are characterized by having left school or having studied primarily female careers such as engineering, law and administration, having postgraduate master's predominantly, being or having been married and having children, considering helpful the cooperation of domestic service. Most have reached the highest positions in organizations across the spectrum of financial or commercial areas and has achieved this thanks to their outstanding performance and personality characteristics" (p. 38, translation by the author) This shows that the higher in the hierarchy is the position held, the greater is the use of domestic service. It is thanks to this invaluable support, which is not so common in developed countries, that the most successful executives have been able to devote full time to the work activities required of them.
Universidad Nacional de Colombia Sede Bogotá - Facultad de Ciencias Económicas
However, women of lower strata who are far from senior management, which provide women as domestic servants, usually are subjected to a double workday: the work at home and working for monetary income. In these sectors of the population, it is common to assign the woman the housework and childcare, while pressing economic needs require them to also enter the labor market. To this extent, poor women who decide to enter the job market, whose bargaining power is even lower, in general have not been able to access higher education and are forced to seek informal or subcontracting work that carry very high levels of exploitation, including sometimes excessively long days. This is the known case of women workers in flower farms in the savannah of Bogota. Other women, in search of flexibility that allows them to take care of their homes, decide to work from home, even under extreme exploitation, as is the case of women workers in the so-called satellite companies, especially in the textile sector. The struggles in high classes are extremely different of the ones in low classes. As Abbassi and Lutjens (2002) argue, in the last decades there has been a feminization of some kinds of waged workforce; some examples are the „maquila‟ production, the creation of Export Processing Zones (EPZs), and employment in the tertiary sector. These dynamics have in common extremely bad remuneration. This tertiary sector includes sometimes work related to the increasing informal sector. Franko (1999) identifies 3 categories in women‟s informal work: domestic labor, own-account employment and micro-enterprises.
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The answer is that for these women, who have to do all the domestic work, to care for children and to earn money too, this work becomes the only choice. In Colombia, maquilas exist for the following brands: Victoria's Secret, Levi Strauss & Co., Nautica, Adidas, OshKosh, Eddie Bauer, Polo Ralph Lauren, Timberland, Tommy Hilfiger, Pierre
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Benería and Roldán (1987) find evidence about women workers in maquilas in Mexico, who are meaningfully lower paid and are subjugated to a continuous working day. The articulation of necessity and cultural patterns, they say, seems to make women suitable for that kind of work. This conclusion works Colombia. By doing a comparison with the case of domestic maquilas in Colombia, we can ask the same questions: “What role do women play in the articulation between the formal and the underground economy? Why is it an overwhelming majority of homeworkers are married women with children?” (p. 14)
Econografos Escuela de Economía N° 17 Enero 2012
Cardin, JC Penney, Limited Brands , Jockey, Vanity Fair, Sara Lee, Liz Claiborne, Mast Industries Inc., Hanes, Leggs, Oxford Industries, among others (Proexport, 2007). Companies like Didetexco (a subsidiary of Success) produce using 300 clothing sweatshops and intermediate processes (printing and embroidery). These women workers have to work without any contract, and that means without any guaranty as to social security and the right to unionization. They work at home, making clothes for those big brands, paying all their services, putting their own sewing machines, and being terrible paid. They may work from seven in the morning of Friday to eleven in the morning of Saturday to comply with the requests (interviews). This shows an extremely deep form of precarization of work, and a very special type of working, because there are not „bosses‟ and there are not workers in the common sense. Domestic services can be compared in Colombia with the notions exposed by Grace Esther Young (1987) in “The myth of being like a daughter”. This dynamic of rural young women working in domestic services in the cities is really similar in Colombia. They have great difficulties to study and are paid very badly. In general the psychological and ethnic origins of that kind of workers are very similar in Peru and Colombia. This kind of domestic work has certainly helped women of middle and high classes to perform with more flexibility and tranquility, and to be „successful‟ in their professional roles, at the expense of the exploitation of the domestic workers. These small examples prove that in fact, poor women have a worse dynamic of inclusion in the labor market. They don‟t have the consciousness of gender and they have fewer tools to play the „new roles‟ that the modernity requires for them. The difficulties of integration into working life, however, are a common denominator for women of any kind. The study by Cardenas, whose information was obtained through some executive workshops known as 'feminine consciousness forums', found that participants have achieved success in the workforce, often to the detriment of the aspirations of their personal and family life. Some have chosen to quit their jobs to address this dilemma.
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The obvious imbalance between the dimensions of these women respond to a traditional division of labor that is becoming more dramatically transformed, but in which life's conflicts have more impact on women than on men. Not surprisingly, these dilemmas become more severe the lower the stratum. Poor women, by necessity, cannot quit their jobs; most of the jobs require long hours and they
Universidad Nacional de Colombia Sede Bogotá - Facultad de Ciencias Económicas
have no domestic service to look after their children and their homes. Nor do they have in general access areas to help them acquire gender awareness and strengthen their training and self-esteem. While disparities exist for all women, they are worse in the case of poor women who are the majority. According to researcher Ximena Peña, only 15% of Colombian women have higher education. Additionally, those women with college degrees earned 2.37 times what a woman at the high school level earns. An investigation by this professor revealed that the gap to the lower strata is about 35% "which means that in the poorer sectors if a man earns $ 425,000, a woman earns $ 318,750 for the same hours worked." In the case of average wages, the gender gap seemed to be reduced, but at the highest wage levels the difference becomes higher and reaches up to 30%." Although it is evident that the wage gap is very high at both ends, it appears that while the quality of the inclusion of poor women in the labor market is quite poor, for women with senior executive positions, this implies a greater inclusion and a certain level of independence and increased equity of participation of women in the dynamics of society. According to Isabel Londoño, PhD from Harvard and director of the NGO Women for Colombia, "the greatest form of discrimination in the country is precisely that of class." If one looks at the top executives in Colombia, are all strata 5 and 6 ... although all have their own merits, the 'oil' of the upper class gave them access to the best positions. Positions which still being men‟s fields”.
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She makes a suggestive invitation: "Let's change with our practices, the design of fulltime work as an expression of loyalty and dedication to the organization and develop flexible working arrangements that respect diversity and individual interests." At the level of women, the introduction of a female consciousness which recognizes the difficulties involved in implementing solutions is a priority in moving towards equity, without the cancellation of identity and the denial of difference.
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It becomes urgent, then, not only the adoption of practices such as quotas in hiring, but a profound cultural change, which among other things implies a modernization of organizations: "There should be an alternative that allows women to continue working in the company and keep their children, as they would have to choose between two options giving up one of them ... the two roles can enrich each other and become allies instead of being polarized," suggests Cardenas (2007).
Econografos Escuela de Economía N° 17 Enero 2012
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Universidad Nacional de Colombia Sede Bogotá - Facultad de Ciencias Económicas
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