Wage Gap

IN MARCH 2017, Iceland made headlines as the first country in the world to require businesses to demonstrate they are paying men and women equally. Then in July 2017, the BBC made headlines when published data revealed a large gap between male presenters’ salaries and female presenters’ salaries—and then again when the presenters demanded that the BBC address the disparity. In fact, the issue of the gender wage gap makes headlines regularly, yet most of us don’t really understand what it is or what it represents.

What Is the Gender Wage Gap?

At its most basic, the gender wage gap refers to the difference between what women are paid and what men are paid, based on average wages over time. That seems straightforward, right? But one reason the gender wage gap is so contested has to do with the way it is calculated.

If we compare the average hourly wage of women working full time to that of men working full time, in 2014 women made

$0.88 for every dollar men made. That figure, however, doesn’t reflect the complexity of women’s working lives. For instance, if we compare men’s full-time, full-year income to women’s full-time, full-year income, in 2014 women earned $0.74 for every dollar men earned. The larger gap reflects a specific factor about women’s participation in the workplace: that the average woman works fewer paid hours annually than the average man does. That’s because working women’s available time is limited by unpaid family responsibilities.

Full-time wage figures may be misleading, however, because a significant number of women work part time even though many of them would prefer to work full time (women are the majority of part-time employees as well as the majority of minimum-wage workers). The Canadian Women’s Foundation (CWF), a charitable organization dedicated to women’s social equality and participation, calculated that when part-time earnings are added to the mix, women fall back sharply: to $0.67 for every dollar men earned in 2011. And even this figure may leave our understanding incomplete because it doesn’t reflect when those hours are being worked—what time of day or day of the week—and whether the employer offers workers an incentive to work long or unusual hours. And since we’re talking in averages, it’s important to remember that every woman experiences the pay gap differently. The CWF notes that “Women who are racialized, Indigenous, living with a disability or newcomers to Canada earn even less.” By comparison, current U.S. statistics show that the average American woman

makes $0.80 for every dollar a man makes, but this figure changes from state to state and drops noticeably for women of colour.

Pay disparity between men and women is so commonplace in our social world that it can feel natural. Male actors earn more on television and in movies than their female co-stars do. Male athletes earn much bigger salaries—and sign more valuable endorsement deals— than female athletes do. Even the average male writer earns 45 percent more than the average female writer does. No matter how we compare men’s and women’s wages, a gap exists, but its existence is not natural or accidental. The CWF estimates that, despite legislation, “10–15% of the wage gap is attributed to gender-based wage discrimination.” The root of this discrimination rests in social attitudes and beliefs.

Finally, we can push for social change in our homes, schools and communities. We must encourage boys and men to participate equally in the unpaid work of living, and work to dismantle myths of masculinity that restrict people to gender-stereotyped roles. Fiona Angus affirms, “Nothing will change until there is widespread cultural knowledge that all human beings are capable of a wide variety of skills and knowledge. We need to disrupt the belief that what men do is more important, and deserving of higher pay, than what women do.”

The problem is not women. The problem is not men. The problem is a system that rewards people unequally for their work— that in some cases rewards a woman for depending on a male partner rather than asserting her own independence and agency. Changing our policies, actions and workplaces to be sustainable and fair will make work better for women, men and society overall. t8n