Gender Inequalities In Pay

Diversity Management

(LUBS5365M)

Assignment One:

Explain why inequalities in pay persist in the UK labour market and how these can be addressed with reference to legislation, social policy and other factors.

Submission Date: 12/03/2014

Word Count: 2992

Introduction
In current society, the gender equalities in pay are obviously in most countries, especially in UK labour market, it is one of the highest gender pay gap in European Union (Rubery, 1998). OECD (2013) represent that GPG is measure of difference between female and male employees’ earnings, when they do the full-time or part-time jobs. The gender pay gap (GPG) remains stubborn although it has improved, the statistic demonstrate there
still exist the inequalities in pay between genders in workplace.
The consequences of gender pay inequalities will result in social exclusion, skill shortage, poverty, undervalue the women’s work and failure in the labor market, therefore it is imperative to take action to improve this situation. This essay will firstly illustrate the reason for persist phenomenon of gender inequalities in pay from three parts: society, individual and workplace. Although the GPG and equalities cannot be completely eliminate but in this essay several ideas will rise to address and narrow the gender pay gap based on the support of the social policy, legislation and other factors.

Reason for pay inequalities persistent in UK labor market
In the view of society, based on the UK historical and influence of primitive society, patriarchy is the main characteristic. Walby (1990) state that male dominate the series of the social practices and structures that to exploit and oppress female, which decide the women 's subordinate status. According to UK pre-labor market experiences, gender have been already socialized into different roles
before they are enter the labor market. Thus the gender divisions of labor are different, mostly men receive higher education and position in workplace, and the corresponding result of good pay by compare to women, women are not encouraged to have same high education or challenge works as men. Under this male dominated socialization background, this tends to relegate female to orient on more domestic works. Because the traditional view shows UK has the dual breadwinner model, male are the full time earners while women are the short part time earners, thus women will have burden of family responsibility (Lewis, 2001). This is the barrier to the women enter in the labour market and hard to get promotion, the UK studies has present existence of inequalities in pay even the male and female hold the same level of education degree, qualification or work experiences (Solberg and Teresa, 1995), Male will stay at a relatively high paying industries like the finance, utilities, technology, manufacturing and oil exploration which represented by union. By comparison, female are mostly work in service industries such as school teachers, clients, nursing or administrative which has relative low pay jobs (Blau and Kahn, 2007). Some women have influence by the traditional concept, they think their duty is to taking care family rather than making money, for men are the prime earners. Thus the pay to women absolutely lower than men, which causes the inequalities between genders.

From individual perspective, human capital (HC) theory can be the typical side to illustrate cause of gender pay inequalities. HC theory can be explained by the differences of innate abilities, education, training investment and work experiences between genders (Garavan, 2001).
On one hand, it argues that in workplace female are much less productive than male due to the characteristics mention before. Jagger (1983) presents that the historical of male association with physical tasks and female 's past poorer nutrition. Women are very inferiority under the society of patriarchal, and they are persuaded to show the feminist traits. Table 1 has showed the distribution of the UK’s HC between genders in 2009, compare the figures in table which show male distribution more based on the high human capital than women (Office for National Statistics, 2009).

Individuals choose to invest in their human capital depend on the anticipated returns that they will receive from their investment (Becker, 1964). The finding from Blundell (2000) point out the rise of the education level is link to the huge increase in females’ income than males’, thus female can experience marginally higher return than male. However, when women and men stay at same education level, women still have unequal treatment in pay. For example, female only get 72% of income of male when both of them have no qualification, while female earn 82% of income of male when they have their first degree. Therefore, women cannot get equal pay than men and receive the low HC returns although they have highly educated. Women get less return on skills because they need take the employment breaks which make them less likely to continue invest in their education (Becker, 1971).
On the other hand, gender in the different work experiences which also can impact on the GPG (Walby and Olsen, 2004). Experience explains 37% in the UK, and the profile of work experience reveals that women are firstly engage in the labor market in the equal term of men counterparts, the experience accumulate and increase which show the GPG will widen. The relationship between the works and the human capital of female returner often mismatch, when female want to move from full time to part time job, especially will suffer the experience downward job mobility than male (Manning and Petrongolo, 2005).
Based on the preference and rational choice of the women, they can choose whether entering the workplace or focus on family care. The GPG will arise when female have different preferences and also want to choose the job which has the lower pay when they want reconciliation both family and work. Take consideration of having child, UK women may choose prioritize the domestic responsibility over their job, so they prefer do the short PT jobs although the pay they get is very low than FT jobs, however the short working hours and flexible free time can be used to family care.

From the workplace perspective, there are two main aspects can explain the reason of inequalities in gender pay in UK labor market.
On one hand, the difference of working pattern such as length of FT, PT employment and responsibility of family care which can cause the gender pay gap (Walby and Olsen, 2004). Table 2 has shown that from 1997 to 2012, the FT gender gap has a trending downside, and the gap has been narrowed these years, but the part time women’s pay gap still in high position. In table 3, compare the median earnings of UK employees in 2012, It is obviously that in FT job hourly or weekly pay, women has earn less than men, on the contrary , in the payment of PT job to women is higher than men. Moreover, women employ in the FT work can receive the pay higher than work in PT.
In UK, PT female employees stand a larger prorate pay gap with those full time men employees in both private and public sectors. 44% women do in the PT job, thus it become largest sector compare with other OECD countries which has do the great contribute to the overall gender pay gap (Reilly and Fagan, 1998). This can be clarified that the part time employment has deterioration of the human capital in certain extent, and it is because of the lower level of employer training and education. In additional, the penalty of the part time pay is also very high in UK than other countries, and particularly higher in the group of female

UK women mostly choose to work for PT largely due to childcare responsibility, it is constructed as the parental responsibility and seems to involve more mothers’ time than fathers’ (Gregory and Milner, 2009). The decision of having child influences their pay only insofar as women reduce or move the FT to PT job and prefer to take the break out of the labour market. Lewis and Smithson (2001) explain that In UK due to the less support from the provision of the state, they have provide very minimal childcare services to those parenthood, and the cost of childcare placed at the door of working parents. Many of women will consider to reentering the labor force after the break, or alternatively choose to do the part time jobs which are confronted with the relative low pay than their male workers who didn 't interrupt their career, this also directly restricts women’s opportunities of career and limits the job development and progression. However, to those female who haven’t decided to have children may also regard as the “potential mothers” that will be denied or lost the opportunities of promotion (Goldberg, Dey and Hill 2007).
One thing also needs to be mentioned is the penalty of the PT pay which is also very higher in UK and especially the inequalities to women is huge compare to men (Francesconi and Gosling, 2005). Women do PT may suffer the multiple pay penalties in low pay companies, jobs with the low level of pay or skills, and mostly in the feminized works.

On the other sides, undervaluation of women’s work and skill cannot be neglected. The undervaluation treat the women’s job and cause the gender pay gap related to following three main points (Grimshaw and Rubery, 2007).
Firstly, UK is a more liberal countries, it has a low employment protection and insurance in labor market which means it lack of support of welfare regime policy from the state (Esping-Andersen, 1990). When women decide to temporary leave the job when they want having child, mothers may chose come back to work following the maternity, this which limit the opportunities of flexibility and employer will undervalue their skills and performance that result in lower pay. The family responsibility is the main influence on women’s ability to command higher rates of pay.
Secondly, OGS is the tendency for the unevenness of the gender distribution in different level of the sector, job group or industry (Blackburn, 2002). The horizontal segregation forces UK female work into more female-dominated industries and sectors, and it also restricts women’s’ access to engage in the male-dominated areas of economic activity. The vertical segregation not only limits women’s future job development, promotion and training but also lose the higher pay and skilled position to them (Scottish Low Pay Unit, 1999). In 2012 UK labour market, the figures in table 4 show that part time has a greater gender pay gap than in the FT, and the pay to women work in PT larger than men, and more of them in public sectors. Women are usually considered has low valuation, domestic oriented needed and visibility of status, thus the five c’s’ jobs they do which are cleaning, services and sales catering, clerical and caring, these are in low paid occupation, however, men have high skill and education can do more complex and hard jobs like manager, engineering, skilled trades or technician which can receive higher pay. Mostly company hire female in menial jobs which can causes the OGS which will lead to the gender pay inequalities.

Thirdly, Blau and Kahn (2007) represent that gender discrimination of pay has still existed in UK labor market, which has a measureable impact on women’s pay (Rake, 2000). The found has estimated that the discrimination gap for PT is 40% which is higher than the 23% of the FT jobs. But most elements link with being women this is due to discrimination (Swaffield, 2000).
UK equal pay review showed the evidence of the discrimination that most women cannot join in the senior job of 40%, they also get the lowest salaries of 22% and 19% of them which have difference in time to progress through pay scale (Adams, 2010). Women can meet the glass ceiling, because company may have unjustified aspects to women because of having the imperfect information, they will also be considered as less productive and ability when compare to men, they are not likely stay long term in company when they decide to have maternity leave. Employer preference can also influence of inequality of pay to gender, based on different education level or work experience (Phelps, 1972). Even women have the same background, qualification or knowledge as men, however sometimes they couldn’t get same pay, especially to those women who are married and work in short contract or part time job. They think employ more women may reduce their labor costs which directly influence their pay.

Suggestions to address the gender pay inequalities
Based on the reason of inequalities of gender pay discussed above, ensure the implementation of the existing policy and legislation have smoothly carry out in UK labor market meanwhile other measures need to consider to address this issue.
Firstly, the equal pay legislation should to reformed and modernized, although the legislations like Equality Act 2010, Gender Equality Duty 2006 and Sex Discrimination have been implemented, but inequality is still there. UK Government should raise the national minimum wage to guarantee people can get minimum income particularly to those women who work in low paid occupation and it is also vital in setting the pay floor that can disproportionately influence on female and have a positive effect on the GPG. Government need to strengthen the equal pay review, and the employers are expected to take this voluntary action. The aim to require the workplace to conduct the pay audit, and make the analysis which can test whether the gender pay inequities raising from differing contractual arrangements, once diagnose the cause of inequalities they can immediately take action reveal from the analysis and also enable the institutions to prove progress about providing equal pay and opportunity across the workforce which in order to avoid the gender pay inequality.
Secondly, the OGS need to be eliminated, promote the pay equal between genders and empower those female. This disparity should be reduced when boy and girl have education in school before they step into the labor market. More education they achieve and more chance of income generating they will accessibility (GADN, 2012). The initiatives try to support the development of women’s’ career by improving the welfare regime policy on maternity leave and childcare services. These can especially providing more crèches and childcare provision to mothers and reserve the parental leave periods to those fathers so that cross-over couples can share roles of family duty, this make women can join the labor market without worries. The better external assistance to women such as family friendly policy, this will allow them to pursue the similar pay and job histories as those men.
Thirdly, by consideration the genders pay discrimination in the workplace which leads to differently in pay, trade unions should develop some online tools to monitor pay differentials while to conducted research in this area.
It has a successful procedural change to pay, Heery (2006) claim that “relatively costless from the perspective of the employer that contain access to information on gender pay rates or the adoption of a written equal pay policy.” Otherwise, having a good relationship with the trade union will help solve the problems of the unequal in pay when having the collective bargaining agenda in workplace. When women have unequal pay, they can participate the collective bargaining, if they covered by this which can be awarded much larger pay increases than before. With a strong union density that help to ease the
GPG.
Fourthly, in order to realize the gender equal pay in workplace, enhancing transparency and developing accountability are also very important (Equal Opportunities Commission, 2001). One restriction to the equal pay is people always don’t know how much other people earn because of secrecy, therefore the transparency in pay is necessary provide to workers. Transparency can eliminate the GPG when it opens up the organizations and institutions to check. Meanwhile, it is also necessary to establish women’ accountability to undertake the equal pay reviews and take action on the results, the existing regimes of the inspection which can be used to support the requirements to execute the equal pay review which can also decrease the GPG and show the equal pay to gender.
Finally, UK government need to promote the quality part time jobs especially to the women, the provision should be set and provide the equal treatment in better practice and equality legislation, such as recruitment, training and development, promotion, or providing more flexible working patterns. This can also let women move to better jobs and develop their career pathways working in relatively lower paid jobs. Women work in PT job has low security, company should consider increasing better paid and high quality PT jobs opportunities to them who has high or medium education and skills. Companies cannot subjective exclude women out of the labor market and offer low pay, just because they have child need to take care that will neglect the work. Providing more flexible PT work can improve the matching of the female job experience and skill. Women need to have equal chance in career training both in FT or PT, for best training related to higher incomes which also can increase female workforce attachment (Olsen, 2010).

Conclusion
To sum up, this essay has discuss tree main reasons for why persistent existing of gender pay inequalities. Firstly, social and history lay the foundation of the women position are lower than men, patriarchy is predominant and limit the women get the high pay in workplace. Secondly, from individual side, women are lack of human capital, they will invest less when do they the PT job or having child, generally women’s education and work experience will be an important factor effect their pay. From workplace aspect, the short PT working pattern restrict women get high pay, the discrimination and occupation segregation still exist in workplace that result in undervalue of women’s job. Then the suggestion has raised to address this question based on government should raise the NMW, improve the welfare regime policy, at same time company process need to be transparency, establish a better equal pay review, support more education, training and flexible PT job to women which can eliminate the pay inequalities to gender.

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