To think if we all boycotted companies with a big gender pay gap we can make a change?

[BorneFeet]

I've just got new insurance and I deliberatly avoided a company that I found out had an awful gender pay gap thanks to an ill fated instagram advert over the weekend.

If we all did the same we could make a big difference right?

Only speaking for myself but I’m sure my DH would love to have worked PT and had me work FT instead! For that reason, I’m pretty happy with the status quo!

The pay gap is representative of much more than hiring practices. If companies felt pressure over this and acted on it it could harm a lot of women who are working part time or failing to progress because they are focusing on their personal lives. This isn’t as simple as men get paid more. This is about needing someone to take care of children, that someone inevitably being a woman the vast majority of the time. Instead of trying to make things look equal maybe we should actually find ways to break down the social pressures that prevent them from being equal. If you really care about the gender pay gap, raise you sons to think it’s not an issue if they’re wife out earns them or that being a SAHD is a viable life plan.

But if I were a man I almost certainly wouldn't be working part time. It's a choice, but it's not a choice made from a position of equality

Dh works in the building trade. Office based.

Women generally are secretaries and support staff. Any woman wanting to leave early for a school play or negotiate flexible hours is grumbled about, but allowed to.

A man asking to leave early to pick kids up is met with “can’t your wife do it?” If they do allow a man to do such thing there are a lot of snarky comments and teasing about being under the thumb etc....

It still is not socially acceptable to try and ask for child accomodation in many industries if you are male.

I am in a more 50:50 sex based workplace.

Societally, it was far easier and far more acceptable for me to request flexible working. Request was granted straight away. Dh’s office would have laughed, said no, and he would have had a fight. Made worse by the fact no other men work flexibly so no precedent to argue.

To close the gender pay gap men need to step up with parenting and workplaces need to accept men may want to do so. Society needs to stop with the expectation that women “choose” to drop careers after children, men “choose” to take on the workplace responsibility.

I’d find it interesting to see the stats on how many men vs. Women request flexible working, and what % of each sex are granted....

To close the gender pay gap men need to step up with parenting and workplaces need to accept men may want to do so. Society needs to stop with the expectation that women “choose” to drop careers after children, men “choose” to take on the workplace responsibility.

I completely agree - 100%. However, I also agree with Justanotherworkingmom that it isn't a conspiracy that many women, with all working options freely open to them, actively prefer to work part-time.

You only have to look at when the issue of shared parental leave comes up - some people criticise men for not wanting to consider taking any PL, but plenty of women also declare that they wouldn't want their DHs to share the PL, because it's their preference to take it all themselves.

It's all about all parents taking their responsibility, having the same options open to them regardless of their sex, and of companies recognising and enabling this on equal terms for their employees, regardless of their sex; but if many, many families decide between them that what works best for their needs and preferences is for the DW to work PT and the DH to work FT, what right do others have to tell other women that they are wrong to decide this and that they should feel ashamed of exercising their freedom to choose?

Much of the discussion of part time work seems to be ignoring the whole low hours contracts that workers are not choosing.

I work part time. It isn’t a choice. It certainly is not flexible for me. I work very antisocial hours and work full time on weeks when my employer wants me to.

It is flexible for my employer. They get more hours out of people when the employer needs it; they can punish workers who don’t do all kinds of extras that they can’t legally be compelled to do by refusing them extra hours.

Most women (and men, but mostly women) in part time jobs don’t do them because it is flexible and fits round the kids. They do them because huge swathes of the economy now operates on employing lots of people on low hour or zero hour contracts.

I'm not convinced that most PT workers are doing so unwillingly, but that's a very good point, Nameofchanges.

Coming at it from the other angle of wanting PT work, I get annoyed at a lot of adverts for PT jobs that will say something like 'full-time hours might be available for the right candidate' or 'part-time leading to full-time' - as if PT work is some kind of consolation prize that nobody would actually choose; but I can see how extremely frustrating it must be to be underemployed when you do want to work FT but there's nothing suitable available.