equal pay

[crappymummy]

This is a thread where I would like to discuss equal pay, for women who are not global superstars, who do not sit on a Board, and are not in the running to head the North American division of their companies.

in my own work, I have not progressed up the pay scale because of taking a maternity leave- my ML came at the end of the year, and only affected one month of that year, but because of that, my employers would not allow me to use any of my work from that year to support a move up the pay scale.

In my current job, pay is incredibly opaque and I have no idea how my pay compares to that of others.

I kind of think that pay transparency would be a good step towards equity- when everyone knows what everyone makes it is harder to justify discrepancies.

What do others think? Looking forward to hearing your thoughts

[crappymummy]

I am sure you are a lovely person in real life - do please remember that a person is writing the responses to your posts, and try to not patronise me, talk down to me or be passive aggressive

[Lweji]

You haven't yet explained why you read whatever into my first post. I assume it comes from the other thread on higher earners where I suggested you started another thread on average earners.

Really don't know what's up with you, but even from the other thread you were set on a rant, so do go on. By all means.

[crappymummy]

yes, wanting equal pay is ranting

failing to see how individual action can address and correct structural inequality is ranting

I'm not the one with the problem here. What is is about my posts you find so threatening you have to belittle and patronise me?

[crappymummy]

Anyway I am done.

I saw this as an example of structural inequality, this is clearly not the consensus, good luck everyone getting equal pay for themselves

i will leave the thread now as I think my view here is so diametrically opposed to such an atomised view of oppression that it is probably counterproductive

[crappymummy]

I think I wanted to talk about equal pay as a structural inequality

Clearly it is not, and for everyone to sort for themselves

You are right, I have in light of that received useful advice

I will ask for the thread to be moved to employment issues as it is clearly nothing to do with feminism

[crappymummy]

I think I was using my own personal experiences as a springboard to talk about what I thought was a feminist issue

I really question the attitude that unless it affects all women it isn't a women's issue

Not all women suffer from DV, or other violence, or require access to an abortion- I would say these are still feminist issues though

[SpeakNoWords]

Your post addresses two aspects - whether you yourself are underpaid as a result of being female, and general pay inequality. People have addressed both your points, so I'm not sure what the problem is? No one is suggesting that equal pay is an issue for individual women to resolve individually. They have offered advice on how you can investigate your personal circumstances, as well as discussing the wider issues.

[scallopsrgreat]

I really like that link Lweji. I took it as pretty much following on from the OP. Not only do women get paid less, they have less paid work and practically 3 times as much unpaid work. I took it as highlighting the structural inequality in women's working lives.

Melinda Gates has gone up in my estimation (although the Gates foundation still doesn't support work around women have access to safe abortions - but that's perhaps because of US policy that the lovely George W Bush brought in and Obama hasn't countermanded).

[Lweji]

Melinda has been addressing gender inequality and supporting women in developing counties. They have previously opened project calls for that purpose through their foundation.
Worth a look.

[Lweji]

Sorry, countries, not counties.

[ShackleForAnOldExLeper]

I find it interesting when people talk about taking maternity leave then going part time as reasons why women over 40 are paid less. In my experience women go part time as their partners are ALREADY the higher earners (I know this isn't always true but where I live Cotswold area it is predominately so). That leads to them then taking a career break which takes them even further behind in pay.

Just my museings as you were

[scallopsrgreat]

Yes I did know a bit about her. But I thought that piece really shows that she gets it (trying to say that in a no patronising way and probably failing dismally!) More than I realised, anyway!

Here's some more about other structural inequalities in women's pay. How when an industry becomes female dominated the pay goes down: www.nytimes.com/2016/03/20/upshot/as-women-take-over-a-male-dominated-field-the-pay-drops.html?smid=tw-share&_r=0

[scallopsrgreat]

Possibly because of age differences too? Mind you I found myself part time and I was the higher earner because my work was more flexible .

Male dominated industries tend to be less flexible.

[scallopsrgreat]

Sorry first post was to Lweji, second to Shackle

[WhenSheWasBadSheWasHorrid]

I like your link too lweji I also agree with this :-

could it be an effect of child bearing and rearing, with more women working PT and thus attracting lower salaries because they may not be on a "career path", or an historical effect

It's pretty hard to get a professional part time job, I think there is an assumption that if someone's goes part time they are putting their career on hold.

I'm pretty sure pay gap widens the most at around 30 years of age. I think the average age of childbirth is now 31 in the uk.

[Lweji]

Even without going pt I think many women do relax with their career effort. I know I'd rather spend time with my child and take him myself to activities.

But the pay gap is at the same level of work, so are men more valued or so they value themselves more and demand more?

[ShackleForAnOldExLeper]

Not being able to live comfortably on one wage is not helping. Both my DH and I could go part time each (making one full time salary) but this is not enough to to cover our living expenses. Therefore someone has to take the hit can you guess who that was???

[scallopsrgreat]

I would also say that the OP is correct that if we wait for individuals to raise issues on their own it will take forever for this to be turned around. As she said the onus shouldn't be on her to ensure she's paid fairly. She's already experienced inequality where a pay rise was denied because of the timing of her maternity leave so I'm guessing crappymummy is probably not far off the mark with thinking that she's being paid less. But this thread was never about whether she, as an individual is paid the same as her colleague.

On the subject of transparency, yes that would be a step forward but it would possibly leave it more at women's feet to sort out their own situations and fight for their own individual corners. Because we live in a patriarchy I doubt men are just going to turn round and go "Gosh you are right, here's some more money". They are more likely to do what Djokovic has done and go 'waaah we deserve it more because of x, y, z". X, y and z being a movable set of criteria that are always just out of women's reach.

[scallopsrgreat]

Transparency also wouldn't solve the problem where female dominated professions are paid less.

Sorry I'm not being very positive . Transparency will start to help build a picture (I wonder why they've chosen 250 employees as the cut off).

[Lweji]

I do think secrecy in the workplace regarding salaries increases inequality, because openness makes it obvious who's doing what for how much and removes the need to investigate these data.
It may well be that we have been trained not to ask so for so much (or reality has shown that we rarely get what we want compared to men in a male environment) and to say yes to more work without proper compensation. Places with clear salary scales and career progression seem to be less unequal.
So, it is likely that it's both a personal and institutional issue.
I think feminism should be fought for at institutional and personal level. I don't think we should simply say it shouldn't be my responsibility, because (like voting, for example) each one of us together can make a difference. Demand at institutional level and act in our private and work lives.

On another issue, mothers do lose out by taking maternity leave, so it would probably help if men were also expected to take similar parental leave (with a minimum of 3 months, or, better, a minimum similar to what the mother took).

[EBearhug]

Male dominated industries tend to be less flexible.

Do you think so? I work in IT, and I'd say it's pretty flexible (I am aware it's not the same for all employers.)

Some of this is because of the international nature of my company - to some extent we can follow the sun in terms of offering support. Also, it means precedents are set by more enlightened countries - if any of my UK male peers intend to take equal parental leave, it's probably going to be easier, not just because of the recentish law change, but because one of our Scandinavian colleagues had a year off on paternity leave. Also, all those in our department who are part-time are men (mostly Dutch). But most of the fathers we have will come in late or leave early when they need to do the school run or trip to the doctor, or work from home because one of the children is ill.

But - I still don't know about pay. I suspect, from comments my manager made earlier in the year, that I'm not on the same level as my male peers. But I don't KNOW. And I am almost ready to ask one of my colleagues for reasons of equality fact finding, what is his salary. But I keep chickening out. There is a social taboo against it.

I know from glassdoor, payscale.com and so on, not to mention jobs I've applied for, that I'm paid okay as far as industry averages go for my experience, location and skill set. However, none of that is worth a fig, if I am paid less than my peers in the company which currently employs me. It's not okay to pay me at the industry average, if all my peers are paid at the industry average +10%. And that's what I don't know. For all I know, I could be paid more than the rest of them (though as mentioned above, previous comments suggest I'm not.)

I think more transparency will definitely help. I'm not sure how far the new law will help (my employers will be affected, as we have more than 250.) I'm not sure of the detail it will go into though, and what that detail is will depend on whether it wll make a difference or not.

[scallopsrgreat]

I think IT can be more flexible yes. And I think that's partly down to the nature of the work, which enables it to be more flexible. I also work in IT and the only part time people in our department are women though. We do have a lot of men working from home a day or more a week (not always with a great deal of transparency as to the work that they do but that's another issue). And most of the men with young children have wives/partners who are SAHM.

I was thinking of even more male dominated areas in my head .