Women's Pay in the Workplace
FREE Catholic Classes
Not All Differences Mean Discrimination
LONDON, NOV. 22, 2003 (Zenit) - Women still come in behind men on numbers of top executives and in pay levels. In the United States, women hold about 13% of the board seats in the top 500 firms listed by Standard & Poor's, the Wall Street Journal reported July 8.
In Britain, just 12 companies out of the 107 surveyed have female executives on their boards, according to a study published Aug. 1 by the daily Guardian. The number of female senior executives rose from 10 in 2001 to 15 last year, leaving more than 95% of board posts in men's hands.
On Nov. 11, the Financial Times, another British paper, published research data showing larger gains for women than in the Guardian study. There are now 101 female-held seats in the boardrooms of FTSE 100 companies, compared with 84 last year, and the number of women directors has risen to 88 from 75, with some holding more than one board position. Yet, women still hold only 8.6% of FTSE 100 board seats.
Similar levels apply in Australia. There, women hold 8.4% of the board positions in the country's top 200 companies, the Sydney Morning Herald reported Oct. 2. The second annual survey of women board directors and executive managers, conducted by Macquarie University for the Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Agency, also shows that only four of Australia's top 200 companies are run by women.
Norway is seriously considering introducing quotas to boost the number of women at board level. The government threatens legislation to oblige companies to reserve 40% of their board seats unless companies voluntarily comply with this target by 2005, the New York Times reported July 14. At the start of this year women accounted for 8.4% of company directors in Norway. Sweden is contemplating a similar measure unless the number of women on the boards of publicly listed companies increases to 25% by 2004 from the current 8%.
A shrinking gap
Greater progress for women is evident in the pay area. Bureau of Labor Statistics data for 2002 show that full-time female workers made 77.5% of what men were paid. This figure represents a slight improvement for women compared with past years, the New York Times reported Feb. 17. The median full-time female worker received a 5% raise last year, while the median pay for men rose only 1.3%.
A similar situation exists in the United Kingdom at management level. A national management salary survey, by the Chartered Management Institute and Remuneration Economics, found that women received average pay rises of 5.9% in the year leading up to last January, compared with 5% for men. It was the seventh consecutive year that female managers' pay rose faster, the Financial Times said in its Nov. 13 report on the survey.
A number of recent studies have looked into the factors behind the divergences in pay levels for men and women. A study by Maureen Paul, a doctoral candidate in economics at the University of Warwick, found that women in the United Kingdom are not worried about the pay gap, the Wall Street Journal reported May 7.
Paul's research showed that the average male worker is 44.67% likely to say he is unfairly paid, while the average female is 34% likely to say so. And the average male worker is 49.86% likely to say he is fairly paid, compared with 56.2% of women.
Moreover, only 5% of cases before UK employment tribunals were brought by women on grounds of unequal pay. The relatively few women who take their cases to court are often more upset because of a lack of respect at work due to their gender, rather than because of their pay, stated Paul.
Another study, by Jennifer Smith, an economics professor at the University of Warwick, showed that women tend to have lower expectations and aspirations for pay and promotion than men. Her research, based on 10,000 responses from a representative sample in the United Kingdom taken annually from 1990 through 2000, found that men tend to list pay and promotion as the most important factors in job satisfaction, while women say relations with superiors and the work itself is the priority.
And a third study, by Arnaud Chevalier, an economist with the Institute for the Study of Social Change at University College in Dublin, looked at 10,000 UK workers three years after their 1995 college graduation. It found that men were earning an average of Ł21,200 ($34,060) a year, compared with Ł18,500 for women. The study found that almost all of the difference was tied to different motivations, expectations and choices, with differences in long-term values accounting for 26% of the pay gap.
"Due to social pressures, men think they ought to be successful and earn a lot of money, and maybe that pressure is less on women," Chevalier said. "Men really think in order to be successful you need to earn a lot of money, and women want to do work that is more socially useful, and they are happier to arrange work around their family commitments."
Further explanations on the causes of a wage gap between men and women were covered in an Oct. 1 article in the Washington Post. Women work fewer hours, 39.8 a week, compared with 46.1 for men. They are also less likely than men to make the overnight business trips that the report's authors note are "extremely important to employers." The study also found that women are more likely to work in lower-paid administrative support jobs.
Element of choice
In Britain, a joint study by the Department of Trade and Industry's Women's Equality Unit and the Institute of Employment of Studies found that women's full-time earnings are about 81% of men's earnings, the London daily Times reported Oct. 13.
But this gap reveals "relatively little about discrimination against women, and rather more about the differing skills, experience and professions of the sexes," according to the Times' reporter, Lea Paterson. She argued that focusing too much on the pay gap risks diverting attention from the real issues at hand.
Many women, she commented, choose to take time out of their careers to care for children. And women are employed more in relatively poorer-paid professions than men. Although some of this may reflect discrimination, Paterson argued that "there is also an element of choice."
John Paul II had something to say on these choices in his 1988 apostolic letter "Mulieris Dignitatem." "The personal resources of femininity are certainly no less than the resources of masculinity: they are merely different," he explained in No. 10. This difference, he continued, means that "a woman, as well as a man, must understand her 'fulfillment' as a person, her dignity and vocation, on the basis of these resources, according to the richness of the femininity which she received on the day of creation and which she inherits as an expression of the 'image and likeness of God' that is specifically hers."
The Pope was very clear that unjust discrimination is not to be tolerated: "For whenever man is responsible for offending a woman's personal dignity and vocation, he acts contrary to his own personal dignity and his own vocation." Not all differences between men and women in the workplace are due to discrimination, and to the extent they are due to deliberate choices, they are worthy of respect.
Contact
Catholic Online
http://ww.catholic.org
CA, US
Catholic Online - Publisher, 661 869-1000
info@yourcatholicvoice.org
Keywords
Women, Culture of Life, Work, Family
More Catholic PRWire
Showing 1 - 50 of 4,716
A Recession Antidote
Randy Hain
Monaco & The Vatican: Monaco's Grace Kelly Exhibit to Rome--A Review of Monegasque-Holy See Diplomatic History
Dna. Maria St. Catherine Sharpe, t.o.s.m., T.O.SS.T.
The Why of Jesus' Death: A Pauline Perspective
Jerom Paul
A Royal Betrayal: Catholic Monaco Liberalizes Abortion
Dna. Maria St.Catherine De Grace Sharpe, t.o.s.m., T.O.SS.T.
Embrace every moment as sacred time
Mary Regina Morrell
My Dad
JoMarie Grinkiewicz
Letting go is simple wisdom with divine potential
Mary Regina Morrell
Father Lombardi's Address on Catholic Media
Catholic Online
Pope's Words to Pontifical Latin American College
Catholic Online
Prelate: Genetics Needs a Conscience
Catholic Online
State Aid for Catholic Schools: Help or Hindrance?
Catholic Online
Scorsese Planning Movie on Japanese Martyrs
Catholic Online
2 Nuns Kidnapped in Kenya Set Free
Catholic Online
Holy See-Israel Negotiation Moves Forward
Catholic Online
Franchising to Evangelize
Catholic Online
Catholics Decry Anti-Christianity in Israel
Catholic Online
Pope and Gordon Brown Meet About Development Aid
Catholic Online
Pontiff Backs Latin America's Continental Mission
Catholic Online
Cardinal Warns Against Anti-Catholic Education
Catholic Online
Full Circle
Robert Gieb
Three words to a deeper faith
Paul Sposite
Relections for Lent 2009
chris anthony
Wisdom lies beyond the surface of life
Mary Regina Morrell
World Food Program Director on Lent
Catholic Online
Moral Clarity
DAN SHEA
Pope's Lenten Message for 2009
Catholic Online
A Prayer for Monaco: Remembering the Faith Legacy of Prince Rainier III & Princess Grace and Contemplating the Moral Challenges of Prince Albert II
Dna. Maria St. Catherine Sharpe
Keeping a Lid on Permissiveness
Sally Connolly
Glimpse of Me
Sarah Reinhard
The 3 stages of life
Michele Szekely
Sex and the Married Woman
Cheryl Dickow
A Catholic Woman Returns to the Church
Cheryl Dickow
Modernity & Morality
Dan Shea
Just a Minute
Sarah Reinhard
Catholic identity ... triumphant reemergence!
Hugh McNichol
Edging God Out
Paul Sposite
Burying a St. Joseph Statue
Cheryl Dickow
George Bush Speaks on Papal Visit
Catholic Online
Sometimes moving forward means moving the canoe
Mary Regina Morrell
Action Changes Things: Teaching our Kids about Community Service
Lisa Hendey
Easter... A Way of Life
Paul Spoisite
Papal initiative...peace and harmony!
Hugh McNichol
Proclaim the mysteries of the Resurrection!
Hugh McNichol
Jerusalem Patriarch's Easter Message
Catholic Online
Good Friday Sermon of Father Cantalamessa
Catholic Online
Papal Address at the End of the Way of the Cross
Catholic Online
Cardinal Zen's Meditations for Via Crucis
Catholic Online
Interview With Vatican Aide on Jewish-Catholic Relations
Catholic Online
Pope Benedict XVI On the Easter Triduum
Catholic Online
Holy Saturday...anticipation!
Hugh McNichol
We ask you, humbly: don't scroll away.
Hi readers, it seems you use Catholic Online a lot; that's great! It's a little awkward to ask, but we need your help. If you have already donated, we sincerely thank you. We're not salespeople, but we depend on donations averaging $14.76 and fewer than 1% of readers give. If you donate just $5.00, the price of your coffee, Catholic Online School could keep thriving. Thank you.Help Now >