Gobal Labor Market

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Project on Global Labor Market






























HRM Project Report



Gender (in)equality in the labour
market: An overview of global trends
and developments


Table of contents
Introduction 3
Summary of findings 4
Pay and Employment 5
The gender pay gap 2008: WageIndicator result 11
The impact of the recession on women’s employment 14
Standardising the gender pay gap definition 20
Recommendations 22


Introduction


International Women’s Day (IWD), celebrated annually on March 8, reflects on women’s political, economic and social accomplishments. It must be said that women have indeed made very significant process in all of these areas since the first IWD in 1911. Around the world, more women than ever now have access to higher education, greater equality in legislative rights and more rewarding opportunities in the labour market. Also, a greater proportion of women than ever before hold high positions in politics, trade unions, business and academia. This does not mean, however, that true gender equality has been achieved. Women are still oppressed in many parts of the world, and are often not enjoying equal pay for work of equal value, or equal rights. Furthermore, women’s access to education, health care and paid work has still not reached the same level that men enjoy. This has consequences for their career opportunities because, even though the number of women in high-level positions has increased, there is still a long way to go before true equality is obtained.

The report looks at the gender pay gap in 20 countries, based on data from the WageIndicator database in 2007 and the first three quarters of 2008. This database has collected 300,000 individual surveys using a self-reporting internet-based questionnaire. Apart from pay data, the chapter also discusses male and female attitudes towards their wages and work-life balance. The second part looks at the effects of the current recession on women’s pay and employment, discussing evidence from previous economic crises and how the ‘lessons learned’ from the past can be of use to counter the problems faced presently. Specific characteristics of the current slowdown are also presented, together with policy initiatives that attempt to combat the economic downturn while keeping the objective of gender equality in mind. The last part of this report argues the case for international harmonisation of the gender pay gap definition, data collection, analysis and methodology. It draws on recent research on international labour statistics, conducted by the United Kingdom Office for National Statistics as requested by the United Nations Statistical Division.

It has to be mentioned that the existing research on the subjects included in this report is extensive. This report gives a snapshot overview of the core facts and figures, concentrating on a limited number of sources.



Summary of findings

The average gender pay gap across the whole data set is 22.4 per cent andthe median gender pay gap is slightly lower at 20.4 per cent. This is based on a sample of 300,000 individual self-reported surveys that were completed on the internet during 2007 and the first three quarters of 2008. The sample covers 20 countries.

• In the majority of countries, the gender pay gap widens with age. Further-more, contrary to common belief, a higher level of education seems to widen the gap. This may be due to workplace discrimination, occupational segrega-tion, or a higher proportion of women than men being employed in (often lower paid) part-time work or below their education level, perhaps because of the need to combine work with care responsibilities. Another explanation is the general widening of the pay distribution at the top end.

• Trade union membership has a positive influence on wage equality. In al-most all countries, the gap between male and female earnings is smaller for those who are trade union members compared to employees who are not a trade union member. This is even more the case when there is a trade union representative in the workplace. Collectively-negotiated agreements in the workplace also have a narrowing effect in the majority of countries.

• Although it is too early to assess the impact of the current recession on the gender pay gap, there is evidence that economic downturns negatively affect women’s position in the labour market, especially in less economically developed parts of the world. As well as economic arguments, gender-related socio-cultural values have also to be taken into account when trying to explain this trend. A strong focus on the gender implications of economic crises, as well as gender mainstreaming in the development of policy initiatives, is nec-essary when attempting to counter the recession. Furthermore, an emphasis on collective bargaining and the importance of trade union membership will strengthen women’s position in their job as well as in the wider labour market.

• In order to improve international comparisons between male and female pay, concepts and methods around labour statistics have to be harmonised. Furthermore, the new concept of ‘work statistics’, as proposed by the UN Re-view of Labour Statistics, will be a useful addition to the current set of employment statistics. These work statistics include unpaid work such as activities in the household and care responsibilities for the family, and are therefore particularly useful to assess women’s employment levels and to measure the relationship between female employment and household poverty.

• Violence against women (VAW) is a human rights violation which negatively affects a woman’s physical and mental well-being. As a consequence, it has a direct and detrimental impact on the victim’s access to paid work. Research into the cost implications of VAW is complicated, because there is no inter-national consensus on what constitutes VAW. Cultural and contextual circum-stances, as well as the methods to define, measure and present the results, differ from country to country. Nonetheless, it is clear that the costs of VAW to both the victim and also to society as a whole are high, and that international guidelines and standards are necessary to conduct coherent research that is internationally comparable and can support local, national and international policy-making and action to tackle VAW.


Pay and employment


The gender pay gap 2008: WageIndicator results

This part looks at the differences in male versus female wages in selected countries, using data gathered by WageIndicator. WageIndicator is an internet-based, self-reporting salary survey through which people can compare their pay to that of other people with similar jobs1. For this report, we have drawn on data collected during 2007 up to and including September 2008 in 24 participating countries, comprising data from 300,000 survey responses. Where the response rate was too low, the variance was too high, or where no data existed (since not all countries have integrated every question into their online survey), the results have been omitted. Other low response rates (i.e. less than 50 but more than 10) are featured to show the results rather than to draw any firm conclusions. Finally, for some breakdowns (e.g. pay by age), the number of observations for some countries is small in relation to the size of their total population. Where this is the case, the results should be treated with caution.

We will first discuss the sample profile as well as the responses to some attitudinal questions around people’s satisfaction with their work-life balance, before moving on to a discussion of the gender pay gap in selected countries.

Sample profile

Country

The sample includes data from 24 countries in total, and 20 out of those 24 have been included in gender pay gap calculations. France and Guatemala have been excluded because of their relatively low response rate, and Colombia and Belgium because of the large standard deviations in the gross pay figures.

WageIndicator has just started up in some countries while it is already more established in others, and as a result response rates between countries vary considerably. The countries included in this report are (with the number of total responses for each country in brackets): Argentina (21,074), Belgium (14,253), Brazil (35,152), Chile (945), Colombia (460), Denmark (1,083), Finland (13,060), France (132), Germany (49,018), Guatemala (143), Hungary (2,269), India (4,608), Italy (533), the Republic of Korea (7,288), Mexico (8,437), Netherlands (79,588), Paraguay (441), Poland (6,974), Russian Federation (9,061), South Africa (9,041), Spain (11,896), Sweden (2,643), United Kingdom (18,338) and the United States (2,299).

Overall, the WageIndicator sample is skewed towards a younger population with higher levels of education and, as a consequence, proportionally more highly skilled and professional jobs than would be the case for the total working-age population in the participating countries. This can at least partly be explained by the nature of the survey. The instrument of an online, self-reporting questionnaire is likely to draw an internet-literate audience, i.e. people who have access to (and who are familiar with the use of) a PC and the internet at home and/or at work.

Gender

Overall the sample is divided roughly equally between male (58 per cent) and female (42 per cent) respondents, with a typical ratio of 60:40 in favour of men. The exceptions are India, where male respondents make up 85 per cent of the sample, and Italy, where 73 per cent of respondents are male. Female respondents make up the majority in just three countries, Finland (52 per cent), Hungary (52 per cent) and South Africa (60 per cent).

Age

The make-up of the sample is relatively young, with the majority of respondents between 25 and 44 years of age, followed by those between 16 and 24 years.

Education

The education levels are based on the International Standard Classification of Education system2 that allows users to compare education levels across countries. More explanation on these rankings can be found in the Appendix. The general pattern across the sample is for more male respondents to be at both the lower and upper levels of education while slightly more women are educated to the middle (to upper) levels. The majority of individuals are educated to either post-secondary, non-tertiary standard, or the first stage of tertiary education. Germany has a relatively high number of respondents educated only to the basic level, and also in Russia the majority of respondents have an education level that is lower than average.

Hours of work

The majority of respondents work full-time and most country samples contain 80 per cent or more respondents with full-time hours of work. The exceptions to this are Korea (68 per cent) and the Netherlands (73 per cent).

The highest proportions of full-time workers are in India (99 per cent), South Africa (96 per cent), Poland (94 per cent), the Russian Federation (94 per cent) and Hungary (94 per cent). The highest proportions of part-time workers are in the Republic of Korea (32 per cent), the Netherlands (27 per cent) and Paraguay (20 per cent).

A breakdown of hours of work by gender shows that generally male respondents are more likely to work full-time (between 80 and almost 100 per cent) than female respondents. These calculations are based on the number of hours of paid work undertaken by survey respondents who are categorised as ‘employees’. Unpaid (female-dominated) activities, such as care responsibilities or household tasks, have not been taken into account. The highest proportions of female part-time workers are found in the Netherlands (50 per cent of women), Korea (38 per cent), and Belgium (26 per cent). The highest levels of disparity between hours of work for men and women (with men working full-time and women part-time) are seen in the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany, while Poland, the Russian Federation and Colombia demonstrate a more homogeneous pattern in the distribution of working hours between male and female workers.

Public, private and not-for-profit sectors


Overall, the private sector accounts for the largest proportion of both male and female respondents, with figures ranging between 60 and 80 per cent in each country. The exceptions to this are Denmark, Finland, Hungary, Mexico, Poland and the United Kingdom, where a relatively large proportion (more than 20 per cent) of respondents work in the public sector. Female workers make up a particularly large share of public sector employees in some countries, such as in Denmark (33 per cent), Finland (39 per cent), Hungary (34 per cent), Poland (46 per cent), and the United Kingdom (36 per cent). The opposite is the case in India, with 90 per cent of both male and female respondents being employed in the private sector. The not-for-profit sector shows a mixed picture, employing a very small proportion of employees in some countries (up to 2 per cent) while accounting for between 6 and 9 per cent of the survey respondents in other countries.

NACE industry classification
The breakdown by broad industry sectors shows the level of industrial segregation in each country, with the general public sector, healthcare and education being female-dominated. Typically, between 20 and 35 per cent of women in each country are employed in these sectors compared to 10 to 20 per cent of male workers. The opposite pattern emerges when looking at the agriculture, manufacturing and building sectors. Overall, most people (men and women) are employed in the commercial services industry, accounting for between 30 and 40 per cent of respondents in most countries.

Trade union membership

Across all countries, the majority of both male and female respondents are not members of a trade union. The highest proportions of trade union membership are in Finland (87 per cent), Brazil (68 per cent) and Belgium (67 per cent). The lowest proportions are found in South Africa (7 per cent) and Korea (8 per cent).

Attitudinal questions

Apart from pay figures, this year’s report also takes a more in-depth look at questions that try to capture people’s attitudes towards collective agreements, job prospects, and satisfaction levels among respondents with regard to their wages, work, and work-life balance. We will look at variations in gender and between countries in particular.

Importance of coverage by collective agreement

When asked if it was important to be covered by a collective agreement, between 65 and 80 per cent of all respondents across countries agreed. Russia, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States have a relatively ow proportion of respondents saying they think this is important. However, research from the US trade union centre AFL-CIO indicates that around 53% of non-union members want to become members. Furthermore, in Sweden and the Netherlands the gender differentiation is quite striking. In these two countries, around 1.5 times as many women as men recognise the importance of being covered by a collective agreement.

Job prospects

With the economic outlook deteriorating, the survey has this year also concentrated on the analysis of questions relating to job security. Some countries have a low response rate, and therefore these results have to be treated with a degree of caution. Focusing on the outcome for countries with a good response rate, between 4 and 12 per cent of respondents across the sample think that their job will become redundant in the next few years, with women being slightly more pessimistic than men. Pessimism is most widespread in Spain, with 10 per cent of men and 12 per cent of women thinking they will be made redundant. Belgian employees are most optimistic, with 4 per cent of men and 7 per cent of women thinking they will lose their job. Moreover, a significant minority of between 15 and 30 per cent of respondents expects to have changed employer in a year’s time, with women being slightly more negative than men, especially in Denmark. In Italy, over two-thirds of male workers expect to have a different employer in a year, compared to three-quarters of women. It should be noted that many of these responses were made during 2007, prior to the full extent of the global economic crisis on the labour market becoming apparent.

Satisfaction with wages

Naturally, people would always like to earn more than they actually do at any given point in their career, but it is interesting to look at the variations from country to country and between men and women. Between 20 and 30 per cent of respondents say they are satisfied with their wage, with overall more men being satisfied than women. Between 35 and 50 per cent of respondents are dissatisfied, and between 25 and 35 per cent are neither satisfied nor dissatisfied. South Africa and Spain are the countries with the highest proportion of dissatisfied workers: respectively 58 and 54 per cent of men are unhappy with their wages, and the figures for women are even higher at 63 and 62 per cent. A large gender difference exists in Finland, where 28 per cent of men are satisfied with their pay compared to 21 per cent of women, with a similar result for Germany (27 versus 21 per cent). Least dissatisfied with their pay are the Dutch and Swedish (both 34 per cent), as well as respondents from the United States (32 per cent). Moreover, in these latter three countries the gender differences were very small. It furthermore should be noted that the US data includes a relatively high proportion of managerial staff.

Family-friendly policies

It looks at the extent to which employees in selected countries benefit from family-friendly policies, such as their employers contributing to day-care for children. The overall proportion of employees in receipt of such a contribution is low, with typically between 0.5 per cent and 4 per cent receiving this benefit. There are some clear differences in gender though, for example in Mexico, where 3 per cent of men say their employer contributes to day-care for children compared to 9 per cent of women. Furthermore, the Netherlands proves to be the positive outlier, with 11 per cent of both men and women stating that their employer contributes to childcare.

In addition to this specific family-friendly policy, the survey also asked participants how they cope with the combination of work and family life. Overall, between 40 and 50 per cent of respondents say that they find it tough. Perhaps not surprisingly, women are more likely to say that they have difficulty in juggling work and family life than men, with between 34 and 40 per cent of men saying so in most countries, compared to between 43 and 57 per cent of women. Belgium (38 per cent of men compared to 51 per cent of women) and Hungary (36 per cent of men versus 57 per cent of women) are the clearest examples of gender difference. Polish respondents seem to cope better, with around 28 per cent of both male and female respondents saying that they find it difficult to strike the right balance between work and family life. The same, relatively low, figure applies to Dutch male workers, while their female counterparts seem to find it more problematic, with 43 per cent saying so.

Satisfaction with work-life balance

The question that follows from the above is how satisfied workers are with their work-life balance. Overall, between a fifth and a quarter of all respondents are dissatisfied. Hungary, the Russian Federation, Spain and the United States are at the upper end of this scale, with around a third of survey participants stating they are dissatisfied. Around a third of respondents across all the participating countries are neutral, and between 40 and 50 per cent of respondents in most countries say they are satisfied. The highest proportion of workers that are satisfied with their work-life balance is found in the Netherlands (63 per cent), followed by in Denmark (53 per cent) and Finland (51 per cent).

Moving on to people’s satisfaction with their life in general, the overall satisfaction levels are between 60 and 70 per cent, while between 10 and 20 per cent are either indifferent or dissatisfied. Countries at the positive end of the spectrum are Argentina, Chile, Poland, the Russian Federation and Spain, with satisfaction levels of around 75 per cent. The negative extreme is Korea, with only 45 per cent of respondents saying they are happy with their life as a whole. The survey did not find much differentiation between men and women for this question, although in the majority of countries the proportion of women being dissatisfied is a little higher than the proportion of men.

The Gender Pay Gap

This report uses the gender pay gap definition put forward by Eurostat, which describes it as ‘the difference between average gross hourly earnings of male paid employees and of female paid employees as a percentage of average gross hourly earnings of male-paid employees’5. We will first give an overview of the pay gap as calculated by WageIndicator, and then compare these results for a selection of countries with the figures provided by Eurostat and some other official sources

The gap according to WageIndicator

In the main global gender pay gap table below, we have set out the gender pay gap between the earnings of men and women at the mean (average) and median pay levels. The detailed tables in the appendix also show the interquartile ranges.. We then look at the gender pay gap broken down by more specific variables. These tables show the mean and median figures. The median is included because it represents the middle of the distribution, i.e. half of the scores are above and half are below this figure. It is therefore less sensitive to outliers (extreme values) than the mean. On the other hand, the average pay gap can be a useful measure to look at because, especially when looking at variations in earnings between men and women, it is important to include the high and low salaries in the calculation.

Generally, if the mean and median are in close range of each other, and we have a normal distribution, we can be reasonably sure that we have a good estimate of the true value of the pay gap in the sample group. If the mean and median are far apart, this may reflect the influence of a few outliers, such as a small number of highly paid men or women. In that case, it is more reliable to look at the median pay gap, because the median corrects for these outliers. The ‘valid N’ column shows the valid number of survey respondents that has been included for every calculation
Country of survey Mean pay Median pay Valid N
gap (%) gap (%)

AR Argentina 29.0 26.1 N=15200

BR Brazil 38.5 34.0 N=20848

CL Chile 17.0 21.0 N=370

DK Denmark 12.1 10.1 N=839

FI Finland 19.6 18.3 N=10710

DE Germany 20.4 20.0 N=40066

HU Hungary 18.3 21.1 N=1609

IN India 29.4 6.3 N=3093

IT Italy 17.3 23.9 N=339

KR Korea, Rep. 24.0 13.7 N=2316

MX Mexico 36.1 29.8 N=4595

NL Netherlands 17.7 19.2 N=56363

PY Paraguay 11.1 19.6 N=150

PL Poland 22.1 22.4 N=5566

RU Russian Federation 13.8 14.5 N=5068

ZA South Africa 33.5 33.0 N=7211

ES Spain 23.0 24.8 N=9031

SE Sweden 12.5 11.0 N=1848

UK United Kingdom 19.8 9.0 N=12049

US United States 31.8 20.8 N=395


Overall gender pay gap

The average pay gaps for the 20 countries for which we had sufficient pay data range from 38.5 per cent in Brazil to 11.1 per cent in Paraguay. The average pay gap results are lower for Denmark (12 per cent), Sweden (13 per cent) and the Russian Federation (14 per cent) and less so for Argentina (29 per cent), Mexico (36.1 per cent) and South Africa (33.5 per cent). The figures for Chile, Italy, Paraguay and the USA are based on fairly small samples and should be treated with caution.

For the majority of countries, both the average pay gap and the median pay gap are quite closely related, indicating that the survey average is probably a good estimate of the true average pay gap for the population. However, in the UK, India and Republic of Korea the pay gap based on the average wage and the pay gap based on the median wage vary considerably. For example, the average pay gap in India is 30 per cent which falls to just 6 per cent on the median measure. The UK sample contains a large numbers of lower-paid male employees and a relatively large population of women in professional roles, which goes some way in explaining why the average pay gap (20 per cent) and the median pay gap (9 per cent) vary so considerably. The average pay gap in the WageIndicator results is close to the official pay gap figure of 17 per cent for the UK.

Country of Mean pay Median
Age bands pay gap Valid N
survey gap (%)
(%)


16-24 11.2 12.4 N=2067
25-34 22.1 24.4 N=7728
AR Argentina 35-44 27.2 32.0 N=3443
45-54 30.9 34.1 N=1524
55-64 27.7 36.3 N=407
16-24 23.2 22.5 N=4567
25-34 31.1 34.3 N=10791
BR Brazil 35-44 31.7 40.7 N=3874
45-54 37.1 44.8 N=1355
55-64 35.7 44.0 N=230
16-24 27.9 15.2 N=65
25-34 10.5 13.7 N=271
DK Denmark 35-44 9.1 13.5 N=256
45-54 5.9 3.7 N=191
55-64 12.6 11.5 N=55
16-24 10.8 9.7 N=836
25-34 16.7 18.2 N=4424
FI Finland 35-44 21.0 23.8 N=3087
45-54 25.3 27.6 N=1773
55-64 27.1 29.1 N=580
16-24 9.0 10.5 N=2542
25-34 14.0 13.9 N=13856
DE Germany 35-44 19.4 20.0 N=13231
45-54 23.0 22.1 N=8051
55-64 22.6 21.2 N=2289
16-24 23.0 2.5 N=121
25-34 15.6 10.8 N=699
HU Hungary 35-44 24.9 28.7 N=377
45-54 24.1 11.1 N=289
55-64 23.6 25.8 N=121
16-24 31.9 38.0 N=327
25-34 3.1 20.8 N=2226
IN India 35-44 6.0 40.9 N=461
45-54 No data No data No data
55-64 No data No data No data
16-24 No data No data No data
25-34 30.9 15.8 N=153
IT Italy 35-44 23.2 14.8 N=128
45-54 No data No data No data
55-64 No data No data No data
16-24 -0.9 2.1 N=281
25-34 11.9 10.0 N=1404
KR Korea, Rep. 35-44 9.6 32.6 N=512
45-54 40.1 51.3 N=101
55-64 No data No data No data
16-24 9.9 15.8 N=834
25-34 24.7 30.7 N=2428
MX Mexico 35-44 36.7 49.8 N=974
45-54 30.4 36.3 N=297
55-64 56.5 55.6 N=55
16-24 3.2 -0.5 N=6333
25-34 9.4 8.0 N=19354
NL Netherlands 35-44 16.9 18.6 N=16879
45-54 24.5 24.3 N=10477
55-64 25.7 27.2 N=3244
16-24 18.6 15.7 N=313
25-34 20.8 20.9 N=2710
PL Poland 35-44 23.8 24.1 N=1126
45-54 23.3 20.5 N=957
55-64 21.1 18.8 N=423
16-24 10.7 11.0 N=1222
RU Russian 25-34 16.0 15.3 N=2619
35-44 13.6 10.3 N=797
Federation
45-54 -4.4 -5.7 N=275

55-64 No data No data No data
16-24 38.6 24.1 N=859
25-34 25.7 27.8 N=3862
ZA South Africa 35-44 32.0 30.1 N=1750
45-54 44.3 43.9 N=627
55-64 39.1 58.8 N=103
16-24 20.9 16.1 N=830
25-34 21.7 21.5 N=5109
ES Spain 35-44 23.6 25.7 N=2287
45-54 29.7 30.1 N=695
55-64 41.4 39.9 N=105
16-24 9.2 10.8 N=65
25-34 8.0 9.9 N=802
SE Sweden 35-44 10.8 15.1 N=702
45-54 20.9 22.4 N=233
55-64 17.6 27.6 N=45
16-24 12.4 10.6 N=1776
25-34 8.1 15.0 N=4640
UK United Kingdom 35-44 8.4 23.9 N=2979
45-54 9.6 20.1 N=1913
55-64 16.1 25.5 N=701
16-24 No data No data No data
25-34 11.0 23.0 N=140
US United States 35-44 25.6 39.3 N=102
45-54 29.5 36.7 N=85
55-64 No data No data No data

Influence of collective bargaining agreement

The data shows that in the majority of countries the pay gap is smaller in workplaces that are covered by a collective agreement. This is most apparent in Hungary and the UK where the pay gap falls considerably between workplaces with collective agreements and workplaces without collective agreements. In the case of Germany and Spain the pay gap is marginally wider in workplaces with collective agreements, and in the United States the results show a widening gap in workplaces covered by a collective agreement. However, it has to be pointed out that the USA sample is rather small relative to the working age population, and includes a relatively high proportion of professional and managerial staff as well as a high level of gender segregation among those who are members of a trade union, which makes it difficult to draw any firm conclusions. Also, other US research in this field shows a different picture, with a substantial advantage in pay and conditions of work for women who are union members and covered by collective agreements.

Gender pay gap broken down by trade union representation in the workplace

TU representative Mean Median
Country of survey pay gap pay gap Valid N
in the workplace
(%) (%)

AR Argentina No 24.5 24.3 N=8260
Yes 25.1 28.0 N=5393

DK Denmark No 5.5 10.2 N=54
Yes -2.3 -10.1 N=96

IT Italy No 32.9 20.5 N=106
Yes 1.3 -0.6 N=138

PL Poland No 24.6 29.9 N=2121
Yes 21.4 17.5 N=1945

ES Spain No 21.8 17.9 N=3786
Yes 21.2 21.7 N=3782

UK United Kingdom No 10.8 21.2 N=7339
Yes 1.5 12.6 N=3198




Influence of trade union representative in the workplace

An analysis of the gender pay gap broken down by the presence of a trade union representative in the workplace shows a positive relationship. The gap between men and women’s earnings is smaller in workplaces where there is a trade union representative, compared with those workplaces without a trade union representative. The exception to this trend is Argentina, where the pay gap is marginally wider in workplaces with a trade union representative. Spain shows ambiguous results, with a slightly lower average pay gap for workplaces with a trade union representative, but a slightly wider gap when looking at the median figure.

The impact of the recession on women’s employment

In order to understand the current economic crisis and how it affects the position of women in the labour market, it is valuable to take a closer look at previous economic downturns and their implications. Before we do this, though, we will first briefly discuss the different consequences the recession has on women’s employment in developing versus developed countries.

The evidence in this field of research is scattered, which makes it difficult to draw general conclusions. Instead, we have adopted the approach of discussing case-studies from various countries.

The developing versus the developed world

The impact of an economic downturn on women’s position in the labour market in developing countries is often stronger than in more economically developed parts of the world. It is widely accepted that the negative consequences of recessions in developed countries impact overall more strongly on male than on female employment levels, while in developing countries women workers are more prone to be made redundant than male workers. The explanation, researchers argue, is partly due to the production and gender employment structures and partly because of the prevailing socio-cultural values in each country.

Research shows that‘(I)n advanced countries, men are often employed in cyclically unstable industries or industries in long-term decline (de-industrialisation), while women tend to be employed in more stable service industries. In many semi-industrial countries, however, women tend to be employed in labour-intensive manufactured export industries which are more prone to fluctuations’7.

The economic and financial systems of developing countries are particularly vulnerable to global economic downturns. Firstly there are the ‘contagion effects’ with regard to a fall in the exchange rates for the currencies used in these countries, which can hardly be influenced even when a proper macro-economic framework is in place. Secondly, the developing world is hit hard by the effects of a global recession, for example because of falling commodity prices, a decline in development aid and in the value of remittances from relatives abroad, and the contraction of exports8. Examples of export cuts affecting women in particular are the African textile industry, where 90 per cent of jobs in the sector are taken up by low-skilled and low-educated women, and the Asian textile, food processing, and electronics manufacturing industries. Furthermore, a large proportion of women in Asia and Africa are employed in agriculture and food production. When food prices rise (as has happened in recent years) and less food is exported, it has a substantial impact on female employment in countries where a large share of the population (and indeed a specifically large proportion of women) is employed in this sector. All these developments can therefore have a profound impact on female employment levels and household incomes
Variations in gender-related socio-cultural values across the world also play an important part in the understanding of how a recession affects women’s positions in the labour market differently across the globe. The idea of the male breadwinner is still a widespread stereotype, but more so in developing countries than in developed ones. The attitude of employers to regard women mainly as ‘secondary income earners’ is then often used as an excuse to fire them first in difficult economic times. The fact that women in developing countries are also much less likely than men to be a member of a trade union, and therefore have a weaker position in the workplace, only reinforces this trend11.

Evidence from previous recessions

Female-dominated sectors particularly sensitive to fluctuations

Research has shown that during the 1997-1999 Asian crisis, a higher proportion of (mainly low-educated) women than men lost their jobs, with many redundancies taking place in export-sensitive industries such as the manufacturing of clothing, food processing, and in retail. All of these were female-dominated industries12. More evidence from job segregation along gender lines is found in low-paid informal work and domestic employment sectors, which both more often employ female than male workers. The high rate of women employed in these areas is another explanatory factor of the disproportional sharp decline in the real wages of women workers during economically tough times. More people are forced into informal work and homework during an economic downturn, which leads to increased competition for this type of work and consequently to downward pressure on wages. Moreover, benefits or other forms of government support hardly exist in these sectors, which negatively impacts on a woman’s income when she loses her job.

Examples of this phenomenon are Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia, all of which provide evidence that women’s income decreased more drastically than that of men in the 1990s crisis because of sharp contractions in sectors in which women were over-represented, such as the casual and domestic employment sectors. Additionally, the majority of Asia’s migrants who were forced to leave some of the countries hit by the crisis, were women.


Care responsibilities and an inadequate social safety net


Women often pick up the care responsibilities that arise from the lack of a social safety net. In particular in developing countries, social security systems are often weak or even absent14. In addition to their role as wage earners and food providers, women also become the main carers for their families, which puts additional stress on not only the women but the whole family, especially on children15. One article argues that ‘(…) women are observed to bear the stress of being caught in a pincer movement: the amount of caring and unpaid household duties may increase when family members become unemployed or sick, while the economic pressures increase for women to undertake paid labour to contribute to the family income, no matter how poor the remuneration and disagreeable or degrading the activity

Counter examples from past recessions: Argentina and the United Kingdom


In the United Kingdom, research on the recession between 1990 and 1993 shows that it was mainly the male-dominated professions such as manufacturing and construction that were affected by the economic decline. Sectors with a bias towards a largely female workforce, such as retail, fast food, pubs and restaurants, hairdressing, cleaning and catering, all showed relatively stable employment levels. More precisely, the employment level for men decreased by 8.8 per cent between 1990 and 1993, while female employment over the same period declined by 2.5 per cent. Furthermore, the ILO unemployment rate for women of working age in the third quarter of 1993 had risen by 1 per cent since 1990 (from 7 to 8 per cent) while the unemployment rate for men increased by 5 per cent during these three years (from 7 to 12 per cent).

The case of the Argentinean economic crisis (1999-2002) shows that the poorer households suffered most, with the household income of the poorest 10 per cent decreasing by 41 per cent, compared to a 23 per cent decline in household income for the richest 10 per cent of households18. Interestingly, research on the Argentinean crisis shows that it was mainly male-headed households that were hit hardest, experiencing a 6 per cent larger decline in household income than female-headed households. This may again have to do with the predominantly male-dominated sectors that were hardest hit by the crisis, such as construction and business, while the crisis had less of an impact on public sector roles in which a large share of female workers were employed.

Considering the above, there is patchy evidence that women are affected disproportionally in times of economic and financial crisis, especially in developing countries. However, it is difficult, if not impossible, to come up with a definitive set of causes, consequences and solutions. As one source of literature puts it, this is partly because of the limited evidence available, and partly because of the regional differences in how the downturns have been experienced in various countries over the last decades19.


The current recession


A recently published United Nations report on the current financial crisis20 reiterates some of the conclusions drawn from previous recessions around socio-cultural values and the presumptions regarding the position of women in the labour market, as described above. It thus shows that the ‘lessons learned’ from the past are, sadly enough, still relevant with regard to the analysis of the gender impact of the present global economic downturn. For example, the authors of the report remark that ‘(W)omen bear the brunt of the crisis because of the paradigm of the male bread-winner that prevails all over the world across cultural divides (…). When job retrenchment takes place, the tendency is to protect employment for men and compromise on women’s jobs. But women’s incomes are essential for family survival, especially when they are heads of households and/or in poor families. They cannot afford to stop working so they end up in jobs with much worse and often unacceptable conditions’21. The report also points out that, in many countries, a woman is still responsible for the largest share, if not all, of the care responsibilities in the household. This means that there is less time available for them to take up paid work in the market economy.

The remainder of this section will concentrate on specific examples of the impact of the economic crisis on the position of women in labour markets in regions across the globe.


Latin America and the Caribbean


At its conference in December 2008, the UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) commented that unemployment among women in this region is likely to rise due to the financial crisis, especially because many of them work in industries that are responsive to economic fluctuations, such as commerce, manufacturing, financial services, tourism and domestic services. The Commission also foresees an increase in social inequality, informal employment and a lack of social protection22.




United Sates of America


In the USA, women make up the majority of low-wage workers and are more likely than men to live in poverty (36 versus 26 per cent). The poverty rate for single female-headed households is the highest of all demographic groups. Moreover, more women than men hold sub-prime mortgages, and women are more likely to fall into the ‘poverty trap’ - which is getting larger in the current economic crisis. Figures underline that it is difficult to get out of this situation: after a decade around 60 per cent of families in the lowest salary bracket has been unable to get out of this situation, stressing the absence of economic mobility23.


The United Kingdom


The effects of the current economic downturn on women workers in the UK are a topic of discussion, with some arguing that the fall in employment levels for male full-time workers has been much sharper than for female full-time workers (1.2 per cent for men and 0.5 per cent for women during the second and third quarter of 200824), while others argue that UK women will be hit harder in this recession than in previous ones. Reasons for this latter argument are that jobs are being lost all across the economy (especially in the retail and hospitality sectors) instead of mainly in manufacturing and construction, more women nowadays are in paid employment than was the case in previous recessions, and more households than ever are now headed up by a female who is also the primary wage earner in that household. Furthermore, women take home more than men in over a fifth of couples25, reinforcing the significance of the drop in household income if the female partner is made redundant.


The way forward

Policy measures


More flexible working opportunities in order to combine care duties more easily with paid work, a more accessible benefits system, stimulating macro-economic fiscal and monetary policies, and a better representation of women in key roles so that they can help to influence and shape local, national and international pay and employment policies. These are only a few of the many policy initiatives suggested in the literature. A small selection of these propositions is discussed more in-depth below.

Firstly, taking a closer look at developing countries, one of the consequences of rising unemployment levels and less capital inflow from investors is that governments will have less revenue at their disposal. This means a decrease in government social spending, which in turn can lead to reduced services in the fields of health care, education and transport. Additionally, food aid and other forms of international government development aid may be reduced because the money is being used to revive the economies in the donor countries. The same applies to private humanitarian groups. However, strengthening the official development assistance, such as the provision of loans from multilateral financial institutions, will have a long-term positive impact on the development of these less developed economies, and particularly on the welfare of women. A contribution written for the UN panel on the global financial crisis illustrates this point by emphasising the need to keep up support for long-term development objectives in the social services, such as in the care sector, in order to reduce the pressure on unpaid work which is mainly carried out by women.

A second set of suggestions comes from the International Monetary Fund. In its working paper, published shortly after the macroeconomic crisis in Argentina in the 1990s, the organisation proposes social interventions to help households cope with an economic downturn. Investments in social safety nets and public works programmes are put forward as possible solutions, as well as greater labour market flexibility which, proponents argue, allows better and easier access to jobs, particularly for women. Others, however, would say that such flexibility measures have often been encouraged by the IMF and World Bank primarily in order to increase employers’ ability to hire and fire workers, and that these policies would not necessarily be in the interests of female or male workers. In any case, any proposals for flexibility should be considered extremely carefully. The first priority has to be to establish an efficient, transparent and well-coordinated public administration apparatus, which is equipped to initiate and support the other interventions26.

Thirdly, a specific ‘women’s agenda’ that influences international financial reform can also be part of the solution. From a gender perspective, women-friendly government fiscal policies and measures to avoid deep fluctuations in economic activity may be desirable. In developing countries, controlled capital inflow and outflow could be integrated into normal economic policy, in order to attract capital from investors who are committed to support a country’s development strategy in the long run, such as certain Foreign Direct Investments (FDI). At the same time, this would mean resisting the highly volatile capital injections (although perhaps profitable in the short-term) that characterises much overseas investment in developing countries27. In addition, some researchers suggest that, apart from measures on the national level, the international community should aim for a ‘trend increase in the rate of growth of real world aggregate demand, production and employment on a sustainable

basis…Such policies will benefit both women and men, but women will derive greater advantage from the greater stability generated by such policies’28. The same authors recommend that other forms of wage and employment discrimination (e.g. gender discrimination on the basis of cultural arguments) against women may be addressed through complementary (inter-) national policies. Women themselves, they add, must play an active part in formulating such policy frameworks.

Finally, among the recommendations from the UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) are suggestions to redefine fiscal pacts to ensure resources for public policies, the implementation of new policies to prevent the loss of paid jobs, as well as greater efforts to prevent expenditure on social policies from dropping, especially policies relating to the strengthening of gender equality. Other proposals put forward by ECLAC include the reinforcement of official development aid and the strengthening of regional integration processes ‘as an opportunity in light of the current crisis’.


More women in boardrooms


A gender-balanced senior management team may be beneficial to an organisation’s performance. In the current economic climate, female representation in senior positions has therefore once again become a much-discussed issue, as various recently published articles on this topic suggest.

The ‘Female FTSE Report 2008’ is one such publication. It looks at the number of women in UK boardrooms of FTSE-listed companies and points out that the global financial crisis is a new opportunity to appoint more women to the boards of organisations operating in the financial sector, in order to obtain better gender balance in these largely male company boards. The authors also mention the example set by Norway, which has set a mandatory quota for 40 per cent of corporate board positions to be held by women. This has become effective as of 31 January 200831. Similar initiatives are taking place across Europe. In Spain, companies have until 2015 to implement a policy which requires women to fill between 40 and 60 per cent of all boards and executive-level positions. Germany has introduced ‘soft quotas’ to promote gender equality32. Iceland, hit particularly hard by the current crisis, has recently appointed female CEOs to head up its two newly created nationalised banks, New Landsbanki and New Glitnir.


Trade union membership


A US study conducted by the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) shows that, controlled for other variables, union representation significantly improves women’s pay and benefits: on average their pay is 11.2 per cent higher than that of their non-union counterparts33. This is even more so the case for women employed in so-called ‘low-wage occupations’ (such as cashiers, food preparation workers, child-care workers, cleaners, nurses and teaching assistants) in the USA34: unionised women in such jobs earn a median salary which is some 30 per cent higher than the median salary of a non-unionised colleague. The study concludes that women demonstrably benefit from collective bargaining, and that this is the case across the whole spectrum of occupations. The WageIndicator results in this report support this statement, with the gender pay gap in many countries being considerably smaller when women are a member of a trade union and/or are covered by a collective agreement.


Standardising the gender pay gap definition

In last year’s ITUC Global Gender Pay Gap Report the complexities and obstacles in calculating the gender pay gap in an internationally comparable manner were explored35. The report drew specific attention to issues such as differences in the calculations and measures of earnings across the globe, the (lack of) availability of earnings data and large enough sample sizes, the type of employee that is used (i.e. part-time and/or full-time, and how these concepts are defined from country to country), and the wide variety in the collection method of earnings data. It called upon an internationally agreed definition of the gender pay gap, as well as for harmonised research methodologies to calculate it, in order to stimulate and support internationally coordinated actions to close the gap.

These recommendations from last year’s Gender Pay Gap Report are reinforced by a recently published international review of labour data, which was conducted by the UK Office of National Statistics on behalf of the United Nations Statistical Commission (UNSC) in 2007. This UN Review of Labour Statistics looks at the indicators of labour market statistics, among other things, and mentions ‘issues of overlap, lack of coherence and comparability’36 in its conclusions. One of the causes for this is the wide range of organisations involved in international labour statistics, such as the OECD, Eurostat, the IMF, the United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD), the World Bank, and the ILO. The authors of the report point out that these agencies ‘produce indicators of labour statistics for countries internationally, but each with slightly different definitions, timescales, coverage and remits’37.

The widely used KILM (Key Indicators of the Labour Market) dataset, which is produced by the International Labour Organisation, is found to be the most comprehensive source (even though the response rate of the survey, which went out to 232 countries worldwide, was just 50 per cent). However, it requires updating and has incomplete meta-data on sources and collection methods. This is also due to the fact that some countries are not able to supply the data in the required format and time period. Collecting data and producing reliable statistics in countries with less developed economies is also a problem. Even in developed countries, cross-country analysis of labour market statistics is difficult because of ‘incomplete coverage, contradictory results, difficulties and limitations in describing labour market dynamics, and the absence of links between labour market statistics and other social and economic statistics’38.

Moreover, the study points out that even though internationally agreed definitions are used widely, the interpretation of these definitions differ from country to country and from organisation to organisation.

In order to tackle these issues, we put forward the following recommendations:


• Harmonisation of concepts and methods (e.g. definitions of employment,full-time and part-time work)
• Putting in place a coordinated system for providing technical assistance (e.g. statistical training as an integral part of statistical capacity building)
• Improvements to the existing system of setting international standards
• Setting up working groups to discuss the five priority areas for development work, being: 1) the changing structure of the labour force; 2) the non-observed economy and informal employment; 3) measurement of productivity; 4) child and forced labour; 5) globalisation
• Developing an updated version of the conceptual labour statistics framework (i.e. developing a set of key labour statistics indicators common to the OECD, ILO and Eurostat).

Interestingly, the UN Review remarks that one of the challenges is to provide a coherent and comprehensive definition of ‘employment’. The employment definition is primarily based on the (largely economic) notion that the activities carried out by the employed person contribute to the production of goods and services. This excludes statistics that deal with unpaid non-market services, such as the non-observed economy and informal employment. The Review therefore proposes to include the new concept of ‘work statistics’, which then will include ‘unpaid work in the family and the wider community’ (in addition to ‘employment statistics’). This could be used for the purpose of social analysis. As the Review’s authors put it: ‘(T)he relationship between unpaid family work and paid employment, particularly for women, is key to understanding the matching of jobs with people’39. Additionally, extending the use of family and household statistics, and linking these to employment and labour market topics would, for example, enable researchers and policymakers to undertake cross-country comparisons of the relationships between female employment and household poverty. To quote the authors, ‘(M)ainstreaming household and family analysis would give a more complete view on how to improve women’s employment levels, would help to get a handle on unpaid and informal work and would assist in the measurement of poverty through assessing links between female employment and household poverty.


Recommendations

Gender pay gap

The research for this report has shown that there is still a long way to go before wage equality between men and women is achieved. The report has looked at the pay gap from various angles, such as education, age and sector, and the gender pay gap is still clearly present in almost all cases. Internationally-defined indicators and methodologies to calculate the gap are necessary to produce statistical evidence which is comparable from country to country. However, what is probably needed most is bold action by politicians and policy makers to eradicate the inequality in wages. This can be achieved through equal pay audits and job evaluation exercises in the workplace, and various other national and international policies targeted at obtaining gender pay equality. Making women aware of the benefits of trade union membership, trade union representation in the workplace, and collective agreements, are also important tools in the efforts to close the gap.

Economic downturn

Policy initiatives that aim to stimulate the economy would benefit from the integration of a gender perspective. Gender mainstreaming of economic policy making could include, among other things, more flexible working opportunities, more and better investment in social services and social support initiatives, and international financial reform that aims for sustainable, long-term economic growth instead of short-term profit seeking which may lead to deep fluctuations in economic activity. To help such initiatives succeed, a better representation of women in key roles at all levels is important. Only then can they actively participate and exercise influence in the formulation of new policies.

Violence against women

It is clear from the evidence currently available that the cost implications of VAW are high. Women who are victims of violence have to cope with the mental and physical consequences, which create obstacles for them to fully participate in the labour market and earn an income. More research into this topic is needed to understand the scope of the problem. In order to do this successfully, research methods have to be improved and agreed standards of measurement need to be created. Guidelines published by the International Research Network on VAW can be used to ensure international comparability and to guarantee that quality standards are met. Furthermore, the World Health Organisation’s Ethical and Safety Guidelines for Researching Domestic VAW can be used to protect the women that are surveyed. Ideally, well-designed surveys on this subject would ultimately be included in existing national statistical systems, so that the issue is regularly monitored. The results of this research can then be used to influence governments. Apart from lobbying national governments and international institutions for new legislation, other measures to reduce gender inequalities should also be taken into account, such as initiatives to improve and increase women’s access to education, health, and employment. In this respect, not only governments but also other stakeholders such as trade unions, employers’ representations and Non-Governmental Organisations, have an important role to fulfil
 

jamescord

MP Guru
Project on Global Labor Market






























HRM Project Report



Gender (in)equality in the labour
market: An overview of global trends
and developments


Table of contents
Introduction 3
Summary of findings 4
Pay and Employment 5
The gender pay gap 2008: WageIndicator result 11
The impact of the recession on women’s employment 14
Standardising the gender pay gap definition 20
Recommendations 22


Introduction


International Women’s Day (IWD), celebrated annually on March 8, reflects on women’s political, economic and social accomplishments. It must be said that women have indeed made very significant process in all of these areas since the first IWD in 1911. Around the world, more women than ever now have access to higher education, greater equality in legislative rights and more rewarding opportunities in the labour market. Also, a greater proportion of women than ever before hold high positions in politics, trade unions, business and academia. This does not mean, however, that true gender equality has been achieved. Women are still oppressed in many parts of the world, and are often not enjoying equal pay for work of equal value, or equal rights. Furthermore, women’s access to education, health care and paid work has still not reached the same level that men enjoy. This has consequences for their career opportunities because, even though the number of women in high-level positions has increased, there is still a long way to go before true equality is obtained.

The report looks at the gender pay gap in 20 countries, based on data from the WageIndicator database in 2007 and the first three quarters of 2008. This database has collected 300,000 individual surveys using a self-reporting internet-based questionnaire. Apart from pay data, the chapter also discusses male and female attitudes towards their wages and work-life balance. The second part looks at the effects of the current recession on women’s pay and employment, discussing evidence from previous economic crises and how the ‘lessons learned’ from the past can be of use to counter the problems faced presently. Specific characteristics of the current slowdown are also presented, together with policy initiatives that attempt to combat the economic downturn while keeping the objective of gender equality in mind. The last part of this report argues the case for international harmonisation of the gender pay gap definition, data collection, analysis and methodology. It draws on recent research on international labour statistics, conducted by the United Kingdom Office for National Statistics as requested by the United Nations Statistical Division.

It has to be mentioned that the existing research on the subjects included in this report is extensive. This report gives a snapshot overview of the core facts and figures, concentrating on a limited number of sources.



Summary of findings

The average gender pay gap across the whole data set is 22.4 per cent andthe median gender pay gap is slightly lower at 20.4 per cent. This is based on a sample of 300,000 individual self-reported surveys that were completed on the internet during 2007 and the first three quarters of 2008. The sample covers 20 countries.

• In the majority of countries, the gender pay gap widens with age. Further-more, contrary to common belief, a higher level of education seems to widen the gap. This may be due to workplace discrimination, occupational segrega-tion, or a higher proportion of women than men being employed in (often lower paid) part-time work or below their education level, perhaps because of the need to combine work with care responsibilities. Another explanation is the general widening of the pay distribution at the top end.

• Trade union membership has a positive influence on wage equality. In al-most all countries, the gap between male and female earnings is smaller for those who are trade union members compared to employees who are not a trade union member. This is even more the case when there is a trade union representative in the workplace. Collectively-negotiated agreements in the workplace also have a narrowing effect in the majority of countries.

• Although it is too early to assess the impact of the current recession on the gender pay gap, there is evidence that economic downturns negatively affect women’s position in the labour market, especially in less economically developed parts of the world. As well as economic arguments, gender-related socio-cultural values have also to be taken into account when trying to explain this trend. A strong focus on the gender implications of economic crises, as well as gender mainstreaming in the development of policy initiatives, is nec-essary when attempting to counter the recession. Furthermore, an emphasis on collective bargaining and the importance of trade union membership will strengthen women’s position in their job as well as in the wider labour market.

• In order to improve international comparisons between male and female pay, concepts and methods around labour statistics have to be harmonised. Furthermore, the new concept of ‘work statistics’, as proposed by the UN Re-view of Labour Statistics, will be a useful addition to the current set of employment statistics. These work statistics include unpaid work such as activities in the household and care responsibilities for the family, and are therefore particularly useful to assess women’s employment levels and to measure the relationship between female employment and household poverty.

• Violence against women (VAW) is a human rights violation which negatively affects a woman’s physical and mental well-being. As a consequence, it has a direct and detrimental impact on the victim’s access to paid work. Research into the cost implications of VAW is complicated, because there is no inter-national consensus on what constitutes VAW. Cultural and contextual circum-stances, as well as the methods to define, measure and present the results, differ from country to country. Nonetheless, it is clear that the costs of VAW to both the victim and also to society as a whole are high, and that international guidelines and standards are necessary to conduct coherent research that is internationally comparable and can support local, national and international policy-making and action to tackle VAW.


Pay and employment


The gender pay gap 2008: WageIndicator results

This part looks at the differences in male versus female wages in selected countries, using data gathered by WageIndicator. WageIndicator is an internet-based, self-reporting salary survey through which people can compare their pay to that of other people with similar jobs1. For this report, we have drawn on data collected during 2007 up to and including September 2008 in 24 participating countries, comprising data from 300,000 survey responses. Where the response rate was too low, the variance was too high, or where no data existed (since not all countries have integrated every question into their online survey), the results have been omitted. Other low response rates (i.e. less than 50 but more than 10) are featured to show the results rather than to draw any firm conclusions. Finally, for some breakdowns (e.g. pay by age), the number of observations for some countries is small in relation to the size of their total population. Where this is the case, the results should be treated with caution.

We will first discuss the sample profile as well as the responses to some attitudinal questions around people’s satisfaction with their work-life balance, before moving on to a discussion of the gender pay gap in selected countries.

Sample profile

Country

The sample includes data from 24 countries in total, and 20 out of those 24 have been included in gender pay gap calculations. France and Guatemala have been excluded because of their relatively low response rate, and Colombia and Belgium because of the large standard deviations in the gross pay figures.

WageIndicator has just started up in some countries while it is already more established in others, and as a result response rates between countries vary considerably. The countries included in this report are (with the number of total responses for each country in brackets): Argentina (21,074), Belgium (14,253), Brazil (35,152), Chile (945), Colombia (460), Denmark (1,083), Finland (13,060), France (132), Germany (49,018), Guatemala (143), Hungary (2,269), India (4,608), Italy (533), the Republic of Korea (7,288), Mexico (8,437), Netherlands (79,588), Paraguay (441), Poland (6,974), Russian Federation (9,061), South Africa (9,041), Spain (11,896), Sweden (2,643), United Kingdom (18,338) and the United States (2,299).

Overall, the WageIndicator sample is skewed towards a younger population with higher levels of education and, as a consequence, proportionally more highly skilled and professional jobs than would be the case for the total working-age population in the participating countries. This can at least partly be explained by the nature of the survey. The instrument of an online, self-reporting questionnaire is likely to draw an internet-literate audience, i.e. people who have access to (and who are familiar with the use of) a PC and the internet at home and/or at work.

Gender

Overall the sample is divided roughly equally between male (58 per cent) and female (42 per cent) respondents, with a typical ratio of 60:40 in favour of men. The exceptions are India, where male respondents make up 85 per cent of the sample, and Italy, where 73 per cent of respondents are male. Female respondents make up the majority in just three countries, Finland (52 per cent), Hungary (52 per cent) and South Africa (60 per cent).

Age

The make-up of the sample is relatively young, with the majority of respondents between 25 and 44 years of age, followed by those between 16 and 24 years.

Education

The education levels are based on the International Standard Classification of Education system2 that allows users to compare education levels across countries. More explanation on these rankings can be found in the Appendix. The general pattern across the sample is for more male respondents to be at both the lower and upper levels of education while slightly more women are educated to the middle (to upper) levels. The majority of individuals are educated to either post-secondary, non-tertiary standard, or the first stage of tertiary education. Germany has a relatively high number of respondents educated only to the basic level, and also in Russia the majority of respondents have an education level that is lower than average.

Hours of work

The majority of respondents work full-time and most country samples contain 80 per cent or more respondents with full-time hours of work. The exceptions to this are Korea (68 per cent) and the Netherlands (73 per cent).

The highest proportions of full-time workers are in India (99 per cent), South Africa (96 per cent), Poland (94 per cent), the Russian Federation (94 per cent) and Hungary (94 per cent). The highest proportions of part-time workers are in the Republic of Korea (32 per cent), the Netherlands (27 per cent) and Paraguay (20 per cent).

A breakdown of hours of work by gender shows that generally male respondents are more likely to work full-time (between 80 and almost 100 per cent) than female respondents. These calculations are based on the number of hours of paid work undertaken by survey respondents who are categorised as ‘employees’. Unpaid (female-dominated) activities, such as care responsibilities or household tasks, have not been taken into account. The highest proportions of female part-time workers are found in the Netherlands (50 per cent of women), Korea (38 per cent), and Belgium (26 per cent). The highest levels of disparity between hours of work for men and women (with men working full-time and women part-time) are seen in the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany, while Poland, the Russian Federation and Colombia demonstrate a more homogeneous pattern in the distribution of working hours between male and female workers.

Public, private and not-for-profit sectors


Overall, the private sector accounts for the largest proportion of both male and female respondents, with figures ranging between 60 and 80 per cent in each country. The exceptions to this are Denmark, Finland, Hungary, Mexico, Poland and the United Kingdom, where a relatively large proportion (more than 20 per cent) of respondents work in the public sector. Female workers make up a particularly large share of public sector employees in some countries, such as in Denmark (33 per cent), Finland (39 per cent), Hungary (34 per cent), Poland (46 per cent), and the United Kingdom (36 per cent). The opposite is the case in India, with 90 per cent of both male and female respondents being employed in the private sector. The not-for-profit sector shows a mixed picture, employing a very small proportion of employees in some countries (up to 2 per cent) while accounting for between 6 and 9 per cent of the survey respondents in other countries.

NACE industry classification
The breakdown by broad industry sectors shows the level of industrial segregation in each country, with the general public sector, healthcare and education being female-dominated. Typically, between 20 and 35 per cent of women in each country are employed in these sectors compared to 10 to 20 per cent of male workers. The opposite pattern emerges when looking at the agriculture, manufacturing and building sectors. Overall, most people (men and women) are employed in the commercial services industry, accounting for between 30 and 40 per cent of respondents in most countries.

Trade union membership

Across all countries, the majority of both male and female respondents are not members of a trade union. The highest proportions of trade union membership are in Finland (87 per cent), Brazil (68 per cent) and Belgium (67 per cent). The lowest proportions are found in South Africa (7 per cent) and Korea (8 per cent).

Attitudinal questions

Apart from pay figures, this year’s report also takes a more in-depth look at questions that try to capture people’s attitudes towards collective agreements, job prospects, and satisfaction levels among respondents with regard to their wages, work, and work-life balance. We will look at variations in gender and between countries in particular.

Importance of coverage by collective agreement

When asked if it was important to be covered by a collective agreement, between 65 and 80 per cent of all respondents across countries agreed. Russia, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States have a relatively ow proportion of respondents saying they think this is important. However, research from the US trade union centre AFL-CIO indicates that around 53% of non-union members want to become members. Furthermore, in Sweden and the Netherlands the gender differentiation is quite striking. In these two countries, around 1.5 times as many women as men recognise the importance of being covered by a collective agreement.

Job prospects

With the economic outlook deteriorating, the survey has this year also concentrated on the analysis of questions relating to job security. Some countries have a low response rate, and therefore these results have to be treated with a degree of caution. Focusing on the outcome for countries with a good response rate, between 4 and 12 per cent of respondents across the sample think that their job will become redundant in the next few years, with women being slightly more pessimistic than men. Pessimism is most widespread in Spain, with 10 per cent of men and 12 per cent of women thinking they will be made redundant. Belgian employees are most optimistic, with 4 per cent of men and 7 per cent of women thinking they will lose their job. Moreover, a significant minority of between 15 and 30 per cent of respondents expects to have changed employer in a year’s time, with women being slightly more negative than men, especially in Denmark. In Italy, over two-thirds of male workers expect to have a different employer in a year, compared to three-quarters of women. It should be noted that many of these responses were made during 2007, prior to the full extent of the global economic crisis on the labour market becoming apparent.

Satisfaction with wages

Naturally, people would always like to earn more than they actually do at any given point in their career, but it is interesting to look at the variations from country to country and between men and women. Between 20 and 30 per cent of respondents say they are satisfied with their wage, with overall more men being satisfied than women. Between 35 and 50 per cent of respondents are dissatisfied, and between 25 and 35 per cent are neither satisfied nor dissatisfied. South Africa and Spain are the countries with the highest proportion of dissatisfied workers: respectively 58 and 54 per cent of men are unhappy with their wages, and the figures for women are even higher at 63 and 62 per cent. A large gender difference exists in Finland, where 28 per cent of men are satisfied with their pay compared to 21 per cent of women, with a similar result for Germany (27 versus 21 per cent). Least dissatisfied with their pay are the Dutch and Swedish (both 34 per cent), as well as respondents from the United States (32 per cent). Moreover, in these latter three countries the gender differences were very small. It furthermore should be noted that the US data includes a relatively high proportion of managerial staff.

Family-friendly policies

It looks at the extent to which employees in selected countries benefit from family-friendly policies, such as their employers contributing to day-care for children. The overall proportion of employees in receipt of such a contribution is low, with typically between 0.5 per cent and 4 per cent receiving this benefit. There are some clear differences in gender though, for example in Mexico, where 3 per cent of men say their employer contributes to day-care for children compared to 9 per cent of women. Furthermore, the Netherlands proves to be the positive outlier, with 11 per cent of both men and women stating that their employer contributes to childcare.

In addition to this specific family-friendly policy, the survey also asked participants how they cope with the combination of work and family life. Overall, between 40 and 50 per cent of respondents say that they find it tough. Perhaps not surprisingly, women are more likely to say that they have difficulty in juggling work and family life than men, with between 34 and 40 per cent of men saying so in most countries, compared to between 43 and 57 per cent of women. Belgium (38 per cent of men compared to 51 per cent of women) and Hungary (36 per cent of men versus 57 per cent of women) are the clearest examples of gender difference. Polish respondents seem to cope better, with around 28 per cent of both male and female respondents saying that they find it difficult to strike the right balance between work and family life. The same, relatively low, figure applies to Dutch male workers, while their female counterparts seem to find it more problematic, with 43 per cent saying so.

Satisfaction with work-life balance

The question that follows from the above is how satisfied workers are with their work-life balance. Overall, between a fifth and a quarter of all respondents are dissatisfied. Hungary, the Russian Federation, Spain and the United States are at the upper end of this scale, with around a third of survey participants stating they are dissatisfied. Around a third of respondents across all the participating countries are neutral, and between 40 and 50 per cent of respondents in most countries say they are satisfied. The highest proportion of workers that are satisfied with their work-life balance is found in the Netherlands (63 per cent), followed by in Denmark (53 per cent) and Finland (51 per cent).

Moving on to people’s satisfaction with their life in general, the overall satisfaction levels are between 60 and 70 per cent, while between 10 and 20 per cent are either indifferent or dissatisfied. Countries at the positive end of the spectrum are Argentina, Chile, Poland, the Russian Federation and Spain, with satisfaction levels of around 75 per cent. The negative extreme is Korea, with only 45 per cent of respondents saying they are happy with their life as a whole. The survey did not find much differentiation between men and women for this question, although in the majority of countries the proportion of women being dissatisfied is a little higher than the proportion of men.

The Gender Pay Gap

This report uses the gender pay gap definition put forward by Eurostat, which describes it as ‘the difference between average gross hourly earnings of male paid employees and of female paid employees as a percentage of average gross hourly earnings of male-paid employees’5. We will first give an overview of the pay gap as calculated by WageIndicator, and then compare these results for a selection of countries with the figures provided by Eurostat and some other official sources

The gap according to WageIndicator

In the main global gender pay gap table below, we have set out the gender pay gap between the earnings of men and women at the mean (average) and median pay levels. The detailed tables in the appendix also show the interquartile ranges.. We then look at the gender pay gap broken down by more specific variables. These tables show the mean and median figures. The median is included because it represents the middle of the distribution, i.e. half of the scores are above and half are below this figure. It is therefore less sensitive to outliers (extreme values) than the mean. On the other hand, the average pay gap can be a useful measure to look at because, especially when looking at variations in earnings between men and women, it is important to include the high and low salaries in the calculation.

Generally, if the mean and median are in close range of each other, and we have a normal distribution, we can be reasonably sure that we have a good estimate of the true value of the pay gap in the sample group. If the mean and median are far apart, this may reflect the influence of a few outliers, such as a small number of highly paid men or women. In that case, it is more reliable to look at the median pay gap, because the median corrects for these outliers. The ‘valid N’ column shows the valid number of survey respondents that has been included for every calculation
Country of survey Mean pay Median pay Valid N
gap (%) gap (%)

AR Argentina 29.0 26.1 N=15200

BR Brazil 38.5 34.0 N=20848

CL Chile 17.0 21.0 N=370

DK Denmark 12.1 10.1 N=839

FI Finland 19.6 18.3 N=10710

DE Germany 20.4 20.0 N=40066

HU Hungary 18.3 21.1 N=1609

IN India 29.4 6.3 N=3093

IT Italy 17.3 23.9 N=339

KR Korea, Rep. 24.0 13.7 N=2316

MX Mexico 36.1 29.8 N=4595

NL Netherlands 17.7 19.2 N=56363

PY Paraguay 11.1 19.6 N=150

PL Poland 22.1 22.4 N=5566

RU Russian Federation 13.8 14.5 N=5068

ZA South Africa 33.5 33.0 N=7211

ES Spain 23.0 24.8 N=9031

SE Sweden 12.5 11.0 N=1848

UK United Kingdom 19.8 9.0 N=12049

US United States 31.8 20.8 N=395


Overall gender pay gap

The average pay gaps for the 20 countries for which we had sufficient pay data range from 38.5 per cent in Brazil to 11.1 per cent in Paraguay. The average pay gap results are lower for Denmark (12 per cent), Sweden (13 per cent) and the Russian Federation (14 per cent) and less so for Argentina (29 per cent), Mexico (36.1 per cent) and South Africa (33.5 per cent). The figures for Chile, Italy, Paraguay and the USA are based on fairly small samples and should be treated with caution.

For the majority of countries, both the average pay gap and the median pay gap are quite closely related, indicating that the survey average is probably a good estimate of the true average pay gap for the population. However, in the UK, India and Republic of Korea the pay gap based on the average wage and the pay gap based on the median wage vary considerably. For example, the average pay gap in India is 30 per cent which falls to just 6 per cent on the median measure. The UK sample contains a large numbers of lower-paid male employees and a relatively large population of women in professional roles, which goes some way in explaining why the average pay gap (20 per cent) and the median pay gap (9 per cent) vary so considerably. The average pay gap in the WageIndicator results is close to the official pay gap figure of 17 per cent for the UK.

Country of Mean pay Median
Age bands pay gap Valid N
survey gap (%)
(%)


16-24 11.2 12.4 N=2067
25-34 22.1 24.4 N=7728
AR Argentina 35-44 27.2 32.0 N=3443
45-54 30.9 34.1 N=1524
55-64 27.7 36.3 N=407
16-24 23.2 22.5 N=4567
25-34 31.1 34.3 N=10791
BR Brazil 35-44 31.7 40.7 N=3874
45-54 37.1 44.8 N=1355
55-64 35.7 44.0 N=230
16-24 27.9 15.2 N=65
25-34 10.5 13.7 N=271
DK Denmark 35-44 9.1 13.5 N=256
45-54 5.9 3.7 N=191
55-64 12.6 11.5 N=55
16-24 10.8 9.7 N=836
25-34 16.7 18.2 N=4424
FI Finland 35-44 21.0 23.8 N=3087
45-54 25.3 27.6 N=1773
55-64 27.1 29.1 N=580
16-24 9.0 10.5 N=2542
25-34 14.0 13.9 N=13856
DE Germany 35-44 19.4 20.0 N=13231
45-54 23.0 22.1 N=8051
55-64 22.6 21.2 N=2289
16-24 23.0 2.5 N=121
25-34 15.6 10.8 N=699
HU Hungary 35-44 24.9 28.7 N=377
45-54 24.1 11.1 N=289
55-64 23.6 25.8 N=121
16-24 31.9 38.0 N=327
25-34 3.1 20.8 N=2226
IN India 35-44 6.0 40.9 N=461
45-54 No data No data No data
55-64 No data No data No data
16-24 No data No data No data
25-34 30.9 15.8 N=153
IT Italy 35-44 23.2 14.8 N=128
45-54 No data No data No data
55-64 No data No data No data
16-24 -0.9 2.1 N=281
25-34 11.9 10.0 N=1404
KR Korea, Rep. 35-44 9.6 32.6 N=512
45-54 40.1 51.3 N=101
55-64 No data No data No data
16-24 9.9 15.8 N=834
25-34 24.7 30.7 N=2428
MX Mexico 35-44 36.7 49.8 N=974
45-54 30.4 36.3 N=297
55-64 56.5 55.6 N=55
16-24 3.2 -0.5 N=6333
25-34 9.4 8.0 N=19354
NL Netherlands 35-44 16.9 18.6 N=16879
45-54 24.5 24.3 N=10477
55-64 25.7 27.2 N=3244
16-24 18.6 15.7 N=313
25-34 20.8 20.9 N=2710
PL Poland 35-44 23.8 24.1 N=1126
45-54 23.3 20.5 N=957
55-64 21.1 18.8 N=423
16-24 10.7 11.0 N=1222
RU Russian 25-34 16.0 15.3 N=2619
35-44 13.6 10.3 N=797
Federation
45-54 -4.4 -5.7 N=275

55-64 No data No data No data
16-24 38.6 24.1 N=859
25-34 25.7 27.8 N=3862
ZA South Africa 35-44 32.0 30.1 N=1750
45-54 44.3 43.9 N=627
55-64 39.1 58.8 N=103
16-24 20.9 16.1 N=830
25-34 21.7 21.5 N=5109
ES Spain 35-44 23.6 25.7 N=2287
45-54 29.7 30.1 N=695
55-64 41.4 39.9 N=105
16-24 9.2 10.8 N=65
25-34 8.0 9.9 N=802
SE Sweden 35-44 10.8 15.1 N=702
45-54 20.9 22.4 N=233
55-64 17.6 27.6 N=45
16-24 12.4 10.6 N=1776
25-34 8.1 15.0 N=4640
UK United Kingdom 35-44 8.4 23.9 N=2979
45-54 9.6 20.1 N=1913
55-64 16.1 25.5 N=701
16-24 No data No data No data
25-34 11.0 23.0 N=140
US United States 35-44 25.6 39.3 N=102
45-54 29.5 36.7 N=85
55-64 No data No data No data

Influence of collective bargaining agreement

The data shows that in the majority of countries the pay gap is smaller in workplaces that are covered by a collective agreement. This is most apparent in Hungary and the UK where the pay gap falls considerably between workplaces with collective agreements and workplaces without collective agreements. In the case of Germany and Spain the pay gap is marginally wider in workplaces with collective agreements, and in the United States the results show a widening gap in workplaces covered by a collective agreement. However, it has to be pointed out that the USA sample is rather small relative to the working age population, and includes a relatively high proportion of professional and managerial staff as well as a high level of gender segregation among those who are members of a trade union, which makes it difficult to draw any firm conclusions. Also, other US research in this field shows a different picture, with a substantial advantage in pay and conditions of work for women who are union members and covered by collective agreements.

Gender pay gap broken down by trade union representation in the workplace

TU representative Mean Median
Country of survey pay gap pay gap Valid N
in the workplace
(%) (%)

AR Argentina No 24.5 24.3 N=8260
Yes 25.1 28.0 N=5393

DK Denmark No 5.5 10.2 N=54
Yes -2.3 -10.1 N=96

IT Italy No 32.9 20.5 N=106
Yes 1.3 -0.6 N=138

PL Poland No 24.6 29.9 N=2121
Yes 21.4 17.5 N=1945

ES Spain No 21.8 17.9 N=3786
Yes 21.2 21.7 N=3782

UK United Kingdom No 10.8 21.2 N=7339
Yes 1.5 12.6 N=3198




Influence of trade union representative in the workplace

An analysis of the gender pay gap broken down by the presence of a trade union representative in the workplace shows a positive relationship. The gap between men and women’s earnings is smaller in workplaces where there is a trade union representative, compared with those workplaces without a trade union representative. The exception to this trend is Argentina, where the pay gap is marginally wider in workplaces with a trade union representative. Spain shows ambiguous results, with a slightly lower average pay gap for workplaces with a trade union representative, but a slightly wider gap when looking at the median figure.

The impact of the recession on women’s employment

In order to understand the current economic crisis and how it affects the position of women in the labour market, it is valuable to take a closer look at previous economic downturns and their implications. Before we do this, though, we will first briefly discuss the different consequences the recession has on women’s employment in developing versus developed countries.

The evidence in this field of research is scattered, which makes it difficult to draw general conclusions. Instead, we have adopted the approach of discussing case-studies from various countries.

The developing versus the developed world

The impact of an economic downturn on women’s position in the labour market in developing countries is often stronger than in more economically developed parts of the world. It is widely accepted that the negative consequences of recessions in developed countries impact overall more strongly on male than on female employment levels, while in developing countries women workers are more prone to be made redundant than male workers. The explanation, researchers argue, is partly due to the production and gender employment structures and partly because of the prevailing socio-cultural values in each country.

Research shows that‘(I)n advanced countries, men are often employed in cyclically unstable industries or industries in long-term decline (de-industrialisation), while women tend to be employed in more stable service industries. In many semi-industrial countries, however, women tend to be employed in labour-intensive manufactured export industries which are more prone to fluctuations’7.

The economic and financial systems of developing countries are particularly vulnerable to global economic downturns. Firstly there are the ‘contagion effects’ with regard to a fall in the exchange rates for the currencies used in these countries, which can hardly be influenced even when a proper macro-economic framework is in place. Secondly, the developing world is hit hard by the effects of a global recession, for example because of falling commodity prices, a decline in development aid and in the value of remittances from relatives abroad, and the contraction of exports8. Examples of export cuts affecting women in particular are the African textile industry, where 90 per cent of jobs in the sector are taken up by low-skilled and low-educated women, and the Asian textile, food processing, and electronics manufacturing industries. Furthermore, a large proportion of women in Asia and Africa are employed in agriculture and food production. When food prices rise (as has happened in recent years) and less food is exported, it has a substantial impact on female employment in countries where a large share of the population (and indeed a specifically large proportion of women) is employed in this sector. All these developments can therefore have a profound impact on female employment levels and household incomes
Variations in gender-related socio-cultural values across the world also play an important part in the understanding of how a recession affects women’s positions in the labour market differently across the globe. The idea of the male breadwinner is still a widespread stereotype, but more so in developing countries than in developed ones. The attitude of employers to regard women mainly as ‘secondary income earners’ is then often used as an excuse to fire them first in difficult economic times. The fact that women in developing countries are also much less likely than men to be a member of a trade union, and therefore have a weaker position in the workplace, only reinforces this trend11.

Evidence from previous recessions

Female-dominated sectors particularly sensitive to fluctuations

Research has shown that during the 1997-1999 Asian crisis, a higher proportion of (mainly low-educated) women than men lost their jobs, with many redundancies taking place in export-sensitive industries such as the manufacturing of clothing, food processing, and in retail. All of these were female-dominated industries12. More evidence from job segregation along gender lines is found in low-paid informal work and domestic employment sectors, which both more often employ female than male workers. The high rate of women employed in these areas is another explanatory factor of the disproportional sharp decline in the real wages of women workers during economically tough times. More people are forced into informal work and homework during an economic downturn, which leads to increased competition for this type of work and consequently to downward pressure on wages. Moreover, benefits or other forms of government support hardly exist in these sectors, which negatively impacts on a woman’s income when she loses her job.

Examples of this phenomenon are Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia, all of which provide evidence that women’s income decreased more drastically than that of men in the 1990s crisis because of sharp contractions in sectors in which women were over-represented, such as the casual and domestic employment sectors. Additionally, the majority of Asia’s migrants who were forced to leave some of the countries hit by the crisis, were women.


Care responsibilities and an inadequate social safety net


Women often pick up the care responsibilities that arise from the lack of a social safety net. In particular in developing countries, social security systems are often weak or even absent14. In addition to their role as wage earners and food providers, women also become the main carers for their families, which puts additional stress on not only the women but the whole family, especially on children15. One article argues that ‘(…) women are observed to bear the stress of being caught in a pincer movement: the amount of caring and unpaid household duties may increase when family members become unemployed or sick, while the economic pressures increase for women to undertake paid labour to contribute to the family income, no matter how poor the remuneration and disagreeable or degrading the activity

Counter examples from past recessions: Argentina and the United Kingdom


In the United Kingdom, research on the recession between 1990 and 1993 shows that it was mainly the male-dominated professions such as manufacturing and construction that were affected by the economic decline. Sectors with a bias towards a largely female workforce, such as retail, fast food, pubs and restaurants, hairdressing, cleaning and catering, all showed relatively stable employment levels. More precisely, the employment level for men decreased by 8.8 per cent between 1990 and 1993, while female employment over the same period declined by 2.5 per cent. Furthermore, the ILO unemployment rate for women of working age in the third quarter of 1993 had risen by 1 per cent since 1990 (from 7 to 8 per cent) while the unemployment rate for men increased by 5 per cent during these three years (from 7 to 12 per cent).

The case of the Argentinean economic crisis (1999-2002) shows that the poorer households suffered most, with the household income of the poorest 10 per cent decreasing by 41 per cent, compared to a 23 per cent decline in household income for the richest 10 per cent of households18. Interestingly, research on the Argentinean crisis shows that it was mainly male-headed households that were hit hardest, experiencing a 6 per cent larger decline in household income than female-headed households. This may again have to do with the predominantly male-dominated sectors that were hardest hit by the crisis, such as construction and business, while the crisis had less of an impact on public sector roles in which a large share of female workers were employed.

Considering the above, there is patchy evidence that women are affected disproportionally in times of economic and financial crisis, especially in developing countries. However, it is difficult, if not impossible, to come up with a definitive set of causes, consequences and solutions. As one source of literature puts it, this is partly because of the limited evidence available, and partly because of the regional differences in how the downturns have been experienced in various countries over the last decades19.


The current recession


A recently published United Nations report on the current financial crisis20 reiterates some of the conclusions drawn from previous recessions around socio-cultural values and the presumptions regarding the position of women in the labour market, as described above. It thus shows that the ‘lessons learned’ from the past are, sadly enough, still relevant with regard to the analysis of the gender impact of the present global economic downturn. For example, the authors of the report remark that ‘(W)omen bear the brunt of the crisis because of the paradigm of the male bread-winner that prevails all over the world across cultural divides (…). When job retrenchment takes place, the tendency is to protect employment for men and compromise on women’s jobs. But women’s incomes are essential for family survival, especially when they are heads of households and/or in poor families. They cannot afford to stop working so they end up in jobs with much worse and often unacceptable conditions’21. The report also points out that, in many countries, a woman is still responsible for the largest share, if not all, of the care responsibilities in the household. This means that there is less time available for them to take up paid work in the market economy.

The remainder of this section will concentrate on specific examples of the impact of the economic crisis on the position of women in labour markets in regions across the globe.


Latin America and the Caribbean


At its conference in December 2008, the UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) commented that unemployment among women in this region is likely to rise due to the financial crisis, especially because many of them work in industries that are responsive to economic fluctuations, such as commerce, manufacturing, financial services, tourism and domestic services. The Commission also foresees an increase in social inequality, informal employment and a lack of social protection22.




United Sates of America


In the USA, women make up the majority of low-wage workers and are more likely than men to live in poverty (36 versus 26 per cent). The poverty rate for single female-headed households is the highest of all demographic groups. Moreover, more women than men hold sub-prime mortgages, and women are more likely to fall into the ‘poverty trap’ - which is getting larger in the current economic crisis. Figures underline that it is difficult to get out of this situation: after a decade around 60 per cent of families in the lowest salary bracket has been unable to get out of this situation, stressing the absence of economic mobility23.


The United Kingdom


The effects of the current economic downturn on women workers in the UK are a topic of discussion, with some arguing that the fall in employment levels for male full-time workers has been much sharper than for female full-time workers (1.2 per cent for men and 0.5 per cent for women during the second and third quarter of 200824), while others argue that UK women will be hit harder in this recession than in previous ones. Reasons for this latter argument are that jobs are being lost all across the economy (especially in the retail and hospitality sectors) instead of mainly in manufacturing and construction, more women nowadays are in paid employment than was the case in previous recessions, and more households than ever are now headed up by a female who is also the primary wage earner in that household. Furthermore, women take home more than men in over a fifth of couples25, reinforcing the significance of the drop in household income if the female partner is made redundant.


The way forward

Policy measures


More flexible working opportunities in order to combine care duties more easily with paid work, a more accessible benefits system, stimulating macro-economic fiscal and monetary policies, and a better representation of women in key roles so that they can help to influence and shape local, national and international pay and employment policies. These are only a few of the many policy initiatives suggested in the literature. A small selection of these propositions is discussed more in-depth below.

Firstly, taking a closer look at developing countries, one of the consequences of rising unemployment levels and less capital inflow from investors is that governments will have less revenue at their disposal. This means a decrease in government social spending, which in turn can lead to reduced services in the fields of health care, education and transport. Additionally, food aid and other forms of international government development aid may be reduced because the money is being used to revive the economies in the donor countries. The same applies to private humanitarian groups. However, strengthening the official development assistance, such as the provision of loans from multilateral financial institutions, will have a long-term positive impact on the development of these less developed economies, and particularly on the welfare of women. A contribution written for the UN panel on the global financial crisis illustrates this point by emphasising the need to keep up support for long-term development objectives in the social services, such as in the care sector, in order to reduce the pressure on unpaid work which is mainly carried out by women.

A second set of suggestions comes from the International Monetary Fund. In its working paper, published shortly after the macroeconomic crisis in Argentina in the 1990s, the organisation proposes social interventions to help households cope with an economic downturn. Investments in social safety nets and public works programmes are put forward as possible solutions, as well as greater labour market flexibility which, proponents argue, allows better and easier access to jobs, particularly for women. Others, however, would say that such flexibility measures have often been encouraged by the IMF and World Bank primarily in order to increase employers’ ability to hire and fire workers, and that these policies would not necessarily be in the interests of female or male workers. In any case, any proposals for flexibility should be considered extremely carefully. The first priority has to be to establish an efficient, transparent and well-coordinated public administration apparatus, which is equipped to initiate and support the other interventions26.

Thirdly, a specific ‘women’s agenda’ that influences international financial reform can also be part of the solution. From a gender perspective, women-friendly government fiscal policies and measures to avoid deep fluctuations in economic activity may be desirable. In developing countries, controlled capital inflow and outflow could be integrated into normal economic policy, in order to attract capital from investors who are committed to support a country’s development strategy in the long run, such as certain Foreign Direct Investments (FDI). At the same time, this would mean resisting the highly volatile capital injections (although perhaps profitable in the short-term) that characterises much overseas investment in developing countries27. In addition, some researchers suggest that, apart from measures on the national level, the international community should aim for a ‘trend increase in the rate of growth of real world aggregate demand, production and employment on a sustainable

basis…Such policies will benefit both women and men, but women will derive greater advantage from the greater stability generated by such policies’28. The same authors recommend that other forms of wage and employment discrimination (e.g. gender discrimination on the basis of cultural arguments) against women may be addressed through complementary (inter-) national policies. Women themselves, they add, must play an active part in formulating such policy frameworks.

Finally, among the recommendations from the UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) are suggestions to redefine fiscal pacts to ensure resources for public policies, the implementation of new policies to prevent the loss of paid jobs, as well as greater efforts to prevent expenditure on social policies from dropping, especially policies relating to the strengthening of gender equality. Other proposals put forward by ECLAC include the reinforcement of official development aid and the strengthening of regional integration processes ‘as an opportunity in light of the current crisis’.


More women in boardrooms


A gender-balanced senior management team may be beneficial to an organisation’s performance. In the current economic climate, female representation in senior positions has therefore once again become a much-discussed issue, as various recently published articles on this topic suggest.

The ‘Female FTSE Report 2008’ is one such publication. It looks at the number of women in UK boardrooms of FTSE-listed companies and points out that the global financial crisis is a new opportunity to appoint more women to the boards of organisations operating in the financial sector, in order to obtain better gender balance in these largely male company boards. The authors also mention the example set by Norway, which has set a mandatory quota for 40 per cent of corporate board positions to be held by women. This has become effective as of 31 January 200831. Similar initiatives are taking place across Europe. In Spain, companies have until 2015 to implement a policy which requires women to fill between 40 and 60 per cent of all boards and executive-level positions. Germany has introduced ‘soft quotas’ to promote gender equality32. Iceland, hit particularly hard by the current crisis, has recently appointed female CEOs to head up its two newly created nationalised banks, New Landsbanki and New Glitnir.


Trade union membership


A US study conducted by the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) shows that, controlled for other variables, union representation significantly improves women’s pay and benefits: on average their pay is 11.2 per cent higher than that of their non-union counterparts33. This is even more so the case for women employed in so-called ‘low-wage occupations’ (such as cashiers, food preparation workers, child-care workers, cleaners, nurses and teaching assistants) in the USA34: unionised women in such jobs earn a median salary which is some 30 per cent higher than the median salary of a non-unionised colleague. The study concludes that women demonstrably benefit from collective bargaining, and that this is the case across the whole spectrum of occupations. The WageIndicator results in this report support this statement, with the gender pay gap in many countries being considerably smaller when women are a member of a trade union and/or are covered by a collective agreement.


Standardising the gender pay gap definition

In last year’s ITUC Global Gender Pay Gap Report the complexities and obstacles in calculating the gender pay gap in an internationally comparable manner were explored35. The report drew specific attention to issues such as differences in the calculations and measures of earnings across the globe, the (lack of) availability of earnings data and large enough sample sizes, the type of employee that is used (i.e. part-time and/or full-time, and how these concepts are defined from country to country), and the wide variety in the collection method of earnings data. It called upon an internationally agreed definition of the gender pay gap, as well as for harmonised research methodologies to calculate it, in order to stimulate and support internationally coordinated actions to close the gap.

These recommendations from last year’s Gender Pay Gap Report are reinforced by a recently published international review of labour data, which was conducted by the UK Office of National Statistics on behalf of the United Nations Statistical Commission (UNSC) in 2007. This UN Review of Labour Statistics looks at the indicators of labour market statistics, among other things, and mentions ‘issues of overlap, lack of coherence and comparability’36 in its conclusions. One of the causes for this is the wide range of organisations involved in international labour statistics, such as the OECD, Eurostat, the IMF, the United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD), the World Bank, and the ILO. The authors of the report point out that these agencies ‘produce indicators of labour statistics for countries internationally, but each with slightly different definitions, timescales, coverage and remits’37.

The widely used KILM (Key Indicators of the Labour Market) dataset, which is produced by the International Labour Organisation, is found to be the most comprehensive source (even though the response rate of the survey, which went out to 232 countries worldwide, was just 50 per cent). However, it requires updating and has incomplete meta-data on sources and collection methods. This is also due to the fact that some countries are not able to supply the data in the required format and time period. Collecting data and producing reliable statistics in countries with less developed economies is also a problem. Even in developed countries, cross-country analysis of labour market statistics is difficult because of ‘incomplete coverage, contradictory results, difficulties and limitations in describing labour market dynamics, and the absence of links between labour market statistics and other social and economic statistics’38.

Moreover, the study points out that even though internationally agreed definitions are used widely, the interpretation of these definitions differ from country to country and from organisation to organisation.

In order to tackle these issues, we put forward the following recommendations:


• Harmonisation of concepts and methods (e.g. definitions of employment,full-time and part-time work)
• Putting in place a coordinated system for providing technical assistance (e.g. statistical training as an integral part of statistical capacity building)
• Improvements to the existing system of setting international standards
• Setting up working groups to discuss the five priority areas for development work, being: 1) the changing structure of the labour force; 2) the non-observed economy and informal employment; 3) measurement of productivity; 4) child and forced labour; 5) globalisation
• Developing an updated version of the conceptual labour statistics framework (i.e. developing a set of key labour statistics indicators common to the OECD, ILO and Eurostat).

Interestingly, the UN Review remarks that one of the challenges is to provide a coherent and comprehensive definition of ‘employment’. The employment definition is primarily based on the (largely economic) notion that the activities carried out by the employed person contribute to the production of goods and services. This excludes statistics that deal with unpaid non-market services, such as the non-observed economy and informal employment. The Review therefore proposes to include the new concept of ‘work statistics’, which then will include ‘unpaid work in the family and the wider community’ (in addition to ‘employment statistics’). This could be used for the purpose of social analysis. As the Review’s authors put it: ‘(T)he relationship between unpaid family work and paid employment, particularly for women, is key to understanding the matching of jobs with people’39. Additionally, extending the use of family and household statistics, and linking these to employment and labour market topics would, for example, enable researchers and policymakers to undertake cross-country comparisons of the relationships between female employment and household poverty. To quote the authors, ‘(M)ainstreaming household and family analysis would give a more complete view on how to improve women’s employment levels, would help to get a handle on unpaid and informal work and would assist in the measurement of poverty through assessing links between female employment and household poverty.


Recommendations

Gender pay gap

The research for this report has shown that there is still a long way to go before wage equality between men and women is achieved. The report has looked at the pay gap from various angles, such as education, age and sector, and the gender pay gap is still clearly present in almost all cases. Internationally-defined indicators and methodologies to calculate the gap are necessary to produce statistical evidence which is comparable from country to country. However, what is probably needed most is bold action by politicians and policy makers to eradicate the inequality in wages. This can be achieved through equal pay audits and job evaluation exercises in the workplace, and various other national and international policies targeted at obtaining gender pay equality. Making women aware of the benefits of trade union membership, trade union representation in the workplace, and collective agreements, are also important tools in the efforts to close the gap.

Economic downturn

Policy initiatives that aim to stimulate the economy would benefit from the integration of a gender perspective. Gender mainstreaming of economic policy making could include, among other things, more flexible working opportunities, more and better investment in social services and social support initiatives, and international financial reform that aims for sustainable, long-term economic growth instead of short-term profit seeking which may lead to deep fluctuations in economic activity. To help such initiatives succeed, a better representation of women in key roles at all levels is important. Only then can they actively participate and exercise influence in the formulation of new policies.

Violence against women

It is clear from the evidence currently available that the cost implications of VAW are high. Women who are victims of violence have to cope with the mental and physical consequences, which create obstacles for them to fully participate in the labour market and earn an income. More research into this topic is needed to understand the scope of the problem. In order to do this successfully, research methods have to be improved and agreed standards of measurement need to be created. Guidelines published by the International Research Network on VAW can be used to ensure international comparability and to guarantee that quality standards are met. Furthermore, the World Health Organisation’s Ethical and Safety Guidelines for Researching Domestic VAW can be used to protect the women that are surveyed. Ideally, well-designed surveys on this subject would ultimately be included in existing national statistical systems, so that the issue is regularly monitored. The results of this research can then be used to influence governments. Apart from lobbying national governments and international institutions for new legislation, other measures to reduce gender inequalities should also be taken into account, such as initiatives to improve and increase women’s access to education, health, and employment. In this respect, not only governments but also other stakeholders such as trade unions, employers’ representations and Non-Governmental Organisations, have an important role to fulfil

Hey Reena,

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