human Resource magazine was one of publications to spew forth the recycled hyperbole Australians have heard year after year. In their article, Women behind in pay stakes, they claim that "There is a significant gap between male and female earnings, according to a recent Australian Bureau of statistics (ABS) report".
Fair call, one might say after skimming the superficial statistics. But sit and think and ask yourself the following questions before coming to a conclusion ...
- Is gender THE differentiating factor, or do elements like time in the field, capability to be a slave to the job, and career drivers play more of an important role?
- Why does the media only report the average earnings, knowing that women are more commonly employed in lower paid occupations (e.g. hospitality) while highly paid occupations (e.g. tradespeople in mining) are predominantly male? This in itself will skew the survey results!
- What factor does significant time away (e.g. maternity leave & child rearing) from a technical occupation, such as accounting, have on the remuneration afforded to women? It seems that some voices are asking that employers pay equal remuneration on a gender basis regardless of all other factors! The fact that a woman may take 5 years away from her career seems to mean little to the lobbyists, who just want equal pay, end of story! Isn't it funny how we don't have cries from young people seeking pay that is on par to the nearly retired!
As a recruiter the arguments don't wash with me. I see men and women getting equal pay everyday in my job, however the issue is that the majority of CFOs tend to be male, while the majority of accounts support staff tend to be female. Notwithstanding that there are some exceptional cases of sexism, I believe that the majority of pay disparity is due to decisions made by the individual and very little to do with glass ceilings or gender disparity.
But then again .. I am, more than likely, a sexist male!
Have to agree with you here... if a comparism were done, within the industry and comparing people with same experience / qualifications, I might be inclined to believe the media hype.
ReplyDeleteThe only argument is that many females may not make executive because they may lack an aggressiveness / killer instinct that is required at many executive levels.
But that also doesn't preclude them... my own boss is female and an executive in a large corporation, and I know she gets paid her 6-figure sum for a good reason!