Commentary: The Uneven and Unexpected Life of a Female Worker

SINGAPORE: In Singapore, women earn $ 640,000 less than their male counterparts in a 40-year career.

The differential, which includes CPF contributions, was calculated as part of AWARE's ongoing research on how the labor market is treating women unfairly and what government, employers and unions can do. to combat gender inequality in the workplace.

The recent round of discussions on Oxfam's commitment to reducing inequality has omitted one of its most significant results: how gender inequality contributes to economic inequality.

How does gender inequality manifest itself in a country where men and women have equal opportunities in education and employment?

It takes three insidious forms: unequal pay for equal work, unpaid care work and the fact that the labor market ranks men in higher paying jobs and women in low wage jobs.

Unequal pay for equal work

Using Labor Force Survey data from the Department of the Workforce on median monthly earnings of male and female full-time employees to calculate the gender pay gap and women over a period of 40 years and cover the most productive years of work we have found shrunk over the last decade, but persists by age groups, occupational categories and line positions.

In 2016, women earned less than men in all occupational categories, with the exception of office support. The gap at the top of the career, where women are underrepresented, is even worse. The 10% of directors of companies listed on SGX are women, and they are paid 43% less than their male counterparts.

What makes the pay gap possible?

Gender-specific social norms that intrinsically devalue women's work and the absence of policies that require employers to provide equal pay for equal work. In the workplace, women continue to face additional barriers, including sexist, conscious and unconscious bias, resulting in unequal opportunities, choices and outcomes.

We regularly meet women who are discriminated against because of their maternity or pregnancy status, women who are harassed at work and women who are passionate about promotion because of stereotypes that dictate what women "can" do.

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It is easy to dismiss some of these claims as unusual, after the Department of Labor's statistics show that only 57 unjust dismissals related to pregnancy were recorded in 2016.

However, these figures would be much higher if the data included all cases of high-performing maternal pregnant women in the workplace with full-time, part-time contracts, demoted and are forced to resign soon after their employers have informed themselves of their pregnancy.

Make no mistake, the wage gap between men and women not only affects women's ability to earn an income during their productive years, it also compromises their ability to save for the needs of their families. retirement.

While Singapore has made progress in reducing the gender gap in CPF savings, there is still a difference of about 11% between the average male and female balances. under the CPF. Women live longer than men, they need more, not less, savings for retirement.

UN PAID CARE WORK STILL WORKING FOR WOMEN

Despite the measures to encourage the sharing of responsibilities within and between households and the provision by the public of certain health care institutions, domestic work, including care for children and the elderly, and tasks housewives, remains a female responsibility.

This work, which remains largely unseen and unpaid, has a direct effect on labor market outcomes, particularly with regard to women's participation in the labor market, wage gap, and even duration, quality and the type of paid work that women can undertake.

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In 2016, 78% of working-age women who were not very well in the labor force were not working because of family responsibilities, including caregiving. The comparable percentage of men outside the labor force was 9.6%. This gap in activity between men and women widens the gap between their incomes and therefore their retirement savings.

"Why can not women just do more work?" Is a question that is often asked to us during discussions and events on gender inequality, suggesting arduous work and an appropriate attitude as an easy solution to the problems of women in the workplace.

When women try to keep jobs that do not provide paid child care leave by taking unpaid leave to care for their sick child, they are fired for "unreliability". When they are trying to find a new job, employers do not hire them because they do not want workers whose attention is shared between care and work responsibilities.

Examples of the disadvantages mothers face at work are what sociologists call the "maternity sanction," according to many studies: a pay gap of several thousand dollars between working mothers and childless women at work. during their lives.

On the other hand, having children does not affect men's wages, as shown by a recent study of the careers of men and women in Denmark, and hardly affects their careers with regard to the type of job that interests them.

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Women are forced to choose low-paid work

Skeptics about the pay gap between men and women generally boil down to the fact that women "choose" only lower paying jobs, which ignores the structural conditions that lead to gender inequality.

Yes, it is true that women are overrepresented in low-wage jobs in the social services and cleaning sector, jobs that are considered natural extensions of their domestic roles in the private sphere.

It is not that women deliberately choose low-paying jobs, but that their jobs are less valuable than those of men. Empirical evidence shows that when a large number of women became designers in the United States, wages across the occupation dropped by 34%. When they became biologists, wages fell by 18%.

Is it because women are considered to be of lesser value? If this is the case, we must fight integrated misogyny by not tolerating any expression of it.

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Another explanation for the overrepresentation of women in low-wage jobs is the choice, but especially the social context in which they make that choice.

Women do not simply choose low-paying jobs, they choose the types of jobs that provide the temporal flexibility needed to fulfill their responsibilities as caregivers. These jobs tend to be based on shifts, part-time work, low pay and precarious work.

A possible alternative might be to create more flexible jobs to allow employees of all genders to balance their careers and family responsibilities, so that those seeking flexibility are not automatically pushed into the low-paid informal sector.

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THEN, WHAT CAN WE DO?

Fortunately, we can still take concrete steps to reduce the pay gap between men and women. First, public policies can encourage private sector companies with more than 250 employees to publish their median wages for men and women.

In Great Britain, employees used published salary data to talk to their executives about concrete measures (training on the unconscious bias of all their employees, evaluation of hiring and retention policies) that they are considering. to take to make workplaces more inclusive.

Second, the Singapore government should reject unequal pay for equal work in all sectors of the economy. It should go beyond the promotion of the Tripartite Guidelines on Fair Employment Practices, but also encourage employers to regularly organize unconscious training on gender bias for managers and HR professionals, and communicate clear their grievance procedures to their employees.

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Finally, we need to recognize, reduce and redistribute care responsibilities so that they become a shared social responsibility. The provision of free child care services, increased investment in senior care infrastructure, more flexible work arrangements and paid family care leave are some of the known measures. to reduce the negative consequences on women's labor market.

As we continue our fight against economic inequality, let us keep in mind that the fight against gender inequalities is of crucial importance for the realization of a Singapore that is concerned for all.

Shailey Hingorani is responsible for advocacy and research activities at the Women's Association for Action and Research (AWARE).