GENDER PAY GAP
Source: The Hindu
Key Points:
- Asymmetries abound in India's Labour market & closing the gap is key to achieving social justice for working women.
- September 18 is considered International Equal Pay Day, as it is time to reflect on the extent of progress made towards closing the gender pay gap.
Impact of the pandemic:
- Reaffirming the collective commitment to the effective & accelerated realisation of the principle 'Equal pay for work of equal value.
- This becomes all more important in the present context, given the disproportionate effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on women workers in terms of job & income losses.
- Full, productive economic growth requires human-centred recovery from the pandemic by improving women's employment outcomes & reducing the gender pay gap.
- The impact is uneven with women being among the worst affected in income security, partly due to their representation in sectors hard hit by COVID-19, combined with the gendered division of family responsibilities.
- Many women reverted to full-time care of children & the elderly during the pandemic, foregoing their livelihoods.
Wider Pay Gap:
- International Labour Organisation's "Global Wage Report 2020-21", suggests the crisis inflicted massive downward pressure on wages & affected women's total wages compared to men.
- This greater wage reduction for women means that the pre-existing gender pay gap has widened.
- Despite notable progress in closing the gender pay gap in India, the gap remains high by international standards.
- Indian women earned 48% less compared to their male counterparts in 1993-94.
- Since then, the gap declined to 28% in 2018-19 as in the labour force survey data of the National Sample Survey Office(NSSO).
- The pandemic reversed the decade's progress by increasing 7% of the gender pay gap between 2018-19 & 2020-21, by the Periodic Labour Force Survey(PLFS).
Discrimination:
Gender-based discriminatory practices include:
- lower wages paid to women
- undervaluation of women's work in highly feminised occupations, enterprises
- motherhood pay gap
- lower wages for mothers compared to non-mothers.
| The ILO enshrined "Equal pay for work of equal value" in its Constitution & Convention on the elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Women. (CEDAW) |
CEDAW provides an international legal framework for realising gender equality & addressing the intersecting forms of discrimination & vulnerabilities among women & girls.
Stepswere takenn in India:
- India took several steps in the legislative sphere to close the gender pay gap, at the low end of the wage distribution.
- India was one of the pioneering countries to enact the minimum Wages Act in 1948 & followed by the adoption of the Equal Remuneration Act in 1976.
- In 2019, India carried out comprehensive reforms in both the legislation & enacted the Code on Wages.
| As per Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act(MGNREGA) in 2005 benefited rural women workers & helped reduce the gender pay gap. |
- Directly, by raising the pay levels of women workers who participated in the programme & indirectly, benefits accrued to women involved in agricultural occupations through higher earnings.
- In 2017, the Government amended the Maternity Benefit Act of 1961, which increased the 'Maternity leave with pay protection' from 12 weeks to -26 weeks for all women working in establishments employing 10 or more workers.
- This is expected to reduce the motherhood pay gap among mothers in the median & high-end wage earners working in the formal economy.
- Apart from enabling legislation, efforts are being made through the Skill India Mission to equip women with market-relevant skills to bridge the learning-to-livelihood gap & gender pay gap.
- The gender pay gap is slowly narrowing, at the current rate of progress,s it will take more than 70 years to close it completely.
- Accelerated bold action is needed to prevent a widening of the gender pay gap & closing the existing gap.
Target:
- One of the targets of the UN Sustainable Development Goal 8 is Achieving full, productive employment & decent work for all women & men including young people, and persons with disabilities & equal pay for work of equal value by 2030.
- Supporting this goal, the Equal Pay International Coalition(EPIC), was launched in 2017 as a multi-stakeholder initiative led by ILO, UNWomenn& the Organisation for Economic Co-operation &Developmentt(OECD) that seeks to achieve equal pay for women & men.
Epilogue:
Equal pay for work of equal value is necessary to close the gender pay gap. Closing the gender pay gap is key to achieving social justice for working women, as well as economic growth for the country.
For Prelims &Mains Perspective
|
For Prelims: World Wage gap report by?
For Mains: Differentiate the wage depending upon the gender, Discuss Effects of COVID-19 Pandemic on it (150 Words)
|
