No surprises!
A recent OECD report showed not unsurprisingly that women in OECD countries earn 18% less than men and only around one-third of managerial positions are held by women. This data won’t surprise too many but it does make you wonder what data is needed before we actually start to see concerted efforts to close the gender pay gap and to increase the number of women in senior decision making roles. It is clear that the data on its own doesn’t create a compelling case for change. The report is available at this link.
Closing the gender pay gap
Another case of sex discrimination – maybe we need more cases like this one to address the gender pay gap!!!
Around 50 female workers at Birmingham City Council in the UK (the UK’s largest local authority) have been told by the Employment Tribunal that their claims of discrimination are valid – but over 4000 more women could be affected by the ruling. The cases relate to bonuses or rather the lack of bonuses paid to the women. Men who were on the same pay grade had earned bonuses up to 160% of their basic pay - the women didn’t get bonuses! It could cost the Council 600 million pounds in back pay. Now that would be money well spent!!!
Some interesting reports this week
Goldman Sachs and JB Were have recently released a report titled Australia’s Hidden Resource: the Economic Case for Increasing Female Participation. The report highlights (again!) that women are an underutilised and undervalued resource in the Australian labour market and are overrepresented in the caring professions and underrepresented in science and technology. The report also comments on the persistence of the gender pay gap across a range of industry sectors. To download the full report, click here.
Our colleague Therese alerted us to the Productivity Commission (2005), “Economic Implications of an Ageing Australia, Research Report”, Canberra which reached similar conclusions. The full report can be downloaded from the Productivity Commission site. Again it’s a case of the data is there (and has been for some time) but change isn’t happening!!! So if the business case doesn’t appear to be winning the hearts and minds of those in senior decision making roles – what will? We are interested in your thoughts of what is needed now to make change happen. Please feel free to leave a comment or drop us a line: mbc@gsb.curtin.edu.au
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