European Parliament asks why we still have a gender pay gap in Europe
Alison Clarke
WVoN co-editor
The European Parliament will today debate a report on equal pay written by Edit Bauer, a Slovakian Christian Democrat member of the parliament (MEP).
“How” she asks “is it possible that after having legislation on equal pay for over 50 years it doesn’t work and we still have a 16%-17% gender pay gap in the EU?”
Good question, Ms Bauer.
Below two British MEPs – Marina Yannakoudakis and Mary Honeyball – debate the pros and cons of legislation.
Yannakoudakis, a member of the Conservative ECR group in the parliament, argues that more legislation is not the way forward; Honeyball, a member of the Socialist group, says there’s no other way.
Marina Yannakoudakis:
I have long campaigned for companies to ensure equal pay for work of equal value. Nevertheless, I shall be voting against this report.
Is this because I no longer believe that men and women should receive equal treatment in the workplace? Certainly not.
It’s because I expect that these proposals will encourage the European Commission to develop legislation on equal pay, which I believe will ultimately be bad for business and bad for women.
Clearly the gender pay gap remains a problem. In the UK, the full-time gap is over 10% and the overall difference between men and women’s pay is nearly 20%. In some countries in Eastern Europe, the gap is as large as 30%.
I agree that this is unacceptable, yet I am unconvinced that new legislation – let alone new European Union (EU) legislation – is the solution to the problem.
The UK is already well served by legislation on equal pay. The Equal Pay Act of 1970 very simply prohibits employment contracts with terms which are more favourable to one or the other gender.
The European Union Treaty also obliges member states to ensure that the principle of equal pay for equal work is applied. The 2010 Equality Act tried to build on the Equal Pay Act yet, like a great deal of well-meaning legislation, it introduced unnecessary and unhelpful red tape which proved burdensome for business.
Rather than rules, regulations and sanctions we need to encourage companies to make the workplace as flexible and family-friendly as possible. That is why the UK coalition government has proposed the Children and Families Bill which will establish flexible parental leave by 2015.
The new arrangements will allow women – and more significantly men – to balance their work and family lives. Denmark and Sweden have similar systems where men and women can share blocks of time-off after the birth of a child.
Here is where the EU can be of added value – by sharing best practices in member states and finding ways to ensure that family-friendly policies are not overly- taxing for business.
The British government is also examining the possibility of encouraging flexible working for all employees, irrespective of their child-rearing or caring responsibilities.
While it is important to balance out the proposals with the burdens they may place on business, flexible working has actually been shown to boost productivity.
Working mothers in particular would benefit from flexible working, but it would also help those looking after elderly parents. It would allow all workers – especially women – to deliver to the best of their ability.
I believe that companies need to act voluntarily to break down the barriers which women face in the workplace. I have denounced EU plans for compulsory quotas for women in the boardroom and I similarly favour a voluntary approach when it comes to equal pay.
We can only achieve equal pay when firms themselves realise the benefits; change will not come by telling companies how to run their business or by dictating how people should behave.
Family-friendly businesses, equal pay for equal work, flexible working, using the skills of women to drive the economic recovery: these are all common sense initiatives.
And it is precisely because it’s common sense that the European Union should steer clear of legislation. Businesses do not need to brow-beaten into breaking down barriers in the workplace.
Talented women can and will rise to the top based on merit. Employers are realising the true value of women and ensuring that they are appropriately remunerated.
We need motivation not intimidation and I shall continue to resist moves by Brussels to legislate in this area.
Mary Honeyball:
Equal pay for equal work has been enshrined in EU legislation since 1976. However, despite our best efforts, the reality is that a gender pay gaps exists in the UK.
My fear is that this will not change for several more generations to come unless and until there is legislative intervention.
The last Labour government introduced measures in 2010 which stipulated that by 2013 companies of over 250 employees would have to file gender pay reports.
When the Conservative-led coalition government came into office they removed the compulsory nature of this requirement. Their justification was that it would have an adverse effect on small businesses.
My firm view, on the other hand, is that a business employing 250 plus people should have robust enough policies in place to ensure that their employees are treated equally and fairly.
Tough legislative measures are, I believe, the only way forward. The European Union has been concerned about the gender pay gap for many years.
The report asking for legislation on the gender pay gap includes demands for work evaluation and job classification, equality bodies and legal remedy and sanctions for non-compliance.
It will now be up to members of the Women’s Rights and Gender Equality Committee to keep the pressure up to ensure that a European Directive is brought forward.
On a related matter, I am completely in favour of mandatory quotas for women on company boards. I welcome the initiative from European Commissioner Viviane Reding to consult on introducing binding quotas.
This is the only way to make any kind of progress. It is no good just saying that we want more women in the boardroom. To achieve this kind of parity concrete action needs to be taken
In Norway company boards are obliged to have 40% women directors and it works very well. Just in case you doubted it, women are just as able as men to take on these leadership roles.
The Norwegian model is, I believe, the way we should go. We should explore how Norway has implemented its quota for women on company boards and see how we can incorporate into our ways of operating in Britain.
We must, in addition, support Commissioner Reding in her ground breaking initiative. This particular fight must go on until we reach achieve parity.
The UK gender pay gap though is largely explainable – 64% of it is work area / experience related leaving a real gap of only 3.6% between full time working adults or 7.2% overall. If we keep using headline grabbing numbers for things that are fairly explainable and solvable we don’t seem to be doing ourselves any favours.
I agree with 2ndnin. Talented women need to rise to the top based on merit. This is the only solution that is sustainable in the long term that I can see.
On mandatory quotas, I think if they exist for Women they should also exist for Men. This way Women will still benefit (as most businesses would already fulfil their male quota) but it won’t be seen by the Men as a sexist, unfair advantage. It also makes the change more sustainable as it will cover a possible scenario of a Women dominated workforce in the future.
In summery I think that generally we should focus on strategies which don’t favour one sex more than the other (which is sexism really) but try to lower disparity in a more balanced manor.
Hi Sam, thanks for your comment. The problem is that if it were possible to rise to the top on merit, women would have already done so, unless we’re saying that there’s a lack of talented women out there, which I don’t believe. Equally, I don’t quite follow your rationale for quotas for men if, as you accept, most businesses would already fulfil them.
My point wasn’t about quotas but rather simply that the actual gender pay gap is largely a ‘choice’ issue rather than other factors that are out with the control of the individual.
In terms of quotas Norway doesn’t really seem to be a good example to follow – their 40% is largely shared amongst a much smaller group of women (holding on average 6 directorships each iirc) with little direct influence. Better is likely a plan to get women interested in the process early and the associated personal losses. Curt Rice had some interesting points about changing the titles of courses. Making business more people oriented is likely the solution from a purely statistical pov in the west given our prevailing cultural norms.
2ndnin
I would like to know from where are you getting your data/information? It is very different from the information I have seen on the gender pay gap, which compares men and women in the same occupation groups and is highest in management occupations and lowest in the professions
UK government report 201x. http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/equalities/women/women-work/ though there are many others out there that put the UK numbers under 10% ft-ft and most do explain about 50-70% of the gap through ‘choices’. I’m deliberately air quoting choice there because some of the factors such as experience and years worked are not always choices.
We have structural divisions in our labour pool, and they do appear quite ingrained. If you look at Curt Rice simply changing bridge building 101 to getting people across a river 101 massively altered the dynamic of the group. So appearing to give things a more heavy people focus seems to attract more women into those fields. Whether it can be sustained is another question though.
“Equally, I don’t quite follow your rationale for quotas for men if, as you accept, most businesses would already fulfil them.”
- This is exactly the reason why it would be ideal to implement the quotas in a non-sexist manner, applying the same rules to each sex.
The businesses that already have enough men on their executive committees, which is most, would need to make sure that they equally hire women. However, unfortunate men will loose their jobs over this kind of legislation and because of that it would be foolish to believe a certain amount of stigmatisation towards women wouldn’t arise from such situations. Having the same quota rules for men does little harm and serves to make the whole concept less bias and one-sided, helping to partially mitigate the aforementioned social problems that will arise if women are unfairly put in to corporate positions.
Now to clarify the rest of my comment…
“The problem is that if it were possible to rise to the top on merit, women would have already done so, unless we’re saying that there’s a lack of talented women out there, which I don’t believe. ”
- Thanks for your reply, I will clarify what I have written because it shouldn’t be read that there aren’t talented women out there, because there are. I’m not going to start a women vs men argument because I think they are all trivial and missing the point, rather I was saying that talented women need to rise to the top jobs based on merit rather than the fact that they are women, the same goes for men. Once you start putting people in positions or favouring someone based on their sex, race, ect rather than merit issues arise which will eventually destroy the system, and will only serve to hurt the sex, race, ect that was given preferential treatment.
I was more or less just agreeing with what 2ndnin wrote about choice, to explain ‘some of’ the pay gap (please note the emphasis on some of as I realise it doesn’t explain it totally). In my country the wealthiest individual is a women, by a large margin. The pay gap in my country is also smaller than the gap listed in the article. So I’m not speaking universally but in my profession (health) I notice much of the pay gap is generated from choice, such as the choice to take time off work to have a baby, or the choice not to specialise to be an ophthalmologist because of the time commitment and rather choose to work as a GP so more time can be devoted to family, ect.
Also some jobs such as child care, which are female dominated, have horrible pay (thankfully the government just passed a bill to rectify this in my country).
In my experience the prevalence of a pay-gap based solely on gender and not on performance or an individuals choices or lifestyle is actually quite low. Again I’m only talking about my experiences and those of the people who I know.
I was more or less just agreeing with what 2ndnin wrote about choice, to explain ‘some of’ the pay gap (please note the emphasis on some of as I realise it doesn’t explain it totally). In my country the wealthiest individual is a women, by a large margin. The pay gap in my country is also smaller than the gap listed in the article. So I’m not speaking universally but in my profession (health) I notice much of the pay gap is generated from choice, such as the choice to take time off work to have a baby, or the choice not to specialise to be an ophthalmologist because of the time commitment and rather choose to work as a GP so more time can be devoted to family, ect.
Also some jobs such as child care, which are female dominated, have horrible pay (thankfully the government just passed a bill to rectify this in my country).
In my experience the prevalence of a pay-gap based solely on gender and not on performance or an individuals choices or lifestyle is actually quite low. Again I’m only talking about my experiences and those of the people who I know.