That taxing pay gap

I've had a couple of commenters (or maybe the same one twice) draw my attention to a Sydney Morning Herald article proposing that the pay gap between men and women could be bridged by cutting taxes to XXers. Here's the article's explanation:

Basically, their argument boils down to this: the supply of labour of women is more responsive to their wage post-tax, so a reduction in taxes would increase the labour participation of women substantially.

While it's an inventive solution, I don't really think it would address the causes of the pay gap and there would be many practical problems in such a scheme.

From my point of view there are a number of factors that have created and maintained a considerable gap between women and men in the money earning department, including:

1. Longstanding societal pressure on women to not see work as something they do for reasons other than necessity. While this has changed dramatically since the 1950s, there are still many women who grew up when working after marriage, and particularly after having children, was highly stigmatised. Some of these women see their work now as "pin money" and their husbands and children de-value it too. I often work with union members in this position and it's depressing to see the results - poor pay, patronising management, and a lack of support from their family and others when they want to stand up for their rights.

2. Similarly, it is only relatively recently that women have been encouraged to complete high school, let alone seek further training or tertiary education. Many jobs nowadays have set qualifications as a prerequisite, and, as with my previous point, there are many women still in the workforce who never saw university or 'tech as an option. My mother is one - a very smart and capable woman who was convinced from a young age that she was stupid and would probably be only marginally competent at most things she did. It was far more about her gender than her actual intelligence or ability. And while we'd all like to think that young women now are immune to the pernicious influences of such sexism, sadly I think it'll be a while before we have it licked.

3. Due to a paucity of workplaces with flexible working hours or supportive attitudes to workers with caring responsiblities outside work, many women work part time or in jobs with lower levels of responsibility (and pay) because they need the ability to work around their family responsibilities*. They are also less likely to rock the boat if they aren't getting their dues - they don't want to lose the position which has grudgingly allowed them to take the odd long weekend to look after an ailing parent in another town.

4. While there has been significant challenge to the idea that women workers should be corralled into certain jobs, many women still work in "traditional" areas. Which also means they work in jobs which are under-valued, under-paid and often highly casualised. Many of these industries had their unionisation rates decimated in the 1990s, and/or these sectors grew considerably during the time of the Employment Contracts Act when unions weren't able to focus on much more than staying afloat. I believe it is no coincidence that many of those areas with the lowest pay and worst conditions also have low levels of union membership, and often a high percentage of women workers.

5. I also suspect that women are less likely to get promoted into higher paid jobs, because they are women and because of some of the factors already mentioned above. On the one hand, women can be passed over because it is feared they will want to sprog at some point** or because it's assumed they can't handle Teh Pressure, or some silly rubbish justification for sexism. On the other, women sometimes don't put themselves forward, because of a lack of confidence and a concern that they will be seen to rate themselves. I read somewhere once that while around 75% of primary teachers are female only about a quarter of principals are. Not sure if that's true, but we can see the clear gender lines in the CEOs of major companies - yes there are some high profile women, but they are definitely in the minority.

6. And then there's the persistent undervaluing of the work women do - paid and unpaid. It's a theme underlying many of the points I've already made but it bears making explicit. Think of the poorly paid jobs and many of them were done by women without pay in the past, and on low pay now. Cleaning, caregiving, educating and caring for small children, cooking, serving people in various settings; all of this mahi used to be done by wives, daughters, sisters, mothers, grandmothers and other women for free. And now that it is (sometimes) paid work it's often at minimum wage rates, despite the level of skill required.

In my (not-so-humble) opinion, none of these factors would be addressed by giving women a tax cut and raising taxes slightly for men. It certainly wouldn't help those men on low incomes, or encourge them into the lower paid areas where more women are working.

If anything such a tactic could exacerbate resentment of women in the workforce, which would be rather counter-productive.




* And not just caring for their own children either. They could be looking after their mokopuna, their parents, siblings, friends, or their own partners. Or they may have to carry an unfair burden of the household tasks, resulting in less time and energy for any paid job.
** Why is this never a concern about hiring male employess??

(Pic Via)