The Gender Pay Gap, Hard Truths And Actions Needed (UPSC Current Affairs)

Relevance: GS2 - Issues relating to development and management of Social Sector/Services relating to Health, Education, Human Resources.

(Source: The Hindu)

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Why in the News?

• Recently, International Equal Pay Day took place on September 18. It is a United Nations-recognized event
• The symbolic day intends to draw attention to issues surrounding the gender pay gap and increase global awareness.
• The event's primary goal is to put an end to the history of gender discrimination, which has historically resulted in women being paid less than their male colleagues.

Importance of Equal Pay

• In India's labor market, there are numerous inequities, and bridging them is essential to attaining social justice for working women.
• When it comes to the story of structural change and global economic growth, India is among the most significant nations.
• Further economic growth and the advantages it provides will be stimulated by a proportionate improvement in labor market outcomes and a fair sharing of the riches of economic advancement.
• It amplifies productivity and efficiency by attracting the best employees and also reduces the risk of staff turnover.
• In a patriarchal society, it is an important step toward empowering women.
• However, it is not unexpected that there are still many asymmetries in the labor market in a nation the size and diversity of India.
• Even while the gender pay gap is gradually closing, doing so at the current rate of improvement will take more than 70 years.

Impact of the Pandemic

• The effects have been uneven, with women suffering the most from a lack of income stability.
• This is partial because they are overrepresented in the COVID-19-affected industries and because of the gendered allocation of household duties.
• During the pandemic, many women switched to providing full-time care for children and the elderly, giving up their jobs in the process.

Pay Gap

• According to early estimates from the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) 2020-21, the gap widened by 7% between 2018-19 and 2020-21, reversing decades of gains.
• The statistics also indicate that, in contrast to a quicker surge in male salaries, female incomes declined more quickly throughout the epidemic, which calls for immediate legislative attention.
• This is supported by the "Global Wage Report 2020-21" from the International Labor Organization, which contends that the crisis significantly depressed earnings and adversely affected women's overall wages relative to men.
• The already-existing gender pay gap has grown due to the bigger wage reduction for women.
• India has made significant progress in closing the gender wage gap over time, yet by international standards, the gap still exists.
• From 1993–1994 Indian women made 48% less money on average than their male counterparts.
• Since then, according to data from the National Sample Survey Office's (NSSO) labor force survey, the difference has decreased to 28% in 2018–19.

Gender Discrimination

• While individual factors like education, experience, or skill level contribute to the gender wage gap in some cases, the majority of it may still be linked to sexism or gender discrimination.

Gender-based discriminatory practices include:

• Lower wages paid to women for work of equal value;
• Undervaluation of women’s work in highly feminised occupations and enterprises, and
• Motherhood pay gap — lower wages for mothers compared to non-mothers.

Steps were taken by India

Legislations:

• India has taken a number of legal measures, particularly at the low end of the income distribution, to decrease the gender pay gap. It was one of the first nations in this regard to pass the Minimum Wages Act in 1948, which was followed by the Equal Remuneration Act in 1976.
• India underwent extensive legislative revisions in 2019 and passed the Code on Wages.
• There is evidence that the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) of 2005 assisted rural women employees and indirectly decreased the gender pay gap.
• Women participating in agricultural jobs benefited both directly from increased pay levels for programme participants and indirectly from greater earnings as a result of MGNREGA's contribution to the country's general rapid increase in rural and agricultural wages.
• The "maternity leave with pay protection" for all women working in enterprises employing 10 or more employees was expanded from 12 weeks to 26 weeks as a result of a 2017 government amendment to the Maternity Benefit Act of 1961.
• This is expected to reduce the motherhood pay gap among mothers in the median and high-end wage earners working in the formal economy.

Skilling

• In addition to enacting enabling laws, the Skill India Mission works to provide women with marketable skills in an effort to close the gender pay gap and close the learning-to-livelihood gap.

Steps taken by International institutes

• "Achieving full and productive employment and decent work for all women and men, including for young people and individuals with disabilities, and equitable remuneration for work of equal worth" is one of the objectives of the UN Sustainable Development Goal 8 by 2030.
• The Equal Pay International Coalition (EPIC), a multi-stakeholder project led by the ILO, UN Women, and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), was established in 2017 in support to achieve equal pay for women and men everywhere.
• Accelerated and fearless action is required to stop the gender wage gap from getting wider and to close the gap that now exists.
• The challenge of eliminating various types of gender inequality has been a central focus of UN initiatives on a global scale.
• The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) provides an international legal framework for achieving gender equality and addressing the intersecting forms of discrimination and vulnerabilities among women and girls.
• The ILO has enshrined "equal pay for work of equal value" in its Constitution.

Way Forward

• A human-centered recovery from the pandemic is necessary for full and productive economic growth, and this can be achieved through enhancing women's job outcomes and narrowing the gender pay gap.
• The challenge of eliminating various types of gender inequality has been a central focus of UN initiatives on a global scale.
• To eliminate the gender pay gap, there must be equal remuneration for equally valuable work.
• For working women to receive social justice and for the country as a whole to experience economic progress, the gender pay gap must be closed.

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