Monday, 16 December 2019

The Truth Behind the Gender Pay Gap



Gender pay gap exists in Malaysia. According to the Statistics Department (DOSM)’s Salaries & Wages Survey Report Malaysia 2018, the average Malaysian male employee had a median salary of RM2,342 a month while women made RM2,227 in 2018. (Do not confuse gender pay gap with equal pay issue. Gender pay gap is the difference between the median wage for men and the median wage for women. In contrast, the equal pay issue is one of discrimination: paying men and women different amounts for doing the same job.)

The pay gap in 2018 in Malaysia ranged between 7.1% and 34.9% as follows:


Women in Malaysia excelled in professional fields: 67.9% of dentists; 52.6% of lawyers; 52.6% of accountants; 51.9% of medical doctors and 47.3% of veterinary surgeons in Malaysia are women. This is according to the Department of Statistics Malaysia and applies for the period 2016 and 2017. However, their wages are still lower than their male counterparts, 15% lower for professionals and 20.3% lower for managers. The gap is even wider when it comes to low-paying jobs such as craft and related trades workers (34.9%).


Note: Data as of 31st December 2017
Source: Planning, Research and Policy Coordination Division, Higher Education Sector, MOE

What widens the gender pay gap?

Education? No, not really. In 2017, more than half (65%) of public university graduates in Malaysia were women. With the exception of engineering, all the courses above were female-denominated.

Harvard economics research Valentin Bolotnyy (2018) found that today’s pay gap is a result of how workplace flexibility interacts with people’s personal life preferences and constraints. As men and women make different choices about how to spend their time, workplace inflexibility harms women most.

Another possible reason for the mismatch is probably lesser leadership positions were offered to women. This could be due to the long hours for high-paying senior jobs and the gendered family responsibilities. Senior jobs usually require long hours and constant availability. In Malaysia, nearly 60% of part-timers are women. And according to the Labour Force Survey Report 2016, 32.3% of women who work part-time do so because of family responsibilities. Without sufficient workplace experience, women get lesser promotion opportunities. This perhaps is one of the reasons why majority of the senior roles today are men.

In the U.S., men tend to work longer hours, took on more last-minute shifts, and arranged schedules to secure 83% more overtime hours per year. Women, meanwhile, took more unpaid time off through the Family Medical Leave Act, accepted fewer last-minute overtime hours, and avoided weekend and holiday shifts. It wasn’t that women weren’t willing to work overtime, but that women value time and flexibility more than men.

What are the solutions?

To narrow the gender pay gap, policies that allow both parents to balance work and family are needed. This can be achieved by adding more workplace flexibility, not only to junior roles but to all levels. Employers should redesign the roles and working hours for their employees. Responsibilities at home should be shared equally by both parents. In some countries, fathers were given “daddy-only” leave to encourage them to spend more time with the families and to share daily housework. Social support such as childcare subsidies to a family could help women to return back to work.

In short, although it might be challenging, government and employers should work hard in achieving gender parity in order to let everyone understand: women’s work (both at home and workplace) is as valuable as men’s!


Reference:

1. Report Shows That Gender Pay Gap Exists In Malaysia And It's Pretty Bad, RojakDaily, 25 Nov 2019
2. Bolotnyy, V. (2018), Why Do Women Earn Less Than Men? Evidence from Bus and Train Operators
3. Dr Charlotte Gascoigne, The real reasons behind the gender pay gap https://timewise.co.uk
4. Michael J. Coren, The roots of the gender pay gap are deeper than discrimination https://qz.com


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