Transcript Valuing and counting women`s work

Valuing and counting women’s
work
Anna Ritchie Allan, Close the Gap
Pay gap
Occupational segregation
Inflexible
working
Men’s
work /
women’s
work
Childcare
Glass
ceiling
Women in
the
boardroom
Discrimination
Pay and
reward
Value
WOMEN’S EMPLOYMENT
Women’s position in the labour market is more
precarious:
• Need to work flexibly to accommodate caring
responsibilities
• Concentrated in low pay sectors and occupations
• More likely to be in temporary or part-time work
• Have different experience of training and
development
• More women than men are on zero hour contracts
UNDERVALUING
Two aspects of undervaluing:
• women are paid less than men for doing the same
job (individual); and
• women are employed in female-dominated
occupations which are undervalued (labour
market).
HOW UNDERVALUATION WORKS
• Human capital
• Concentration of women in low paid occupations
(occupational segregation)
• UK penalty for the lowest paid
• Undervaluation within pay systems that allow for
individualised pay
WHAT IS WORK?
Work
Leisure
Refuse collection
Doing the recycling
Being a chef
Cooking a meal for your family
Being a sewing machinist in a factory
Sewing clothes for your children and
grandchildren
Farming a cash crop
Subsistence farming
Writing a letter as a private sector board
member
Writing a letter as a third sector board
member
Caring for patients in a hospital
Caring for your own child, sick family
member, or older family member
WOMEN’S UNPAID WORK
• Unpaid labour in the home and in the community
• GDP doesn’t count this work
• Informal childcare is worth £343bn to the economy –
equivalent to 23% of GDP (ONS)
• One-third to a half of all valuable economic activity is
not accounted for in traditional measures of economic
performance i.e. GDP (OECD)
WHAT DOES DECENT WORK
FOR WOMEN LOOK LIKE?
• Equal pay for equal work
• Free from sex discrimination; pregnancy and
maternity discrimination; and sexual harassment.
• A workplace culture which promotes gender
equality
• Flexible working, including part-time work,
available at all levels
• Affordable, accessible, quality childcare
WHAT DOES DECENT WORK FOR
WOMEN LOOK LIKE?
• ‘Women’s work’ is valued
• Women’s skills are visible, and used
• Reproductive labour is counted
Anna Ritchie Allan
[email protected]
0141 337 8144
@closethepaygap