Why give women equal pay?
The debate over equal pay for women is heating up, it pains me to report. You might ask why, as a female and a business owner, that it would distress me to see a good healthy debate about gender bias in the workplace.
Well…actually that’s not what I’m upset about. What gets me riled is that its now 2008, and we are still discussing it.
In Britain, there has been equal pay legislation in place for more than 30 years. Yet, women in full time work are still mostly in lower-paid occupations and earned 17.2 per cent less than men last year. And part-time female employees earned 35.6 less than their male counterparts. It’s shocking.
There’s talk of withholding government contracts from private sector suppliers until the gender pay gap is cut. But frankly, some public sector organisations are stuggling themselves.
And in the PR industry, discussion of gender equality always stirs opinion.
To me, the solution is obvious: pay people who do jobs of equal value, equally. Apply the rule consistently. I cannot understand why, 30 years after the fact, this is open to debate.
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Filed under: public relations
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Smart business owners will take advantage of this situation and recruit top women executives by giving them equal pay. Conversely, big agencies that continue to foster unequal pay models will lose more talent. I am having great success with this (stealing their talent). And really, I’m just doing the right thing anyway.
Geoff, you’d expect market forces to rule, I agree. But the stats don’t seem to back it up. Why not?