Pay equity

Congratulations to Julie Fairey at the Hand Mirror for drawing attention to Minister Tony Ryall's scrapping of the state services investigation of women's pay equity. According to Ryall, recessions are an inappropriate time to do an investigation of women's pay, as reported by the Herald:

The Government has axed two investigations aimed at improving the pay of women as it tries to save money by controlling public sector salaries.

The inquiries were aimed at female social workers at Child, Youth and Family, who are paid 9.5 per cent less than their male colleagues, and at inequities in the pay of mainly female school support workers.

But State Services Minister Tony Ryall said the investigations would "generate an additional form of remuneration pressure that is unaffordable in the current economic and fiscal environment".

Yesterday they held a pay equity faxathon where women sent faxes to Ryall, Minister for State Services, asking to reinstate the investigation. This has been a hot topic across the blogosphere, and rightly so -- it is important to ask why, given National's manicured appeal to the women's vote, are we now seeing the equal remuneration of half of our population as a low priority?

As Green MP Catherine Delahunty rightly points out, as women, we make up 46.7% of the workforce yet only earn 78.9% of men's average weekly earnings. Granted, as one of the comments points out on the Hand Mirror, this figure accounts for the way that women's occupations tend to be skewed towards industries where women are paid less, such as the service industries. The 9.5% pay gap can be seen as stemming from the fact that women are more likely to be social workers. To categorize this as women’s choice to be in lower paid occupations overlooks the statistical evidence which signals that the glass ceilings are lower in male dominated professions. There is a reason why the last Census reported that 95% of caregivers were women, that these caregivers earned on average $10-$11 per hour and tended to be on casual contracts. To characterize this as a women’s choice is a gross distortion of the wealth of studies and statistical evidence which signals that these are often the only jobs women can get in what is still a largely patriarchal economy.

This pay gap is representative of a systemic devaluation of women's work in a global context. For example, the International Trade Union Confederation just released a report which found that the pay gap is bigger in qualified women, who are more likely to earn less than men with similar qualifications. Surveys of state services like the one the National Government just panned are important, as the pay gap increases for women who are employed in the private sector. As the Hand Mirror points out, the goal of Labour's survey was to ensure that state services were setting an example for the private sector.

As Scott Harris reports on Canada, economic booms don't necessarily translate to better pay or conditions for women, as policies tend to be geared towards benefiting higher earners. For example, Canada dropped from number one at the inception of the 1990s on the Gender Development Index to number 25 by 2006, a period that coincided with an economic boom. The reasons why conditions for women worsened during the bubble were complex and related to their access to opportunities: it is largely men that benefit as they are more likely to be working in managerial or infrastructure positions. In contrast, women are more concentrated in casual positions or lowly paid occupations. These positions are often the ones that are first to drop off the radar during a recession and the infrastructure initiatives for job creation National has announced are biased towards occupations that tend to be dominated by men. Similarly, the tax cuts targeted at middle income earners are more likely to benefit men than women who are concentrated in lowly paid occupations.

This means that the last to benefit from the bubble are the first to be affected by the bust, meaning it is imperative that the Government considers the position of women in our economy. It’s not often I beg, but to every National voter reading this, National has a responsibility to represent the issues they were voted in on. This election the women’s and Maori vote were at the fore (the latter due to their coalition building with the Maori party). Women and Maori statistically, like other marginalized groups, are most likely to be hit hardest by this recession and the rising unemployment figures (which are tipped to rise as high as 11.2% of the population unemployed in the next two years). While it’s great that National has appointed figureheads like Paula Bennett, we need to see you walk the talk. New Zealand has a history of being at the forefront of women’s progress, let’s not let the economy be an excuse for women being lowly paid. It undermines the National rhetoric of strong families – how the hell are women expected to raise good citizens if they are underpaid, undervalued and many face job uncertainty? This is not responsible policy – this is effectively punishing half of our population who are already marginalized from the moment they are born by their gender rather than their ability.