Five data driven steps to close the gender pay gap
In the coming weeks, this year’s International Women’s Day theme — #balanceforbetter, will light up across our social media platforms. Let’s hope that hashtag goes viral; we need a better balance in pay. Celebrating achievements are important, but IWD should also generate action, as real equality continues to lag. Women CEO’s are 7.8% in Europe and the Americas, 11.8% in Asia and Australia. McKinsey’s research underscores this point. “For the fourth year in a row, attrition does not explain the underrepresentation of women.” Without equal representation of women in decision making roles, equality will not happen. It’s an opportune time to bust a few myths. I’m proposing a 5 step data driven approach to fix this gap.
Let’s start with the data on pay
Women earn 20% less than men, a figure which hasn’t budged in a decade. In 2009, women earned 22.9% less than men. It’s easy to see that there’s a pressing need to make pay equity a priority. I’m advocating that it’s time to mandate equal pay for equal work. Here’s why.
Guy Ryder, Director-General at the ILO, reflecting on the Global Wage Report 2018/19, “using new data covering some 70 countries and about 80% of wage employees worldwide, [our] report finds that globally, women continue to be paid approximately 20% less than men.”
Depending on geography, that figure hovers around 15% – 47%. The Institute for Women’s Policy Research states the gender wage gap is 19.5% in the US, “Black women are paid 38% less and Latinas are paid 47% less.”Asia looks better, as Korn Ferry’s Gender Pay gapfound that women in AsiaPac make, on average, 15% less than men.
In 2017, Japan surprisingly reported the narrowest gap on record; women made 27% less than men. But that’s nothing to brag about, as Japan ranks 114th out of 144 countries on the World Economic Forum’s gender gap. Haruaki Deguchi, President of Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University, responded with, “such a low ranking concerning women’s status is quite shameful for the worlds’ third-largest economy…”
