THE SAD TRUTH | Women work more but earn 24 percent less than men, says UN report

Women all over the world work more than men but earn 24 percent less, according to a report released by the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women) on April 27. Titled “Progress of the World’s Women 2015-2016: Transforming Economies, Realizing Rights”, the report shows that women on average earn just half as much income as men over their lifetimes.

This despite the fact that women worked more than men, on average doing almost two and a half times as much unpaid care and domestic work as men. According to UN Women, if paid and unpaid work were combined, women in almost all countries worked longer hours than men each day.

UN Women stressed the need for laws that established equal rights for women and men, but these must be coupled with the dismantling of structural barriers, discriminatory social norms, and stereotypes.

For example, data from 1975 to 2005 showed that 18 out of 71 countries had family laws that promoted gender equality at the beginning of the study, which improved to 33 at the end. Thus, more women were able “to make decisions about their children and to engage in employment without requiring the permission of a spouse,” among other things.

UN Women lauded women’s rights advocates for lobbying lawmakers for these improvements.

Family laws shaped “the rights and obligations of spouses in marriage and divorce, the relationship between parents and children, marital property, child custody or guardianship, and inheritance.” They had an effect on the power relations between women and men, parents and children, and brothers and sisters. So too did these impact women’s ability to access and control resources, UN Women said.

For progress to be consistent on this front, the government itself must be receptive to the change. A powerful relationship between the state and the religious usually tended to foster family laws that were prejudiced against women.

This was particularly problematic “in countries where conservative forces and extremist groups that resist gender equality are gaining ground.”

UN Women reported improvement in terms of laws that governed women’s access to paid work and equal conditions at work, as well as maternity and parental leave, and childcare policies. From only one-third of 70 countries in 1975 which had legislated equal pay, the proportion went up to 85 percent in 2005.

By 2005, over 80 percent of these countries also had a national daycare policy. Anti-sex discrimination at work laws and policies also jumped from 41 percent in 1975 to 97 percent in 2005. Paid maternity leave increased from 64 percent of the countries in 1975 to 96 percent of the countries in 2005.

In the Philippines, laws mandating equal remuneration for work of equal value were in place, as well as those that banned sexual harassment in employment. There were no policies in terms of non-discrimination based on gender in hiring, however.

Legislation in the country also prescribed a minimum of nine weeks in paid maternity leave, with women getting 100 percent of their total wages during their time off. Paternity leave, meanwhile, was a minimum of seven days.

Globally, however, “widespread gender segregation continues to confine women to the lowest paid segments of the labor market,” UN Women said.

In the Philippines, 14 percent of women earned more than their spouses, 67 percent earned less, and 18 percent earned about the same. In terms of labor force participation, the country improved slightly, from a rate of 48 percent in 1990 to 51 percent in 2013. Compare this with the labor force participation rate of men, from 83 percent in 1990 to 80 percent in 2013.

Even in countries with gender-equal laws, “power inequalities between women and men, as well as gender stereotypes and discriminatory social norms are deeply embedded.”

Gender stereotypes perpetuated the devaluation of “women’s work” and the belief that women and men should be confined to certain roles. Stereotypes about what occupations were suitable for women and men, for example, continued to divide the genders in the workforce.

“Girls are still less likely than boys to choose scientific and technological fields of study and, when they do, are less likely to take up high-paying jobs in those fields. These ‘choices’ are informed by stereotypes about suitable occupations for girls rather than based on ability,” UN Women said.

In the Philippines, women occupied 52 of the total employment from 2000 to 2013 in managerial, professional, and technical jobs. They occupied 54 percent of the total employment for the same period in clerical, services, and sales work. Few women occupied the total employment for the same period in plant and machine operations, at 12 percent.

In general, norms which dictated that women took responsibility for domestic chores and childcare also limited their participation in the labor market. Stigma and violence were other ways in which gender hierarchies were kept in place, UN Women said.

“Being subjected to violence, for example, is not only a violation of one’s dignity and physical and mental well-being but can also lead to homelessness and poverty,” the agency explained.

Meanwhile, UN Women defined stigma as “a weapon employed by the powerful to define what is ‘normal’ or ‘acceptable’, as a means to uphold their position in relation to a subordinate group.”

To counter these, women should strengthen their collective voice and drive changes in laws, policies, and practices, UN Women said.

It commended Domestic Workers United (DWU) for being able to do just that.

In 2000, a group of Filipino domestic workers employed in New York City founded DWU to establish fair labor standards for their industry. According to UN Women, 53 million people, over 80 percent of whom are women, are employed as domestic workers. Unfortunately, they are excluded from national labor laws in many countries, “leaving them open to abuse and exploitation and unable to demand safe and protected places.”

Thousands of domestic workers joined DWU, which held daily outreach programs in parks, playgrounds, churches, and the street to organize domestic workers in their neighborhoods.

Through this, DWU was able to get the New York State legislature to create a Bill of Rights for domestic workers, providing them with the same basic rights other workers had been entitled to for decades.

In 2010, the New York State Bill of Rights for Domestic Workers was passed, which provided that domestic workers had the right to overtime pay, a day of rest every week, paid holidays, and human rights protection.

UN Women also took note of the Philippines’ Migrant Workers Act of 1995, which established a fund to enable migrant workers to access legal services in case of violations or disputes, including with employers.

“Migrant domestic workers are particularly vulnerable to abuse because of their dependence on recruitment agencies and lack of reliable information on migration procedures,” said UN Women. “Once in the receiving country, they have limited freedom to change employers, because they often withhold travel and identity documents.”

The Philippines also did well in terms of women’s ability to “make the final decision on their own healthcare”. Using data from 2010 to 2013, UN Women found that only four percent of women said that they did not make the final decision on their own wellbeing.

The agency also praised the country for having quotas or targets for women’s employment in the public sector.

But according to the recently released 2015 State of the World’s Mothers Index, only 27 percent of seats in government were held by women.

UN Women also paid tribute to nongovernmental organizations for the elderly, which were able to lobby government to introduce social pensions in 2010. Women were at the forefront of these mobilizations, the agency said. Through collective action particularly by the Coalition of Services for the Elderly (COSE), the Expanded Senior Citizens Act was passed in 2010. –InterAksyon.com

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