A report published by Institute of Fiscal Studies showed that women are paid 18% less than men in the UK, however when women become mothers this balloons to a massive 33%.
The latest figures from the EU Commission shows that Irish women earn 14.4% less than Irish men, an increase on the 12.6% gap recorded in 2008. Across Europe the average woman earns 16.4% less than her male colleagues.
Although women make up nearly half of the workforce (46%), only one in ten board members are women.
In the bottom 10% of earners, the pay gap is 4%, but this rises to 24.6% for the top 10% of earners. The National Women’s Council of Ireland commented that this suggests “the continued presence of a glass ceiling and indirect discrimination”. The glass ceiling refers to the concept that women can only rise so far, only to metaphorically hit their head on a “glass ceiling”.
The report’s author, Robert Joyce said; “Women in jobs involving fewer hours of work have particularly low hourly wages, and this is because of poor pay progression, not because they take an immediate pay cut when switching away from full-time work. Understanding that lack of progression is going to be crucial to making progress in reducing the gender wage gap.”
A possible solution to this is to put in place more childcare resources so as even as mothers, they can return to work.
It is also important in a technologically driven world to encourage women to branch out into some of the more traditionally male-oriented STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) jobs.
Transparency with relation to how much a company pays each employee could also be a step in the right direction, as women will then be more inclined to negotiate a higher wage with their employer if they know that their male counterpart is earning more for the same work.
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