Today is women’s no-pay day in a developed country like U.K. This has been called to demand equal pay on par with men! Now I did not expect such work pay discrimination based on gender in UK, of all the countries.
Take a look at the facts from UK:
- On an average, full-time working women earn 17% less per hour than men working full-time. For women who work part-time the gap widens to 38% per hour.
- 9% of directors of the UK’s top 100 companies are women.
- One in every five single women pensioners risk being in poverty in retirement.
- Retired men, on an average, have about £50 to £100 per week more private pension income than women of the same age.
- Women still carry out the bulk of unpaid work in the home, irrespective of the fact they have children or not.
- There are six million carer-s of elderly or disabled relatives in the UK, of which 62% are women.
Read more facts at Fawcet Web site.
Coming back to India, I had read at school that women in rural areas were paid less than men. However, we have a Directive Principle that says “equal pay for equal work“. I am not sure if we have reached that equality yet.
Personally, I can not claim to be paid less because I was a women. Does it happen in Indian corporate world? I am not aware. If you have any such experience, please do write in the comments section.
6 responses so far ↓
It’s A Free World: A New Beginning « Visceral Observations // October 31, 2007 at 11:00 am
[...] Women’s No Pay Day to protest unequal pay for women in UK. Read more about it. [...]
Nova // November 1, 2007 at 1:22 am
I havent encountered this… Not in the IT industry at least… But, I guess there are some where this discrimination is prevelant… specially laborers… Hourly wage of men is almost always higher than that of a woman!
Poonam Sharma // November 1, 2007 at 4:57 am
Actually I too can assure that it does not happen in e-learning and instruction design industry. About the less pay for women in manual labor, I have never seen it first hand as never exposed to villages.
But I read about it at school.
I spoke to a guy about this, he argued this is so because women are able to accomplish less than their male counterparts in terms of manual work. What do you say to that?
Nova // November 1, 2007 at 5:54 am
@Poonam: I have seen it happen when I happened to be-friend a couple of laborer ladies who were working on a construction happening near my apartment. It doesnt happen “just in villages” baby
As far as wages according to manual work is concerned… I think, it is a debatable topic. Why dont we start a debate on the blog and invite people to comment?
Poonam Sharma // November 1, 2007 at 6:37 am
That’s what I say I lack that real exposure…I have been in a same spot for several years..spend most of my time at work and commuting..never befriended people from other fringes of society..something I did while in college..
And when I said happens in villages, I was not overruling the possibility of discrimination happening in cities but subconsciously I was referring that this happen to people from lower sections of society, with rural origins..otherwise urban woman is quick to shout discrimination…
About the debate, yes it makes perfect sense, lets get some data, stats, instances of discrimination in manual labour and put it on blog open for debate..
Gender Bias in Wages in India « Its A Free World…. // January 31, 2008 at 11:25 am
[...] 31, 2008 · No Comments We had long before written about No-Pay Day for Women in UK. We had asked if such gender-based discrimination in handing wages was observed in India. Well, [...]