C Explanatory memorandum by Mr Wille,
rapporteur
1 Introduction
1. As its name implies, the wage gap refers to the differences
in remuneration that exist between men and women. Although the principle
of equal pay is defended by most European democracies, since 1948
it has also been enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights. Nevertheless, the number of judgments by the Court of Justice
of the European Communities and everyday practice in the world of
work are enough to show that the equal pay principle is still regularly
trampled underfoot.
2. The wage gap can be found in almost all European firms but,
even more seriously, it is also common in the public sector, which
should be setting an example. The wage gap should not, like most
of the problems connected with human capital, be attributed solely
to traditional factors such as age, training and experience. Moreover,
the argument that the wage gap is due to women’s failure to invest
in training is no longer given much credence. Developments in European
states show that a growing number of women are taking more and more
courses in higher or university education,
Note and
that their involvement at all levels of working life has clearly
increased. In most Council of Europe member states, reference to
gender plays a decreasing part in these traditional individual factors.
3. Sociological and statistical studies emphasise that the wage
gap is mainly attributable to continuing segregation in employment
and to the impact that this has on the pay structure. It is becoming
ever clearer that it is not the classic individual criteria used
to justify differences in pay that are mainly responsible for maintaining the
gap either. The focus is instead on the discriminatory machinery
(whether concealed or not) in political and employment strategies
and everyday practice in the labour market, where institutional
agreements, the “norm” and social management permeate the pay structure
to a great extent, thereby helping to maintain the wage gap.
4. The labour market still places constant emphasis on the fundamental
difference between "men's jobs" and "women's jobs", and even goes
further, referring to sectors reserved for women and sectors reserved
for men. That being the case, this report will focus on this issue
of segregation. An ancestral community governance system and its
models of employment practice, giving rise to yet more segregation,
also need to be addressed in many countries.
5. The absence of a balanced classification of jobs is another
relevant factor. Such classification involves assigning a wage to
each grade in the job, the nature of the job being the sole criterion,
irrespective of who holds it. In combination with the "equal pay
for work of equal value" principle, classification can help to guarantee
a fairer pay structure. This system does not apply in many member
states, or it allows discriminatory machinery to remain in place
to the detriment of women. It is easy to explain the failure thoroughly
to review these job classification systems. It is not in the interest
of employers or employees for a modern analytical system to replace
the now outdated systems. For the employers this would mean a substantial
increase in the wage bill, and the unions would face the likelihood
of internal dissension and argument if historically overvalued salary
scales were revised.
6. Even if women feel that they are underpaid or not treated
equally, recourse to the courts seems to be of little benefit and
is not customary. Action by unions will often be tentative, for
fear that their previous negotiations and gains will be challenged
in court. The unions’ discouraging attitude is an additional factor
in the legal isolation of working women. The emotional pressure
involved in taking their own employer to court also acts as a brake.
Even if, in the meantime, quite precise legal guarantees have been
laid down in most states, their application is far from straightforward
in the majority of countries. The labour market and the omnipresent
wage gap which millions of European women still regard as an unjust
penalty are evidence of this. Their resentment is all the greater
because they still suffer structurally from the wage gap, despite
the historic commitment enshrined in national legislation and given
expression by international treaties and directives. Discrimination,
although not always obvious, persists.
7. The persistence of the wage gap between women and men results
from direct discrimination against women and structural inequalities,
such as segregation in sectors, occupations and work patterns, access
to education and training, biased evaluation and pay systems, and
stereotypes.
Note
8. This report aims at defining the presence of the wage gap,
discerning the determining factors as well as drawing conclusions
and making recommendations. This is not the first report of the
committee on the subject: the report on discrimination against women
in the workforce and the workplace
Note of March 2005, presented by Ms
Anna Čurdová, which led to the adoption of Parliamentary Assembly
Recommendation 1700 (2005), already defined the gender wage gap as one of the three
principal problems women face on the labour market (the other two
being: lack of access and the “glass ceiling”) – all of which are
due to discrimination against women.
2 The presence of the wage gap
9. The wage gap is often calculated/defined as the difference
between the average hourly gross pay of women and men: M-V/M*100,
in an easy-to-remember mathematical formula. Estimates of the wage
gap may vary widely, depending on definition, reference data and
calculation methods. Thus the results differ greatly from one European
state to another. If only the mean differences in gross private-sector
pay are taken into account, the figures will be more negative than
if results from the public sector are included. In fact, there are proportionately
more women in higher posts in the public sector, which is also often
more sensitive to a policy of equal opportunities for men and women.
Be that as it may, in both the private and the public sector, gross or
net hourly, monthly or annual pay clearly reveals a structural difference
to the disadvantage of women. Calculated over the lifecycle, the
gender wage gap widens still further, explaining to a large extent
the feminisation of poverty in many of our countries (in particular
for single mothers and women in old age).
10. Discrimination often takes the form of factors that are difficult
to measure. Thus the results will be especially sensitive to major
differences between the sectors which, at first sight, do not raise
the spectre of discrimination. Many studies show that there are
proportionately more women working in sectors that pay less well.
This is a key finding, because these effects flow from the structure
of the labour market as such, and it is that market which is to
a large extent responsible for the (maintenance of the) wage gap.
As Ms Čurdová explained in 2005: “Women are often paid less than
men for work of equal value. This type of discrimination is usually
based on ‘horizontal occupational segregation by sex’. For example,
the level of education and experience required to work in a certain
job might be the same, but women are paid less (e.g. chauffeurs/taxi drivers
are usually paid more than cleaners or receptionists). In some countries,
wage levels have gone down in certain professions when more and
more women enter them (for example, doctors and teachers in central and
eastern Europe).”
Note Even
in these highly segregated professions, there are often more men
in the higher-paying posts: for example, although women account
for more than 70% of all teachers in some countries, there is a
proportionally larger number of male school directors. This is very
often the result of a “reverse action”, when the need for more men
in the profession is felt, and thus their pay-rise and promotion
are faster.
Note
11. Alongside the wage gap concept, the question arises as to
the reliability of data which sometimes show sizeable and incredible
differences in two consecutive years in a single country’s mean
wage gap.
Note We must therefore be very cautious
when dealing with data in our study of the changing wage gap. There
is no such thing as
the wage
gap. This report does not aim to make a quantitative analysis or
to take the academic route, but rather to establish causes and effects,
so as to come up with some critical thoughts enabling recommendations
to be made about how to end this deep-seated injustice. We are taking
as a basis Eurostat data from 1994 to 2004 for public and private
undertakings, which analyse a whole range of figures and in which the
mean wage gap analysed represents the difference between the average
gross hourly wage of men and women expressed as a percentage. We
arrive at a mean figure of around 25% for European Union member states.
Note Mixing
the private and the public sector, the mean figure stood at 17.4%
for the 27 European Union member states in 2007
Note (the latest available data from
Eurostat).
3 Determining factors
3.1 Segregation and origin
12. Segregation in the labour market explains the wage
gap to a large extent. As certain sectors quite simply pay less
than others, and women, as we have said, are over-represented in
these, in most member states the resulting wage gap is obvious,
and the fact that supply exceeds demand for these jobs will devalue
the female workforce.
Note In addition, these
sectors are stereotyped as being “soft”, less relevant and less
valued financially. Thus these sectors as a whole form a segregationist
labour market, in which a distinction should be made between vertical
and horizontal segregation.
13. Horizontal segregation, or “glass walls”: women and men clearly
work in different sectors. More men work in market sectors, and
more women in sectors focusing on the development of wellbeing and
prosperity. This probably has even more impact on differences in
average pay, because the market sector pays better, often applies
a bonus and commission system, makes higher profits, and attracts
staff with sound experience to such (hyper)competitive sectors by
promises of financial incentives such as pay rises (women's pay indicator,
2009). Cleaning, textile production, health care, social services
and (basic) teaching are typically female sectors in Europe. Typical
jobs for women are as receptionists, check-out operators, salespersons (unqualified),
and domestic or office workers.
14. However, data from the former German Democratic Republic
Note seem to dispute horizontal segregation as
one of the main reasons for the gender wage gap. There was little
gendered horizontal segregation in the former GDR’s labour market
– proximity to one of the industrial centres predisposed both women
and men to jobs in these centres, and the universities churned out
as many female as male engineers. Childcare was socialised, with
more than 90% of children over the age of one being looked after
in state-run nurseries and kindergartens. Nevertheless, the wage
gap was high, at around 25% (women’s pensions were even about 40% lower),
and this despite the fact that gender equality was a cornerstone
of communist ideology and was meant to have been reached in the
GDR’s “really existing socialism” (
Realsozialismus).
These facts underline the correct evaluation of my former parliamentary
colleague Ms Smet, who found in a 2001 European Parliament report
that over half of the wage gap could not be explained by “objective”,
structural factors, but was due to old-fashioned discrimination
against women.
15. Labour market logic and the pay structure that goes hand in
hand with it are particularly unfavourable to women. In general,
women have less experience on the job market. As the job market
in Europe is aimed mainly at rewarding experience, if experience
is rewarded more highly the wage gap is likely to grow. So we find
that countries with a job market that is highly sensitive to abilities
and professional experience will produce more substantial wage gaps.
Or, as the sociologists Blau and Kahn define this not immediately
perceptible machinery: “If women have less experience than men,
on average, the higher the return to experience received by workers
regardless of sex, the larger will be the gender gap in pay. Similarly,
if women tend to work in different occupations and industries than
men, perhaps due to discrimination or other factors, the higher
the premium received by workers, both male and female, for working
in the male sector, the larger will be the gender pay gap.”
Note
16. The result is obvious. The experience argument seems to be
a powerful factor in maintaining vertical segregation, better known
as “glass ceilings”. For this reason, men and women find themselves
in posts at different levels within the same sector or the same
undertaking, women holding the lower and less-well-paid jobs and
men the higher, better-paid positions. This has a substantial impact
on average pay, and another pernicious effect flows from it, namely
the "crowding effect": pay will fall in sectors reserved for women
(in which there are facilities for part-time working), because there
are too many women for a limited number of jobs.
3.2 Social normalisation and institutionalisation
17. The pay structure does not only reward individual
qualities such as experience or possible productivity. Both the
horizontal and the vertical segregation described above reflect
current influences and influences that have developed historically
in the job market. On the one hand there is the impact of social
norms and on the other there are employers' strategies that interact
with the labour market and systematically influence pay structure.
The importance of this is often at the centre of arguments in the
critical literature that dissect the social undervaluation of women's
work, which is therefore also a primary factor in the wage gap.
The rapporteur is also convinced that the wage gap should not be
attributed solely to gender difference in human capital terms, and
to direct discrimination by employers, for the more important fact
is that various social behaviour mechanisms mean that women's work
is greatly undervalued, and that the concentration of women in certain sectors
means that these remain badly paid.
18. Part-time working is another factor induced by society and
which might go a long way towards explaining the wage gap. The unequal
sharing of part-time work is often not a matter of real “choice”
for women. Instead, it results from an inequality in the sharing
of tasks transmitted by stereotyped patterns in respect of women,
as well as the lack of flexible and financially accessible facilities
making it impossible to meet employers’ flexibility requirements.
Many studies have shown that there is still a long way to go before
home and work are shared more fairly between men and women. There
is a corresponding impact on the wage gap. Because part-time work
mainly affects women and is usually found in less financially rewarding
sectors, the care sector described as “soft” (domestic staff, health
care, social services), hourly gross pay drops.
19. Part-time work also has adverse effects on career development.
Part-time workers not only have less chance of promotion, but also
build up less seniority and are granted fewer incidental benefits.
Note The
success of part-time work in several European countries is striking.
More and more women enjoy incentives and facilities making it easier
for them to work part-time. The introduction of career breaks and
“time-credits” make a substantial contribution. The “cheque services”
system has also made it possible for many women to work part-time.
Part-time work also adversely affects the hourly pay of women (and
also of men), because there are very few part-time jobs at managerial
or executive level. Thus part-time work and career breaks to carry
out the duties that flow from an unequal sharing of family and household
tasks are key factors in the development of inequality in pay.
20. In the private sector there are also incidental family benefits
which are often awarded to the “head of the family”, hence more
often to men. The most glaring wage gap is between the respective
earnings of married men with dependents and women in the same situation.
These advantages, unconnected with the work done, have repercussions
throughout a person’s career on index linking, on the calculation
of replacement income and, above all, on pension calculation.
Note
3.3 Classification of posts
21. An objective evaluation of the content of a job should
provide the basis for determining remuneration. If used professionally,
it is the only objectively verifiable factor on the labour market
for tackling the wage gap. Job evaluation starts from this principle.
The wage depends solely on what a worker does, and must be completely
divorced from the way of working (the how) and the person of the
worker (the who). An evaluation of this kind is based on recourse
to criteria. Only the choice of well-considered criteria and professional advisers
uninfluenced by prejudice or stereotypes can help to establish a
balanced system of job classification which can be used both as
a yardstick and to eliminate discrimination, and with it the wage
gap. These criteria often reflect standards in force in women's
work, and then the system of evaluation becomes a hidden instrument
confirming the wage gap. Thus they are an example of indirect sexual
discrimination.
22. There are many examples in practice. In the case of construction
workers who shift stones, reference is immediately made to heavy
physical work, but the fact that nurses have to lift patients several
times a day is overlooked. Criteria typically associated with male
jobs, such as responsibility, decision-making or training, are valued
more highly than the communication skills, empathy and accuracy
typically associated with women's work. These prejudices are characteristic
of human resources staff, job analysts, trade union representatives, management
and, unfortunately, women themselves. Because women are for the
most part employed in the care sector in subordinate and practical
tasks, they are convinced in advance that they will be less valued.
As the link between the results of the job study on the one hand
and the pay on the other is also often coloured and a matter of
discussion, this evaluation system – unfortunately cynically – promotes
labour market segregation and therefore the wage gap. We will not
consider in greater depth the content of an objective and reliable
job classification system.
4 Conclusions and recommendations
23. The rapporteur concludes the following:
i The wage gap is the result of direct
and indirect discriminatory machinery which maintains both horizontal
and vertical segregation in the labour market, and hence the wage
gap.
ii The lack of measures for temporary care, the management
of society and stereotyped thinking lead women to unemployment or
to opt for part-time work.
iii There is a lack of complete statistical data, and there
is no standardised way of calculating the wage gap in member states.
24. The rapporteur bears in mind the following:
i The Rummler judgment of the European
Court of Justice has given a certain number of pointers in respect
of the requirements which job evaluation must meet from the equality
of treatment viewpoint.
ii The conclusions of the Conference of European Union Ministers
on Gender Equality, on 4 February 2005 in Luxembourg, took the view
that a diversified approach to underlying factors, inter alia, segregation
by sector and by work, job classifications and remuneration systems,
would make it possible to eliminate inequalities of pay between
men and women.
iii A recent study stresses that the first priority in ensuring
gender equality is the issue of pay.
25. The rapporteur considers the following:
i The application of the equal pay for equal work principle
is crucial in arriving at gender equality.
ii There is a difference between the legal situation and
the actual situation in the approach to pay differences in most
member states.
iii The working woman is in a situation of legal isolation,
preventing her, on her own, from exposing the discriminatory nature
of certain job classifications and the corresponding pay.
26. The rapporteur draws attention to the fact that 27 March 2009
was declared Equal Pay Day.
27. The rapporteur suggests that the Assembly request that the
member states of the Council of Europe:
i open discussions with the social partners to eliminate
discrimination in job values and job classifications between men
and women;
ii start discussions with the social partners to raise the
status of “women’s” sectors;
iii work against the pitfall of part-time work by encouraging
all measures seeking to improve the care of children and the elderly,
and a more equal sharing of care responsibilities between women
and men in the home;
iv file an annual progress report with their parliaments
on 8 March (International Women’s Day), indicating the progress
of consultations with the social partners and the elimination of
segregation in the labour market, until such time as discrimination
in job values and job classifications and segregation in the labour
market have been eliminated.
28. The rapporteur recommends that the Committee of Ministers
initiate a comparative survey of the causes of pay differences in
part-time and full-time work, and send the results of this survey
to the Assembly.
***
Reporting committee:
Committee on Equal Opportunities for Women and Men
Reference to committee:Doc. 11611, Reference 3469 of 27 June 2008
Draft resolution and recommendation unanimously
adopted by the committee on 25 January 2010
Members of the committee:
Mr José Mendes Bota (Chairperson),
Ms Mirjana Ferić-Vac (Vice-Chairperson), Ms
Doris Stump (Vice-Chairperson),
Ms Sonja Ablinger, Mr Francis Agius, Mr Florin Serghei Anghel (alternate:
Ms Maria Stavrositu), Ms
Magdalina Anikashvili, Mr John Austin (alternate: Baroness Gale), Mr Lokman Ayva, Ms Déborah
Bergamini, Ms Oksana Bilozir (alternate: Ms Olha Herasym’yuk), Ms Rosa Delia Blanco Terán, Ms Olena Bondarenko,
Mr Han Ten Broeke (alternate: Mr Paul Lempens),
Ms Sylvia Canel, Ms Anna Maria Carloni,
Mr James Clappison, Ms Ingrīda Circene, Ms Anna Čurdová, Mr Andrzej Cwierz, Mr
Kirtcho Dimitrov, Ms Mesila Doda, Ms Lydie Err,
Ms Pernille Frahm, Ms Doris
Frommelt, Ms Alena Gajdůšková, Mr
Giuseppe Galati, Ms Gisèle Gautier,
Ms Sophia Giannaka, Mr Neven Gosović, Ms Claude Greff, Mr Attila Gruber, Ms Carina Hägg, Mr Håkon Haugli, Ms Francine John-Calame, Ms Nataša Jovanoviċ,
Ms Charoula Kefalidou (alternate: Mr Dimitrios Papadimoulis), Ms Birgen Keleş, Ms Krista Kiuru, Ms Elvira Kovács, Ms Athina Kyriakidou, Ms Sophie Lavagna,
Mr Terry Leyden, Ms Mirjana
Malić, Ms Assunta Meloni, Ms Nursuna Memecan, Ms Danguté Mikutiené,
Ms Hermine Naghdalyan, Ms Yuliya Novikova (alternate: Mr Ivan Popescu), Mr Mark Oaten, Mr Kent Olsson, Ms Steinunn Valdis Óskarsdóttir,
Ms Beatrix Philipp, Ms Carmen Quintanilla
Barba, Mr Stanislaw Rakoczy (alternate: Ms Jadwiga Rotnicka), Mr Frédéric Reiss, Ms Mailis Reps, Ms Maria Pilar Riba Font, Ms Andreja Rihter, Mr
Nicolae Robu, Ms Karin Roth,
Ms Klára Sándor, Mr Manuel Sarrazin (alternate: Ms Marlene Rupprecht), Ms Albertina Soliani,
Ms Tineke Strik, Mr Michał Stuligrosz, Ms Elke Tindemans, Mr Mihal Tudose, Ms
Tatiana Volozhinskaya (alternate: Ms Natalia Burykina),
Mr Paul Wille, Ms Betty Williams
(alternate: Mr Tim Boswell),
Ms Gisela Wurm, Mr Andrej Zernovski, Mr Vladimir Zhidkikh
NB: The names of the members who took part in the meeting
are printed in bold
Secretariat of the committee: Ms Kleinsorge, Ms Affholder,
Ms Devaux
