Welcome to Finance & Fury, the Furious Friday edition.
Today’s episode is all about the drive to equality.
A recent proposal by the Labour Government is to force equality through gender, and forcing companies to publicly disclose pay gaps between men and women.
Reporting differences in pay between genders Personally, I don’t like it as it further drives division between people I think it will actually hurt women more than help themThe Proposal
Companies with more than 1,000 employees will be forced to publicly disclose how much they pay woman compared to men. Companies that fail to comply will be excluded from competing for government work - this seems like blackmail for compliance! Companies already disclose pay gaps to the Workplace Gender Equality Agency as it is already illegal to discriminate and pay people less based on genderWhy is this happening?
The Wage Gap currently sits at about 15% or so, but this depends on how you interpret the numbers
Stats – What is an average? In 2016 the average female wage was 89% of the average male wage The median (middle number of average) female wage was 92% of the median male wage. This gap has remained relatively steady over the past decade (see Table 2.1).The practicality of it
Will the analysis be multi-variant? Age and experience? – this will impact annual earnings Hours worked and time in the office What position and role in the company? The government doesn’t care about free market forces – it comes back to votes and controlOutcomes
Prime Minister Scott Morrison is concerned workplace conflict would be sparked if pay details were disclosed. Cost of regulations –Will it actually change anything? Will it help close the wage gap?
The most critical thing governments can do to boost women’s pay is to ensure the economy remains strong, and not divisive. The only thing any government can do is to create the right economic circumstances to be able to grow jobs
Why does the gap exist?
Let’s look at Industry Sectors and earnings
Breakdown - Occupation and industry have different averages
Mining is one of the highest for menThis is an example of playing politics rather than being about actioning meaningful change.
The issue with politics today – politicians go for the easy vote – it’s a game
Why are politicians playing this divisive game?Sweden is one of the most ‘equal’ countries and you see more woman going into non-tech related fields because it comes back to individual choices.
I encourage you, especially if you’re a female, don’t focus on the so-called “Gender Pay Gap”, “there’s no hope” etc. etc. …and instead focus on trying to improve yourself, increase your demand and try to get the best for yourself without buying into social engineering. We all have equal opportunity (there’s actually more women than men at university now)
Regardless of your gender – make sure you tune in to Monday’s episode 😊