The definite article in “the gender pay gap” infers rigid differences between the value of men and women as homogenous groups: it seems inevitable that gender dictates pay, the hierarchy substantiated by the statistic that globally women are paid 22% less per hour than men (Ryder, 2018). Yet, what makes the pay gap so difficult to deconstruct is that women do not form a homogenous group - every woman experiences the world differently, both within and between cultures and contexts. For example, Nordic countries that are currently more rooted in the European Social and adult citizen model, provide greater levels of work-family reconciliation support: 1% of GDP is allocated to childcare, with state care provided until children are teenagers. In contrast, the United Kingdom, with its adherence to an increasingly neoliberal social and economic model, spends only 0.5% GDP, resulting in a far greater number of women working part time at a much lower hourly rate.
Shifting social ideologies and structural policies mean that the causes and extent of the gender pay gap varies. The value of women’s work changes according to context and the women in question. Each society uses shifting discourses to naturalise and justify its current value judgements and arrangements, disguising the fact that patriarchal systems and assumptions inform these discourses. Therefore I believe that the persistent existence of gender pay disparities can be explained by the fact that constructed and shifting ideologies mask systemic male dominance and perpetuate inequality; yet at the same time, it is the fluid nature of discourse that offers the potential for resistance and change.
Constructed, hierarchical social systems create power for the dominant through the exclusion of marginalised groups: masculinised cultures privilege masculinised values and ways of being and knowing, including hidden structures, patterns, language, behaviours, and types of work (McDowell, 1999). Constructed, yet legitimised, discourses subtly inform beliefs, choices and actions, thus dictating employment choices and perpetuating the fact that feminised professions are less financially and socially valued. Post-structuralism seeks to deconstruct rigid oppositional thinking, suggesting instead that there are multiple constructed truths and meanings. As Foucault claims, “truth is a thing of this world: it is produced only by virtue of multiple forms of constraint. And it induces regular effects of power” (1980: 131). Thus, his concept of “knowledge/power” asserts that knowledge and power relations are mutually produced and reasserted. While universal patterns of gendered work exist - often justified by biological differences such as childbirth - the fluid nature of ideologies explains why there is such variation between contexts. This fluidity, and the apparent common-sense presentation of these discourses, allow them to elude easy deconstruction. Individual shifts in power could be dismissed as tokenistic or “cosmetic” concessions (Savage, 1992) that cleverly conceal a dominant and repressive social order. Even in the most gender equal societies, a pay gap remains because false neutrality and naturalisation of pay difference ensures worker collusion and prevents real resistance (McDowell, 1999).
Yet, this recognition of different ways of being can also offer individual agency. Discourses can change to accommodate and promote women, as seen through social and legislative pressure in many countries. Foucault’s concept of investigative genealogy allows unearthing and reactivation of subjugated knowledges which are “in opposition to the scientific hierarchisation of knowledges and the effects intrinsic to their power” (Foucault, 1980: 85). Feminists need to “unmask the facade of neutrality” (Ferguson 1984: 17), in order to deconstruct the “traditional hierarchical structures that are inimical to women’s liberation” (Halford, 2001: 59). Vital for challenging the fact that women are paid less than men overall, is a recognition of the political, social and economic influence of both capitalism and patriarchy on the United Kingdom’s work ideologies, as in many other countries.
The ideology of capitalism professes neutrality, with productivity its primary concern.
Economic and social capital enable progression through the hierarchical ranks, facilitating the accumulation of power through status, influence and money. The “explained” pay gap (Becker, 1993), asserts that women have less human capital than men: they possess lower levels of skill and work experience due to the choices they make about domestic responsibility, for instance choosing flexible but badly paid jobs in the public sector. Regardless of the misguided assumption that the burden of care work should fall to women, the assertion that it is unskilled, clearly suggests that the most valued capital is male. Yet, according to post-structuralism, the essentialist value judgement that men are more rational, practical and competitive is a construct. Jobs shape people, behaviour and identities (Halford, 2001) and “the corporation is the quintessential contemporary people producer” (Halford, 2001:1). Work has been systematically gendered; adhering to expected behaviours serves to perpetuate dominance, for example, embodying what it means to be a ‘boss’ by adopting an “aesthetic of seriousness” (Perry, 2016) by wearing a suit and tie. In Secretaries Talk (1989), Pringle analyses the social construction of gender in the workplace. Secretaries have typically been defined in relation to the masculine concept of ‘boss’: this connection is so ingrained and naturalised that it has become normative. The ideological “undervaluing of women’s work…means that skill and experience in female-dominated occupations and workplaces tend to be rewarded unfairly” (Grimshaw and Rubery, 2015: p. vi).
Capitalist production and profit might benefit from women working on equal terms, but patriarchy does not. The social system on which capitalism is built privileges those who are white, male and middle class and subordinates, excludes and exploits women, particularly at the intersections of class and race (Halford, 2001). Capitalism works by creating and exploiting difference of any kind and patriarchy does the same by constructing and reinforcing essential differences between men and women. A central economic and social example is the male breadwinner/female caregiver model, which has historically ensured that the differences between men and women have been naturalised and unquestioned. It has kept many women from the world of work, decision-making, power and pay, relegating them to the domestic realm of unpaid “reproductive” work; while this model is no longer the western norm, the hangover from it can still be felt. For example, there is still an observable division between men and women into “primary” (secure, skilled, opportunity for progression) verses “secondary” sectors (unskilled, insecure, low wages and strict terms and conditions of employment) and the restrictive identity and employment boxes that both men and women are placed in. This horizontal segregation emerges even when women do gain more qualifications or do not have children.
Regardless of their situation, women may well not work on a level playing field. Lemieux and Firpo (2011) use decomposition techniques to separate the so called “explained” part of the gender pay gap from the sizeable unexplained part, showing that claims about women’s skill and economic capital do not justify the vertical inequality of the glass ceiling: even when at the same level, women are often less financially rewarded. The Chartered Management Institute compared the pay of men and women at similar management levels in their 2013 National Management Salary Survey and concluded that the average pay gap is 25% or 30% including bonuses. Similarly, in Europe, organisations consisting of 95% female employees pay around €9.90 per hour, while workplaces with a similar profile but fewer women pay €11.60 per hour. This 14.7% gap equates to €3,500 per year in gross earnings (Global Pay Report, 2018/19). Therefore, the financial value attributed to “female” work, in contrast to the greater value attributed to “male” work, both in vertical and horizontal examples, undermines claims of neutrality (Tutchell and Edmonds: 78).
While capitalism offers competitive meritocracy, what it often delivers is inequality, the assumed neutrality of the discourse masking the influence of patriarchy on its structures, cultures and values.
Bibliography and Further Reading
Becker, G (1993), Human Capital. Chicago, University of Chicago Press
Carnoy, M. (2002). Sustaining the new economy: Work, family, and community in the Information Age. Cambridge, Mass.; London: New York: Harvard University Press; Russell Sage Foundation.
Chapman, B. (8th March 2017), International Women’s Day 2017: Iceland becomes first country in the world to make firms prove equal pay, The Guardian. Retrieved from https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/iceland-equal-pay-international-womens-day-2017-world-first-country-a7618986.html
Cockburn, C. (1991). In the way of women: Men's resistance to sex equality in organizations. Basingstoke: Macmillan Education.
Connell, R. (2008). The Neo-liberal Parent and Schools. Our Schools, Our Selves, 18(1), 175-193,258-259.
Goldin, C. & Rouse, C. (1997). ‘Orchestrating Impartiality: The Impact of "Blind" Auditions on Female Musicians’, The National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER Working Paper No. 5903). Retrieved from https://www.nber.org/papers/w5903
Grimshaw, D. & Rubery, J. (1997). The Concentration of Women's Employment and Relative Occupational Pay: A Statistical Framework for Comparative Analysis (OECD Labour Market and Social Policy occasional papers; no. 26). Paris: OECD Publishing.
Guijt, I., Shah, M., Intermediate Technology Development Group, & Practical Action. (1998). The myth of community: Gender issues in participatory development. London: Intermediate Technology Publications.
European Commission (2019). 2019 Report on Equality Between Men and Women. Retrieved at https://ec.europa.eu/info/sites/info/files/aid_development_cooperation_fundamental_rights/annual_report_ge_2019_en.pdf
Halford, S., & Leonard, P. (2001). Gender, power, and organisations. Basingstoke: Palgrave.
Hartmann, H., (1980). ‘Capitalism, Patriarchy and Job Segregation by Sex’ in Elizabeth Abel and Emily K. Abel (eds) The Signs Reader: Women, Gender and Scholarship. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Johnson, M. (2019). Five for Friday: Shockingly low number of women leading the UK's biggest companies. Prolific London. Retrieved from https://www.prolificlondon.co.uk/features/2019/03/five-friday-shockingly-low-number-women-leading-uks-biggest-companies
Jones, S. (2006). Antonio Gramsci (Routledge critical thinkers). London: Routledge.
Kanter, R., (1977), Men and Women of the Corporation, New York: Basic.
Marchbank, J., & Letherby, G. (2007). Introduction to gender: Social science perspectives. Harlow: Pearson Longman.
McDowell, L. (1999). Gender, identity and place: Understanding feminist geographies, Cambridge: Polity.
Moghadam, V. (1996). Patriarchy and economic development: Women's positions at the end of the twentieth century. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Office for National Statistics (2018). Understanding the Gender Pay Gap in the UK. Retrieved from https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/earningsandworkinghours/articles/understandingthegenderpaygapintheuk/2018-01-17
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (2005). Babies and Bosses: Reconciling Work and Family Life, volume 4. OECD Publishing
Parrenas, R., (2008). The Force of Domesticity: Filipina Migrants and Globalization. New York University Press.
Perrons, D et al. (2006). Gender divisions and working time in the new economy: Changing patterns of work, care and public policy in Europe and North America (Globalization and welfare). Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.
Perry, G. (2017). The descent of man. London: Penguin Books
Pocock, B. (2003). The Work/Life Collision: What work is doing to Australians and what to do about it. Sydney, Federation Press.
Pressman, S., (2002), Explaining the Gender Poverty Gap in Developed and Transitional Economies. Journal of Economic Issues, XXXVI, (1)
Pringle, R. (1989). Secretaries talk: Sexuality, power, and work. London: Verso.
Ryder, G. (2018). Global Wage Report 2018/19: What lies behind gender pay gaps. Retrieved from
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