According to the UN-ILO report, pay gap in terms of gender equality is almost eradicated in Bangladesh. Our country has a pay gap of 2.1 percent whereas the global average pay gap between men and women is 21 percent. Surprising, right? However, it is the truth. According to the State Minister for Foreign Affairs, the rationale behind low pay gap in Bangladesh is the very organized RMG sector. Apart from that, the spread of micro financing operations by NGOs such as Grameen Bank has also increased labor force participation of women. However, women’s participation in high skill, managerial, and government executive positions have increased only to a limited extent.
Now that the pay gap has been reduced so drastically, does that imply that equality has been established and women don’t really have to face discrimination in the job market anymore? Well, that is far from the reality. Just because women are being paid almost the same amount as men for the same job, doesn’t mean that the actual pay gap has been eradicated. So, what is the heart of pay gap?
What Is the heart of pay gap?
Pay gap between men and women looks a little different depending on how we measure it. Why do women earn less than men? Is it entirely because of discriminatory reasons? Even though the explicit gender discrimination plays a gigantic role in the pay gap around the world, there is this implicit discrimination among men and women that most us don’t even notice. It has been practiced for centuries now.
If we think simply, we can divide in the causes of pay gap into two categories. First, pay gap due to discriminatory practices and Second, the pay gap of choice. The societal pressure and expectations have been manipulating women for so long now that women think that it was their choice when they decided not to pursue higher education or quit their jobs.
Explicit discrimination
When women are paid less just for being women, that can be referred to as explicit discrimination. When the reports claim that pay gap in Bangladesh has gone down drastically this is what it means that now women are paid the same amount as men for the same job. Even though, the pay gap percentage is a real number, it hardly tells you anything about the real disparity among men and women and potentially explains a small part of the pay gap.
Implicit discrimination
While growing up we all get the message that women are the primary care givers and men are the providers. It’s great if you are well-educated and independent. But after you have a baby, someone has stay back with the kid, right? Since mothers are primary care givers and are way better at this than the dads it makes sense for the mother to not work overnight, turn down travelling and big projects which could lead to her promotion and increased salary. This is where the problem lies. Women have to compromise while men don’t have such restrictions.
What can be done?
So how do we change these conventional norms in Bangladesh where women are being exploited? More impartial division of the family duties between men and women, including decent childcare and elder-care services, would in most scenarios encourage women to make different occupational choices. In simpler words, just by freeing women from gender-based stereotypes and imbalances in care work and family responsibilities, we can unleash an enormous amount of potential.
Rwandan Ambassador to the UN, Valentine Rugwabiza, says,
“We know that just freeing the potential of women, is the fastest multiplier that we have in terms of our growth. That is such an accelerator in eradicating poverty.”
After the unfortunate event of 1994, the Rwandan authority knew that they needed women. Which is why they had to implement a host of new policies that aimed at getting women into positions of power. Their constitution also created the position of gender monitor, who ensures that public programs are complying with the country’s goal of gender equality. These policies helped them close the pay gap. In Rwanda, a woman is just as likely as a man to work outside the home. A young girl in Rwanda doesn’t think that there is anything that she isn’t allowed to do. They don’t have to grow up while thinking that there will be a ceiling somewhere. That is the change that we are looking for in Bangladesh as well.
Many of the causes for pay gap has shrunk over the years except one. The motherhood penalty. Even when a mother does work full time just like her male partner, she spends nine hours more than him on childcare and household work.
Over a year, that’s the equivalent of an extra three-months of full-time job. This is the heart of the pay gap.
The lack of programs that support new mother’s return to work after childbirth can’t be stressed enough. This insufficiency significantly contributes to the wage penalty that women face when resuming work after a prolonged period of absence from the labor market. Escalating men’s right of equal parental leave would assist in rebalancing the perception of women employees as mothers. This could actually help us bring a cultural shift in Bangladesh. For instance, in 2000, ice land law makers did something radical. They gave parental leave to dads. Obligational paternity leave has made a difference in the culture of men in Iceland. The men of the younger generation now expect to take care of their children. This makes a difference in both at home and also at the job market because now you can actually expect that both men and women will take a paternity leave when you hire them. The pay gap at Ice land was 0.81 in 2004. But the gap shrank and became 0.90 in the following years due to the radical policy changes. So, we know that it is not impossible to close the pay gap.
It’s not like things are not changing at Bangladesh. They are but at a ridiculously slow pace. If we want to change the culture we can’t really sit down and wait for that long. Even half a century ago women didn’t really work outside home. The women who did work outside weren’t as educated as men. Most women had menial jobs. People understood that a woman might need some money but a career was for men. However, things are a lot different now. Women are just as and in a lot of cases more competent than men. Therefore, it’s unacceptable that women would have to hold themselves back just because of the societal pressures. To eradicate the actual pay gap, we need radical policy changes in Bangladesh and a cultural shift where both men and women are considered as caregivers and breadwinners.