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Counterpunch: Practical ways to raise women’s wages

Justine Davies

by Justine Davies

10 Jun 11:10am

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Filed under: Gender, Industrial Relations, Julia Gillard, Pay, Unions, Wages, Women

43 comments

Union secretary Sally McManus urged women to do starjumps, take a nap, phone their mother and undertake various other activities to show their employers and fellow sisters and brothers that they really are serious about wanting equal pay.

This woman deserves a higher salary.

The thing is though, we’ve had equal pay for years!

Yes, women on average tend to earn 18% (almost a million dollars) less than men over the course of their lifetime. That 18% figure comes from an AMP.NATSEM report done a couple of years ago.

I blogged about the report at the time for news.com.au, and made the comment that according to according to co-author of the ‘Income and Wealth Report’, Riyana Miranti, past generations of women did often get paid less for the same role, but that is not the situation nowadays.

To quote her directly: “The Baby Boomer generation had more wage discrepancy, but Generation Y women in a profession have wage parity – there is only a 0.6% difference in wage rate.”

In other words (barring a few rogue employers) women get paid the same amount for the same job as men. So why do women earn 18% less? It’s due to a combination of factors including starting work at a later age, retiring younger, taking time off for child raising or looking after family members, working fewer hours/working part time and choosing different careers.

All choices that we voluntarily make for ourselves.

Still, career-satisfaction is important, so perhaps we should pay women more for the careers that they choose. Yes? Well then instead of star jumps and naps, here’s a few practical ways in which you can help your sisters earn the salaries they deserve:

Nursing: It’s a female-dominated industry which many believe is chronically underpaid. We would be in deep crap without our nurses. So – take out private health insurance, the top cover. And use it.

Inundate our private hospitals, raise the demand for our nurses (and hence, supply and demand being intertwined, raise their salary). Also encourage the government to scrap the 30% health insurance rebate.

Sure, it will be expensive for you, but doing these two things will take pressure off the public system, freeing up some extra money that the government can use to raise the wages of our nurses. 

Teaching: The government coffers aren’t a bottomless pit (nor are taxpayer pockets) so start paying for public school educations. A few hundred dollars a term, per student, straight to the teachers and administrative staff at the schools will go a long way to boosting their salaries to be a little bit more commensurate with their skill and dedication to the very important role of educating the next generation.

Administration: Again, the economic principal of supply and demand will fix it. Start by encouraging the state and federal governments to introduce a new levy of taxpayers – along the lines of the medicare levy – to enable them to double the salary of government admin staff.

Private employers will have to follow suit or face an exodus of staff. Of course, it will raise the costs of – well – just about everything you need to buy. But still – it will increase wages in a female-dominated industry.

I could go on and on – there’s plenty of other female-dominated industries out there – but you get the point. You just need to start coughing up more money out of your own pocket; to start paying more for those services in female-dominated industries. It’s called putting your money where your mouth is.

Justine’s latest book ‘An Inconceivable Notion’ is being launched in Brisbane next Thursday, 17th June. Click here for more details.

Most commented

43 comments

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    • Tim says:

      11:23am | 10/06/10

      Shhhhhh Justine,
      no-one wants to hear the reality of the pay gap.
      It’s much easy to see someone who gets paid more than us and claim victim status and discrimination.
      Nothing to do with personal decisions whatsoever.

      Reply

    • Nate says:

      11:33am | 10/06/10

      A sensible article! Thank god!

      Yes, the “pay-gap” doesn’t exist. It’s a function of lifestyle choices women make that men don’t. Not patriarchy, gender-discrimination or male-privileged.

      Do feminists ever get tired of reciting the same dogma over-and-over, as if repetition makes it so?

      Reply

    • McLawyer says:

      03:18pm | 10/06/10

      Sensible?

      I thought it was satire.

      Asking taxpayers to pay more money just so others can get a higher pay?!?! What? No.

      I pay the least amount possible for the services/goods I want.

      That is how economics/business works.

    • JUSTINE says:

      03:35pm | 10/06/10

      McLawyer - yes. It is satire. The point is that we’re not prepared to pay more than we have to - hence the salaries in various industries (including those that are female dominated). We can’t blame the government (or employers) for that though.

    • Tim says:

      03:48pm | 10/06/10

      McLawyer,
      i think that was the point of the article.
      All these people whinging about how some of these jobs should have higher pay, whilst refusing to fork out any extra money for these services.
      Unfortunately as you say, that’s not how economics work.

    • acker says:

      11:45am | 10/06/10

      Time for action ...want more pay Ladies please take up
      *Mine Dump Truck Driving
      *Mine Drag Line Operator
      *Geologist
      *High Rise Crane Operator
      *Agronomist
      *Electrician
      *Plumber
      *Oil Rig Employee

      Reply

    • AnnaB says:

      03:42pm | 10/06/10

      Hey acker, as a female who is currently working as a mining engineer and enjoying the high salary, I’d like to tell you what a group of oil rig employees said to me: “We don’t allow women. They want to sleep with all the men and it damages moral. When our manager moved to Australia, he didn’t believe us when we told him he had to consider hiring women”.

      Is this true? Well, I spoke to one of the crane drivers on site who’d just come from a rig, he was helping me look for a job, mentioned a few fellows he knew who were looking for engineers, so he contacted them. Every one…. yes every one… said no, we don’t take females thanks, not interested.

      I know not every rig is like this, I’ve heard of people holding up lone girls on rigs as examples, but it’s not quite as easy as you seem to think.

    • Albie says:

      03:48pm | 10/06/10

      Actually women are highly sought after and getting a larger and larger profile in jobs like mine dump truck driving - mostly because they’re safer drivers of those giant tonka trucks (or are at least less likely to turn up to work with alcolohol still in their system).

      Cool eh?

    • Davo says:

      09:38am | 11/06/10

      When I was in WA in the 80s, all the mine dump trucks were driven by women at 1 mine (so I was told).  Automatic, Aircond, power steering - where’s the challenge!

    • Gav says:

      11:53am | 10/06/10

      Another factor that results in lower pay for women is that they’re less inclined to seek pay rises than men. If you don’t ask for more money, nobody is going to give it to you.

      Reply

    • J says:

      12:16pm | 10/06/10

      You’re right Gav - women often aren’t as good at negotiating pay rises. perhaps that’s something useful the unions could do for women - give them better negotiating skills.

    • BTS says:

      12:02pm | 10/06/10

      Whatever, will the women whinge about…

      Reply

    • Super D says:

      12:11pm | 10/06/10

      My cousin who is now an environmental activist has embraced every lefty cause for as long as I can remember.  I recall once at a family wedding that she claimed teachers were underpaid because most of them were women.  She couldn’t seem to follow the argument that as a society we undervalue public education and hence underpay teachers.  The domination of women in public education is simply because men won’t take the jobs.  Private schools have absolutely no problem attracting male staff because they pay a higher wage.

      I’d bet that private hospitals pay their nurses better than public hospitals.

      The fact that women do these jobs is not why they are underpaid.  If they doubled wages they would get a lot more male applicants.

      Reply

    • Eskimo says:

      01:37pm | 10/06/10

      Public and non-for-profit nurses can salary package where private (for-profit) nurses can not.

    • jaystar says:

      12:20pm | 10/06/10

      Your comment:women can always get the evening job, and many do, look at what women wear vs their “daytime” job, reallity vs the myth!! hmmmmm

      Reply

    • May says:

      12:21pm | 10/06/10

      Justine, THANK YOU! An article that makes sense and is factual.

      I earn a great wage, have a wonderful employer and good working conditions. I know that there are only 12 people in Australia that do the role that I do.. and none of us work for the same organisation. We are both genders. We live in different parts of Australia, service a different number of clients, and work to very different deadlines. I wouldn’t dream of asking them their wages because although we all have the same title/role, we have such varying constraints and conditions that it would be a pointless exercise.

      I love how all the experts come out on issues like this, with their opinions and prejudices disguised as facts. One fact that is indisputable - in GENERAL women are more likely to take leave if they have a child, as MOST women are the primary carer of said child (not to mention many carry this child for 9 months prior). Averaged out over all women, over our whole employment, I can see where this figure comes from.

      I don’t resent those who chose to have children (although it’s irrelevant, my husband and I have chosen not to), but at the end of my working life I will have earnt more than my reproducing friends, and that’s as it should be, because I earnt a wage for longer.

      Reply

    • JUSTINE says:

      04:11pm | 10/06/10

      You’re welcome, May.

    • Bitten says:

      12:36pm | 10/06/10

      No-one’s going to bite Justine, this is the elephant in the room.

      The next elephant is the one where we talk about the waste of precious limited university training places on women who elect not to work after a couple of years - this is a waste of a place that could have been used. WHO projects a global shortage of healthcare workers along the lines of 2.4million.  We need to be thinking hard about who we assign training places to and whether we bind trainees to a strict retention contract - 15 years full time minimum in the workforce guaranteed.

      And yes, I am female.

      Reply

    • Jase says:

      03:44pm | 10/06/10

      The WHO may project such a shortage, but they themselves are contributing to it. As someone who previously made a living from WHO contracts, I know that over the years the value of said contracts has been in free fall. Perhaps they could start the ball rolling by paying a fair price.

    • Bitten says:

      04:59pm | 10/06/10

      Without question Jase, but in this context I was more using the stat to highlight the size of the problem and the fact that we need to get serious about exactly who we take the time to train in a profession - if you aren’t committed to working in that profession and making the contribution to that profession, than frankly you shouldn’t get a place. We need to be more directed in managing workforce shortages, we can’t be shy about facing up to where the shortages come from. And it is without question fair to say that if you take a training spot in a program (say medical imaging technologist) and then decide after 3 years in the workforce, “Well, I’m outta here, got babies/dreamboat who’s going to pay for everything, see ya!” then that is irresponsible and wrong. You have wasted that precious training place and contributed directly to the workforce shortage. Sadly, plenty (and I know what and who I am talking about ladies) of women do not want to work. As soon as they can, they will stop working. To that I say, fine knock yourself out, we are all free to make that choice. But you need to be honest with yourself if you do not want a career, then don’t waste the educational training required for that career. Let the place be given to a candidate who actually wants to work in that area. Sadly, until women are honest with themselves about their priorities, the critical shortages driven by this type of behaviour will continue.

    • Jenni says:

      12:51pm | 10/06/10

      I’ll be yet another female to jump in and say “thank you”  for a well-written article smile I have worked in customer service, middle-management, and security in the past 10 years, and no matter what my role, I have always been on the exact same wage/salary as my male counterparts.

      I have always wondered where this idea of wage inequality comes from - silly me, I didn’t realise they were taking it as a TOTAL income over a lifetime! While I have never taken time off for children or the like, it is true that many women do, so of course their lifetime salary is going to be less.

      Gee - I bet Eric will be miffed at all the *females* agreeing that there is no wage discrimination ... it’s no fun when we agree is it mate? wink

      Reply

    • Eric says:

      07:32pm | 10/06/10

      I’d have been happily arguing against everyone if it wasn’t for you darn sensible females! smile

    • Adam MacLeod says:

      01:41pm | 10/06/10

      I would love to see Nurses, School Teachers and Child Care Workers paid more.  All are very noble and important professions.

      The fact that they are dominated by the ladies is (maybe) a coincidence.

      Reply

    • Perry87 says:

      01:45pm | 10/06/10

      I think this is a fantastic article, apart from one rogue sentence which i think runs slightly contrary to your point. I agree that nurses arent paid nearly enough for the work they do, and especially those in aged and disability services, however when you say, “Also encourage the government to scrap the 30% health insurance rebate.” Im not sure whether or not you understand the purpose of the rebate. It is there to encourage people to move into private health cover, and remember that the money people get back from the government is only really their money from thei job in the first place. The rebate encourages people to move to private health care, which in turn frees up the public hospitals and services. You only need to look at the difference in wait list times for Public and Private to see how much better the private system works. If it werent for a strong and competitive private system the public hospitals would be even worse.

      If you really wanted to pay nurses more, a better solution would be to cut the public administration and services which accounts for more than 60% of QLD Health’s budget, and put that money back into services and medical staff.

      Reply

    • Peter says:

      01:54pm | 10/06/10

      Well Done Justine.. A great article based soley of facts.. I take my hat off to you… I take it you weren’t at the rally today..

      Reply

    • Vicki PS says:

      02:29pm | 10/06/10

      What a silly fluff piece!  The answer to everything is to pay more more for services provided mainly by women?  Terrific: in other words, penalise those who rely most on those services, i.e. children, the poor, sick and disabled.  That’s striking a blow for women workers all right, Justine!  A nice piece of right wing middle class propaganda.  Oh, and you failed to mention that the choices women “voluntarily” make that remove them from the paid workforce include essential unpaid work that would otherwise have to be undertaken by paid service providers (and I don’t only mean having and looking after children).  The job of caring for frail elderly, chronically ill or disabled family members more often falls to women, and the indisputable fact is that governments would be hopelessly unprepared to meet the demand for these services if they were not provided “voluntarily” by women. Government and societal reliance on women’s unpaid work extends into other areas that do not necessarily remove women from the workforce.  For instance, a study several years ago found one of the main factors determining recidivism rates among former prisoners was ongoing support, or lack therof, of family members while in jail and afterward.  In the majority of instances, the primary family contacts were women.  Can you figure out a way for us all to pay more for that, Justine?

      Reply

    • Peter says:

      04:11pm | 10/06/10

      @ Vicky, if my mum were paid $$ for the love and attention she tried to give her family there would not be enough money in the world. Family support is about love not dollars.. Granted, there are some occupations where people (in female dominated areas like child care) can be paid better, but this has nothing to do with this gender as feminism is still trying to tell us..

    • marley says:

      04:28pm | 10/06/10

      Umm, maybe you should look up the word “irony” in the dictionary.

    • Mrs Skippytron says:

      05:44pm | 10/06/10

      Here here!  Well said Vicki PS

    • Ginger says:

      02:47pm | 10/06/10

      The elephant in the room is in fact- why are female dominated industries unperpaid and male employees not?
      Anything classified as “women’s work” is grossly underpaid. You forgot the community sector in your article Justine, but dont worry, a lot of people do.

      Reply

    • JUSTINE says:

      03:31pm | 10/06/10

      Hi Ginger,

      You’re right. Female dominated industries are often underpaid. Usually because that’s all the the consumer is prepared to pay for the service. That’s my point - salaries are what they are because that’s all that we’re prepared to pay them.

    • Markus says:

      05:01pm | 10/06/10

      ‘Why are female dominated industries unperpaid and male employees not?’
      I assume you meant male industries, in which case, is it the chicken or the egg, Ginger?
      Are they underpaid industries because they are female dominated (some patriarchal conspiracy), or female dominated because they are underpaid industries (low demand amongst men due to the poor work conditions to pay ratio)?
      Surely the latter is a slightly more logical explanation?

      This is a free market economy. Don’t magically expect to be paid more for a profession that consumers aren’t willing to pay for.

    • Hendo says:

      05:49pm | 11/06/10

      Capitalism - One is a cost, one is a money generator. Care type of professions, although noble, do not generate money. There is little incentive to try and draw the biggest brains. Private schools on the other hand rely on big brained teachers to make their students successful so they can charge more.

      Engineers can save projects millions, miners dig up stuff to sell, accountants find the way to pay the least tax. About the only care position that people care to pay well is doctors, that is because we are all very scared of what would happen to us without them.

    • Budz says:

      03:15pm | 10/06/10

      Great article Justine. Not so sure that I agree about the teachers though. I have a mate who is male and a teacher but is currently employed in a different profession. He can’t wait to get back into teaching (the reasons include getting home at 4PM every day and having 13 weeks holiday each year). He will also take a massive pay cut to go back into teaching. Has anyone done an analysis on what teachers get paid per hour compared to other professions?

      I agree teachers are crucial to our future as they can positively shape our childrens lives.

      Reply

    • Cherry says:

      05:46pm | 10/06/10

      I absolutly do not believe that a man doing my job at the moment would earn the same as me. My employer is no monster, but I guarantee that he would pay a man more. I could of course get a different job but there are other factors at play that mean that I ‘choose’ to stay in the position.

      Reply

    • Rossco McGlashan says:

      08:31pm | 10/06/10

      Excellent article but as usual it will be grossly ignored by the reporters at news.com.au and the like.

      Reply

    • Bill Burr says:

      09:48pm | 10/06/10

      Men getting paid more is because we deserve hazard pay.

      Hostage Situation? Let the women and children go.

      Sinking Ship? Women and children on the life boats.

      War? Send the Boys.

      Sound downstairs? We’re the ones getting stabbed.

      Going out on a date? We pay for the movie AND dinner.

      Women want equality with men but want to pick the equality like it’s a buffet.

      If you want equal pay you better be standing there on the Titanic listening to the guy playing the cello when the ship is sinking.

      Reply

    • Joe says:

      11:48pm | 10/06/10

      We should pay more for stay at home mothers too! They are by far the most under paid women. But no, Rudd wants to pay more to the ones who rush back to work and dump their babies. That isnt fair! All babies should get the same ammount.

      Reply

    • Davo says:

      09:45am | 11/06/10

      How much to stay at home dads make?

    • Tara says:

      09:00am | 11/06/10

      Ummm, a friend of mine is a corporate travel agent and she gets paid significantly less than males doing the EXACT SAME role. She is not the only person I know who is in this position.

      This is a silly article which negatively generalises and undermines people like my friend who quite rightfully believe they deserve equal pay to her male counterparts.

      Instead of going off old reports from ‘a couple of years ago’ that (possibly) fit to your argument, why not do a bit more research on some more recent studies, for example the World Economic Forum 2009 Global Gender Gap Report, which shows that the gap is not only present for men and women in the same positions, it is also widening.

      Right wing propaganda indeed.

      Reply

    • Davo says:

      09:47am | 11/06/10

      Why doesn’t she take her employer to court.  Surely they are breaking the law.  This is an open and shut case! 
      ...or maybe there is more to it?

    • Tara says:

      03:31pm | 11/06/10

      Who knows Davo, I will certainly suggest it to her. She should definitely do something…she is getting paid a pittance there ($35k/year)

    • Luke says:

      02:38pm | 11/06/10

      Good article…
      Stats get adjusted to keep things in politics…
      People need to know the FULL story behind every number…

      Reply
 
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