There is no real reason why women should earn far much less than men

In this modern liberal age, societies are quickly embracing gender neutrality in a lot of areas in our lives.

In the United Kingdom, boys in school may soon be allowed to wear skirts as part of their uniform if they choose to do so.

INCLUSIVITY

Banks such as HSBC offer their customers gender neutral titles like ‘Ind,’ an abbreviation for Individual.

Institutionally, transport for London has recently banned the phrase ‘ladies and gentlemen’ in station announcements, replacing it with the more gender neutral phrase ‘everyone’.

This change is in an effort to reflect the diversity in London, and promote inclusivity.

SALARY
Disappointingly, why is gender still very apparent and a sound distinction is made when it comes to remuneration between men and women?

Last week the British Broadcasting Corporation published salary details of its highest paid employees.

The glaring gap between salaries of the female employees versus their male counterparts is serving as another worrying reminder that the gender pay gap is still nowhere near closing both in the developed and developing countries.

FAMILY

This is truly a global gender crisis and we cannot wait until 2186 to close the gender gap. http://reports.weforum.org/global-gender-gap-report-2016/

Among the key factors that are prolonging the gender pay gap is motherhood.

The fact of the matter is that at some point in a woman’s career, they may take a career break to raise their beloved children.

CAREER

Unfortunately, by the time they resume work, the male counterparts who they started with will have progressed in their career with higher remuneration.

If we are to close this gap, employers should take into serious consideration giving women a smaller time frame to catch up with the salary of their male colleagues.

The attitude and assumption that returning working mothers chose motherhood over their careers should be done away with, if we are to offer proper support to women scaling back up the career ladder.

DECISIONS
Lack of enough women at the board level is also not alleviating the gender pay gap issue.

It cannot be denied that male-dominated board rooms, where all the key decisions are made, do not seriously deliberate issues affecting women in their organisations.

Regrettably, the pay gap is an institutionalised problem offering no prima facie incentive for men to deal with, which reverts to the few women on the board to resolve with great difficulty.

WOMAN REP

To draw a parallel, this under-representation of women explains the deliberate creation of the role of Woman Representative in Kenya.

In the last Parliament, the representatives contributed to passing crucial gender protective bills that led to enacted legislation such as the Victim Protection Act.

If women lack a strong voice at the table where policy decisions are made, the gender pay gap will continue to be entrenched.

EQUALITY

Unfortunately, both are mutually exclusive and need to be concurrently resolved if we are to close this gap.

Despite the bleak progress, more is being done to close the gender pay gap, but it is not sufficient.

Countries such as the UK have made it mandatory through its Equality Act 2016 for companies with over 250 employees to disclose their gender pay gap and gender bonus information, which is often another controversial pay issue.

TRANSPARENCY

Indeed, such disclosure is going a long way, as it has with the BBC, in exposing the extent of the problem.

The public pressure companies are facing and the shame that goes with it may very well result in urgent action to close the gap.

To further the transparency on the gender pay gap, it is worth following the normalised public approach in Finland, Norway, and Sweden, where everyone’s income and tax returns are published.

RWANDA

Notably, the three countries are ranked second to fourth respectively by the World Economic Forum as the most gender equal countries, with Iceland as the first.

Admirably, Rwanda comes in at number five, the only African country in the top 10, while Kenya is ranked 66th, behind Uganda.

ACTION

And so, in the same week the BBC was shamed for its astronomical gender pay gap, Uber announced pay rises that will see equal pay for both men and women.

This is a clear testament that the gap can be closed by employers taking deliberate action, rather than waiting for legislation that enforces equal pay.

The writer works with international businesses on commercial litigation. [email protected]