Gender pay gap, a serious socioeconomic issue.

 

As the UN observes International Equal Pay Day, on September 18th, it brings about the issues women are facing with respect to their wage, disproportionate with men.

Traditionally, men are deemed to be superior and most of the societies are patriarchal in nature. Men represents more in every spheres of economic, political and social aspects where as women are considered merely as care takers. This concept of social orientation, are imprinted deeply through various unwritten laws, and even with some religious interpretations. But every country will witness a phase of social and economic transformation, that will pave way for some progressive changes in line with the demand of those who were suppressed.

India, when it implemented its LPG reforms in 1991, underwent such a progressive change and the women were uplifted to the forefront in education and employment sector as the privatisation created alot of employment opportunities. From the time, women became a Major part of the labour force, the demand for gender parity in remuneration came in discussion, and still going on with so many areas unaddressed and unsolved. Post covid era, brought women into more crisis as so many of them lost their job more often than men. Although the unemployment crisis is very alarming in india, women hurt more than men comparatively in terms of job loss.After, the lockdowns and when the economy started to run again, so many of the job oppurtunities of women were also taken away by men worldwide. This is evident fron the Global wage report 2020-21 published by ILO, highliting that covid 19 pandemic disproportionately effected womens total wages compared to men.

When we look at statistics of India, the findings are too shocking. In 1993-1994, indian women earned 48% less compared to their female counterpart. This figure became 28% jn 2018-19, and that was a positive change as the women empowered with education reached to a level to demand the salary in par with men.  But unfortunately, this positive change got the blow by 2020-2021 as it reached again upto 35%. This data published in labour force survey by National statistics Organization, clearely picturise the fact that parity in wage is still a lacuna in indian employments.

As this trend is a global phenomenon, there are some commendable initiatives in international level to address this issue. United nations Sustainable development Goal 5 talks about Gender Equality. International labour organization (ILO) has included the concept of 'Equal pay for Equal works of Equal values ' in their constitution. In the Convention on elimination of all forms of discrimination against women, it provides an international legal framework for realising gender equality and addressing the intersecting forms of discrimination and vulnerabilities among women and girls. Although these international laws are there, its actual implementation rests upon the respective governments.

India also have constitutional and legal provisions to assure the Equal pay for equal works and to counter gender based discriminations. Article 14,15 of indian constitution affirms the equality before law and equal protection of, at the same time, the latter prohibits the gender based discrimination and promote gender parity. Article 39(d) specifically talks about equal pay for equal works. Under fundamental duties on Article 51(a)(c), constitution says that every citizen has to renounce practices which are derogatory to the dignity of women.

Apart from such constitutional provisions, the Government of India enacted several laws like Minimum wage act 1948, Equal remuneration act, 1976 and recently the Govt has codified lots of labour related laws under code of wages, 2019. MGREGA scheme that provides employment in rural india, helps to reduce gender gap to a larger extend. Maternity benefit act, 1961 that allows leave with pay protection, from 12 weeks to 26 weeks in those establishments with 10 or more workers also is a pro women approach. Skill india mission to equip women with market relevant skills to bridge the learning to livelihood gap and gender pay gap.

Even though there are so many laws that assures equal pay for equal works without any gender biases, still this issue exist with prevalence because women are deemed to be ill equipped by the society. Women are not considered as a bread earner in a family and thus their financial independence is not considered as genuine. So, its time for to implement more steps to empower women, to crack the myths of patriarchy that have no place in a progressive society.