Mind the 100 Year Gender Pay Gap

The latest World Economic Forum (WEF) report shows it will take 99.5 years to achieve gender parity with once again the Nordic countries coming top of the league, Spain moving to 8th position and the UK moving down 6 positions to 21st.  In Gibraltar however, we still have no data to support where we would be in those rankings despite the gender pay gap survey being sent out to companies over a year ago. Calculations using the latest Employment Survey (provided by HMGoG) can be carried out to give an unadjusted gender pay gap, which stood at 19.4% as of 2018. Official figures on the matter however are still not being released.

Some interesting observations are made in the WEF report aside from the fact that it will take a century at the current rate to reach gender parity. There is the issue of political representation, which shows women holding 25.2% of parliamentary seats and 21.2% of ministerial positions on average. In Gibraltar the figure is 11.8% of women holding parliamentary seats (2 out of 17) and only 10% in a ministerial position (1 out of 10). This is despite recently having had a general election, where both GSLP/Libs and GSD only had one woman each in their slate. One of the reasons given by the main governing Party was Brexit and how it wouldn’t be beneficial to change team at this delicate time, despite most ministers not dealing with Brexit directly. Additionally, the implication that having a slate of 9 men and 1 woman represented the “best person for job” implies that they didn’t believe there were enough women of calibre to fulfil those duties. This is in stark contrast with Together Gibraltar that chose a slate of 5 men and 5 women as chosen by the membership.

Another observation is that of the “role model effect” for which the current administration introduced a Mentorship program in the last legislature. This is a scheme that has been widely implemented in the UK but has shortfalls especially if women are not being sponsored effectively, or if it is the only measure adopted to combat gender pay inequality (as is the case in Gibraltar). The WEF report shows that rather than voluntary schemes, nations that have stronger legislation and explicit quotas for representation and promotions are those who are leaders in the gender equality field. These voluntary schemes also help women at top positions without addressing those in lower paid jobs. In Gibraltar there is a much larger proportion of women in lower income jobs than men. 60% of those in job with an income of less than £12k / yr are women. In contrast only 23.3% of those earning over £60k / yr are women (as per Employment Survey 2018 statistics).

One of the main reasons there is still such a disparity in wages between men and women is the amount of unpaid work, childcare arrangements, maternity and paternity leave. Working burdens need to be fairer across the board. We urge the Minister for Equality to release the figures of the gender pay gap survey so we can see how Gibraltar is faring in this matter and to take bold steps to introduce real measures that work for all and not just a few, such as equalised maternity and paternity leave to start closing the gap between how men and women are treated in society.

For a more in-depth report you can download the Global Gender Pay Gap 2020