How can we bridge the gender power gap?
Insights from research undertaken by Associate Professor of Work and Employment Relations Jana Javornik featured in an article in Canada’s The Globe and the Mail about the gender pay divide.
The article titled ‘How can we bridge the gender power gap? Six ways employers, governments and men can do better’ proposes the six approaches as:
- Enforce transparency on the gender pay gap
- Introduce mandatory measures on representation
- Create a national gender equality body with clout
- Entrench the notion of flexible work
- Engage and include men
- Provide affordable child care
Dr Javornik commented on UK legislation brought in in 2017 forcing employers with 250 or more employees in both the private and public sectors to publish data on pay gaps between their male and female employees.
On Britain's measure Dr Javornik commented:
[It’s] incredibly useful in terms of stirring up the conversation, in making employers and society at large more sensitive to the issue - in particular for the financial sector, which has had a huge scandal around a very wide gender pay gap.
A few of the headlines the disclosures have generated include: "Sexism in the City: the great gender pay scandal," "U.K.'s most unequal bank: HSBC's gender pay gap grows to 61%" and "Men's pay packets at the top of banks are still out of whack."
"The whole exercise is making everyone aware of how strongly entrenched and embedded certain biases are" in terms of hiring, promotions and retention".
The article is available to subscribers of The Globe and the Mail.
