Guest Contribution: Wage Discrimination Is Just the Tip of the Iceberg

Over the last few decades, the genders have progressively converged in terms of employment participation (i.e. the share of people of working age who are employed or looking for employment). Nevertheless, women and men continue to occupy very different roles on the Swiss labour market. Part-time employment is much more widespread among women and interruptions in employment are more frequent (for instance due to family-related reasons). Women are underrepresented in executive positions, concentrate to a large extent on different occupational fields than men, are more often facing the substantial double burden of household and work, and receive lower pay than men even if qualification levels and other relevant factors are taken into account.

Why do these entrenched differences persist? Why is it that women are still less integrated into the labour market than men? Why are women less successful in their jobs? While both the public debate and the majority of political measures focus predominantly on gender-specific wage differentials, this focus on wage discrimination falls short of addressing the overall problem.

The crux of the matter is not just the question whether and to what extent employers treat women differently than men. It is rather a matter of more fundamental social mechanisms in connection with social standards, stereotyped role perceptions, gender-specific socialisation, structural constraints and gender-specific self-concepts which affect the position of women on the labour market. An extensive store of research studies in various disciplines suggests a host of different situations where a gender bias can be observed that also affects the actions of the stakeholders.

Women are punished for non-conformance with role expectations

For instance, men tend to be attributed traits like ambition and assertiveness, which are considered necessary qualities for executive positions. By contrast, women tend to be punished for non-conformance with the set roles if, contrary to expectations, they display these very qualities. Other evidence, which suggests that women are less likely to negotiate their salaries but may encounter disadvantages if they break this social standard, points in a similar direction. Furthermore, women are more likely to meet a lack of understanding or disapproval if they decide against having children. At the same time, according to entrenched role perceptions, mothers obviously take on a larger part of the childcare duties than fathers.  Self-enforcing mechanisms predominate which keep women from breaking out of these traditional models, especially where role assignments within the family and at work are concerned: Due to the gender-biased character of the labour market, couples often find that it makes good economic sense to adopt the ‘main bread-winner plus wife with additional income’ model.

There are also many indications in various fields of research that men’s and women’s work performances are rated differently: Women often have to deliver a better performance to be taken seriously – not only by others but also by themselves. After all, it is not just other people’s perceptions and treatment that are influenced by social standards, it also women’s self-concepts and their own wishes and preferences. Persistent and substantial gender-specific preferences for various professions and university courses cannot really be explained with genetic disposition. At the same time, there is evidence that the more ‘female’ connotations a profession has, the more it will be invalidated.

Men are given a ‘marriage premium’

Here are two further interesting examples taken from research that has recently been conducted by the University of Bern. In the context of an experimental design, participants of a national survey had to value the income of fictitious individuals (N = 1912). The fictitious individuals varied in gender, marital status and other characteristics. All in all, at 6%, the resulting difference in the ‘fair’ income for women and men is considerable. How can this difference be explained?

It appears that the respondents’ perceptions of the roles played by the fictitious individuals in the household are relevant: If results are broken down into single and married individuals, such differences are made in the married category only. Consequently, the men are granted a ‘marriage premium’ in anticipation of their bread-winning role, a premium which women do not get. This shows how strongly entrenched gender-stereotyped role models are.

The second example refers to the question whether the dearth of women in STEM professions is partially due to women’s own lack of confidence in their mathematical skills. In 2016, a sample of approximately 22,000 9th-grade students took a number of maths tests in the context of a basic knowledge assessment project set up by the Swiss Conference of Cantonal Ministers of Education (EDK). The students were also asked to rate their mathematical skills and which profession they were likely to practice at the age of 30. Broken down into STEM professions and other professions, the envisaged jobs at age 30 show a distinct gender bias with 19% of the male adolescents and just 2.7% of the female adolescents choosing STEM professions.

Stereotypes require specific counteraction

In line with the widespread prejudice of women's and men’s different talent for mathematics, it also becomes clear that the female adolescents rate their mathematical skills substantially lower than their male counterparts, even if they have achieved the same test results. This explains a large part of the gender difference in STEM aspirations. Together, the differences in the test results and the self-assessments explain 26% of the differential, with 45% relating to the actual test performance (which can also be a consequence of gender-specific role expectations) and 55% to the different self-assessment. This example shows that gender-stereotypes may affect self-perception, which, in turn, may well influence an individual’s actions.

If we want to achieve equal opportunities on the labour market, measures such as regular reviews of wage discrimination at bigger companies are probably insufficient. It is more important to challenge our perception of women and men and their role in society and try to specifically counteract the structural constraints arising from our current social model. The results of ‘blind auditions’ (in US orchestras) or role models as a consequence of women’s quotas (at local authorities in India) show that there are indeed valid starting points to bring about long-term change.