The future must change for women
Women are paid less than men, so their pensions are smaller
Aurgentll stakeholders agree that the glaring gender inequalities that persist in South Africa require attention. However, there is less agreement on how to resolve these inequalities, that have serious ramifications for the country’s socioeconomic development.
“Despite pressure from governments, popular movements such as #MeToo and even investors, we have not seen meaningful change for women in the workplace,” says Kirshni Totaram, global head of institutional business at Coronation Fund Managers.
“Women are still scarce in senior management positions and the average take-home salaries and bonuses of women employees still fall below those of their male counterparts.
“While these trends are of serious concern and remain a big obstacle to having an economy that is more inclusive, some of their consequential effects are long-term societal problems, which are often hidden.
“One of the issues I refer to here is the pensions gap — the pay gap that women experience has long-term implications, particularly for their retirement. Because they receive lower salaries and may contribute smaller proportions to their pension pots, their pension pay-outs are far less than those of men, a fact which is especially worrying, as women generally live longer.
“Gaps in a woman’s career, which they take to have children, as well as a larger percentage of their income spent on the household and broader family, also take a toll on final pension amounts. There have been calls to address this material issue in many countries, but as yet we [South Africa] have not seen any corrective action,” says Totaram.
The results of the UK government’s gender pay gap reporting procedure, which requires all employers in the UK with over 250 staff to report on the pay difference between men and women, shed more light on the ongoing problem.
More than 75% of UK companies pay male staff more than their female counterparts, and nine out of 10 women work for companies that pay them less. Only 11% of men work for a company where women earn more than they do. In addition, a common feature of the disclosure is the absence of women at senior management level, with women representing only 16% of executive committees in the top 350 companies in the UK, while some of them have none at all.
“While we acknowledge the current pay gap and inequality issues, the worrying part is the lack of a pipeline of women being skilled and trained to assume these roles in years to come, and that organisations have not been vocal about their plans to address this,” says Totaram.
“This is despite the fact that women have outpaced men academically for more than 30 years. But not only companies remain under-represented; the same can be said for political leaders, government officials and even pension fund boards of trustees, where the number of women represented remains low,” she adds.
Totaram contends that efforts to achieve equality in the workplace are of benefit to everyone, as diversity leads to stronger business results and stronger businesses.