Gender Divide

Discussion of the gender divide runs together two things that need separating, because they have different causes and different remedies.

An organisation can have almost no like-for-like gap and a large raw gap, and this is the common case. It means people are paid consistently within a job and are distributed unevenly across jobs and levels.

Reporting only the like-for-like figure allows an organisation to conclude that it has no problem when it has a substantial one. Reporting only the raw figure invites the response that it merely reflects role mix, which is true and is the point rather than a defence.

Both should be measured, and the second is where most of the work is.

The statutory position on pay is specific and narrower than the general subject.

Section 3 of the Code on Wages, 2019 prohibits discrimination among employees on the ground of gender in matters relating to wages for the same work or work of a similar nature. Section 3(2) extends to recruitment and to conditions of employment in the terms it states.

Section 2(v) defines same work or work of a similar nature: work where the skill, effort, experience and responsibility required are the same, performed under similar working conditions, with any difference between those factors not being of practical importance. That definition is what determines whether two jobs are comparable, and it is a substantive test rather than a matter of job title.

Section 4 provides that a dispute over whether work is of the same or similar nature is decided by an authority notified by the appropriate Government.

Two limits are worth stating plainly. The prohibition in section 3 is on the ground of GENDER only; the Code does not supply a general anti-discrimination rule covering other grounds. And it addresses wages for comparable work, so it does not by itself reach the distributional gap that produces most of the raw difference.

Distributional gaps do not accumulate evenly across a career. They form at identifiable transitions, which is useful because it tells you where to look.

• At entry, through the roles and functions men and women are hired into, which sets the starting distribution.
• At the first management promotion, which is frequently where the proportion drops most sharply.
• Around maternity and the period following return, where participation, progression and sometimes pay diverge.
• At senior appointments, where small pools and informal networks amplify whatever imbalance already exists.
• Through exit, where differential attrition at particular levels quietly reshapes the distribution.

The third of these is the one most amenable to action. The gap that opens around maternity and return is driven by concrete, addressable things: whether the role is held, whether the return is supported, whether progression conversations continue, and whether flexibility is available without a cost to advancement.

Measuring the distribution at each transition, rather than measuring the overall gap, is what turns this from a statement about society into an operational finding about a specific step in your own process.

Parts of the participation picture are set by statute at defined thresholds, under the Code on Social Security, 2020.

Section 60 provides maternity benefit at the average daily wage, subject to the minimum wage fixed under the Code on Wages, 2019, with a qualifying condition that the woman must have actually worked for not less than eighty days in the relevant period.

Section 67 requires a creche facility in every establishment to which the Chapter applies in which fifty employees, or such number as prescribed, are employed, within a prescribed distance, and permits it to be provided separately or along with common facilities.

These are minimums rather than a strategy. An organisation meeting both and losing women at the return-to-work transition has complied and not solved the problem, because the determinants of whether someone returns and progresses are mostly about the role, the manager and the flexibility available rather than about the facility.

The prevention of sexual harassment obligations form a separate and equally relevant part of the picture and are dealt with in their own entry.

• Report the raw gap and the like-for-like gap together, and explain what each one is answering.
• Report the distribution by level, since the proportion at each grade is what drives the raw gap and is the thing that can be moved.
• Measure at transitions: hiring by function, promotion rates by level, return and retention after parental leave, and attrition by level.
• Check starting salaries, since a gap set at offer compounds through every subsequent percentage increase.
• Look at who receives discretionary and variable amounts, which are less visible than base pay and frequently less consistent.

The fourth point has a straightforward remedy. Pricing a role rather than negotiating from a candidate's previous pay prevents an existing gap being imported and then multiplied, and it is one of the few interventions that is both cheap and clearly effective.

Where variable pay is allocated at manager discretion, its distribution is worth examining specifically. Base pay is usually governed by a structure and discretionary amounts frequently are not, so the inconsistency concentrates there.