The wage gap widens and it will take more than a century to close

The wage gap widens and it will take more than a century to close

The Equality Act of 2007 has not been able to match the salaries of men and women: Spain continues to the tail of the world

   «If we show emotion, they call us dramatic. If we want to play against men, we are crazy. And if we dream of equal opportunities, we are delirious .... ». The voice of the American tennis player Serena Williams rose strongly during the last ceremony of the Oscars to denounce the inequality that exists in the sport. It was the issue of the latest advertising spot of the sports brand Nike, a feminist plea that - on the eve of the commemoration on March 8 of International Women's Day - leads us to reflect on the fact that it can be called « crazy »a woman who runs a marathon, boxing, training in the NBA, a winner of 23 Grand Slams who leaves the competition to have a baby and then returns ...«If they want to call you crazy, go ahead.

Teach them what we can do crazy, " concludes the applauded announcement, which praises that thanks to the" crazy dreams "(as the title says) that these women have had some progress in the consolidation of women's sports, although there is still a long way to go.

This is, effectively, one of the great showcases of inequality between men and women, despite the fact that in recent decades there has been a great leap forward, also in Spain, as evidenced by the fact that of the 17 Olympic medals achieved in the Rio de Janeiro Games, 11 were for women.

However, the true gender gap comes, of course, from the different rewards that female sports have for men. Tennis has been the first to take a step towards equality by equating the winner's prize in its four Grand Slams (Roland Garros, Wimbledon, US Open and Australian Open), but in other sports such as golf, cycling and football, the differences are scandalous.

   Thus, in golf, the economic differences between the winners of men and women exceed one million dollars (almost 880,000 euros), while in cycling the members of the female team of Movistar -for example- earn less than one third the male team And this in football is multiplied to the nth power: the difference of the award that the Federation gives toWomen's league champion (1,352 euros) and men's champion (20 million euros) is at least embarrassing.

In view of this data, it can not surprise anyone that only one woman is included in the latest Forbes list with the top 100 athletes in the world: Serena Williams. And it is not surprising, therefore, that to end this inequality, it will still take more than a century of history, specifically 108 years, according to a report recently presented at the World Economic Forum in Davos.

Spain is one of the most backward students in the world in the pending subject of salary parity, to the point that in this indicator it is ranked 129th out of the 149 countries analyzed, according to the study. And it is that in the last decade, the salary gap between men and women, far from diminishing, has increased, although in 2007 the first law for effective equality was approved, which sought to eliminate any type of discrimination against women.

However, many of its measures have fallen on deaf ears and even the Government admits that "discrete if not insignificant" results have been obtained. In the Council of Ministers on Friday gave the green light to another battery of proposals, such as making public average salaries of any company disaggregated by sex, to alleviate this situation of "unbearable and unjustifiable inequality" that exists today.

In this sense, women in Spain charge an average of almost 5,800 euros less per year than men, according to the report recently presented by UGT. This means that the gap between them and them is at 22.35%, with data from the Salary Structure Survey prepared by the INE referring to 2016 (last available year), almost half a point more than in 2008, precisely when It marked the minimum in the last decade.

The highest gap occurred in 2013, when it climbed to 24% after five years on the rise. Since then it has gone down in the last three years, although not enough to mark a new floor. Today, "they need to work ten years more than men to achieve the same rewards," laments Cristina Antoñanzas, Deputy Secretary-General of UGT, who in turn stresses that two out of ten employees are poor (twice as many as men) and "more than half of the workers are, at best, mileuristas".

The limit set by the Government in this new law is not to exceed 25% ; If this occurs in any company, it will be considered that there is discrimination and the company will have to justify it. But the average of many sectors exceeds this percentage, as in banking and insurance, commerce, real estate and administrative activities, health and social services, among others.

Employment below the EU
But it's not all bad news, Spain has made considerable progress in gender equality from the point of view of access to education and health, occupying the first place in gender parity by enrollment from primary to university education, according to the mentioned report of the Davos Forum.

In fact, there are more women than men entering universities, although this does not necessarily translate into the female participation rate in the labor market, which is eleven percentage points lower than the male, although a decade ago it was almost double : 17.4% gap in 2008, according to the data extracted from the last Active Population Survey (EPA). And is that today there are still more than 1.7 million men working as women , although this difference has been reduced by more than one million in the last decade.

On the other hand, the female unemployment rate is 3.4 points higher than the male rate, as a result of which unemployment among women decreases at a visibly lower rate than that of men (if in the case of men it falls by 7.8). %, for them only drops by 3.8%). And is that despite the fact that the female employment rate has climbed almost six points since 2013 to stand at 59.6% in 2017, Spain also follows the tail of Europe in this variable and far from employment levels among women that there is in Sweden (79.8%) or Germany (75.2%).

Dependency and women, full-time carers
One of the novelties in the feminist strike of March 8 of last year was the idea of ​​women joining with dependents dependent on them, although logically they had it more difficult than the others to abandon their tasks for a day. In data, women are the main caregivers of the elderly in 83% of cases . Its profile is that of a woman of 52 years on average (20% are over 65 years old and almost one third have reached 60), married, with primary education, without paid employment and, in 40% of cases, daughter of the dependent, according to the study 'Caring for people: a challenge for the 21st century' of the Carlos III University of Madrid (UC3M).

The point of the unpaid occupation is on which they want to act from the outgoing Government. Therefore, approved last Friday in the Council of Ministers a royal decree that includes the payment by the State of the contributions of non-professional caregivers , which will benefit some 180,000 women and that will cost more than 300 million euros .

And it is that one of the conclusions of the study of the Carlos III affects that despite the remarkable advances of recent decades, women are still the main carers of both children and adults, disabled and sick. But in turn, it is demonstrated that traditional family care is increasingly unsustainable due to the incorporation of women into the labor market, the decrease in housewives, the increase in population aging and the increasingly advanced age of women. caregivers.


  «There is still a generation of women between 50 and 70 who are available for the care of the elderly and grandchildren, but they are also aging and the new generations are mostly occupied in the labor market, "says the study coordinator, Constanza Tobío, professor of Sociology at the Carlos III University.

In some cases the situation is even more dramatic. Although in 77% it is a permanent caregiver, 17% have more dependents, minors or older dependents and act as 'multicuidadoras'. The provision of social services for the elderly varies according to the autonomous community. In many cases, the lack of institutional resources is compounded by the traditional trend of family care in Spain, a cultural issue associated with women.

And putting the focus on women with functional problems, the wage gap is also accentuated. According to the latest data from the Spanish Committee of Representatives of Persons with Disabilities (Cermi) and the INE records, disabled women charge an average of 3,000 euros less per year than men in the same situation.

Twice as counselors in the Ibex, but still insufficient
In the last decade, the number of female directors in the Ibex-35 companies has doubled. Although the evolution has been positive, the reality is that the percentage of the total number of seats on the boards of directors of large listed companies is low. Even more so after the last year there has been a slowdown: none was added. In a month, two will do it, when the boards of Iberdrola and CaixaBank approve it. Of the 53 Ibex advisors in 2010, it will now go to 108, according to the IESE and Atrevia report.

The relative weight of women on the boards of the Ibex-35 remains stuck at 24.7%, practically the same as a year before. Therefore, it will be difficult to achieve the 30% rate of female advisors in 2020 as recommended by the CNMV and the EU, since it would imply that the relative weight would grow by six percentage points until the end of 2020. It would be necessary to occupy 27 chairs before the end of 2020. In the set of those listed (those of the Continuous Market) would require almost 100 more women. For Nuria Chinchilla, IESE professor, "it is feasible to reach 30% if we maintain the previous rhythm of incorporations".

The companies with the largest number of women (five) on their boards are CaixaBank, Iberdrola, Red Eléctrica and Banco Santander. Compared with the group of council members, REE would be the most equal (41.7% female presence), followed by Iberdrola and Santander (35.7%). In fact, there are already 11 Ibex companies that comply with the objective set by the regulator.

Although all councils have at least one woman, three firms have reduced their advisers: Siemens Gamesa (two less), Aena (one) and Acerinox (one). On the opposite side is Cellenex, which has gone from being the 'red lantern' (the only one without directors in 2016) to one of the leading parity firms, with four women.