Gender pay gap: Poverty has a name – it is ‘Woman’

Statistics SA announced that inflation has moved to a five-year high – this cannot bode well for female-headed households that are already vulnerable.

Food inflation has gone up to almost 8% and is anticipated to increase further.

Gender pay gap in SA

Female-headed households

Based on data from Statista.com, 41.8% of households in South Africa were female-headed in 2019, with Eastern Cape and Limpopo having the highest numbers.

According to the Federation of Unions in SA, women earn about 35% less than men for doing work of equal value, yet nearly 38% of households are dependent on the income of women.

How do we narrow the gender pay gap in order to secure this marginalised segment of the population?

Negotiating salaries

An article in the Harvard Business Review states that women are reluctant to negotiate their salaries due to a general lack of confidence and the “social cost” of being seen to be pushy and unappreciative of what they have been offered.

These are the barriers that women need to work through.

Thorough knowledge of the minimum wage for example is vital for the negotiating power of the service industry employee to the retail cashier who are both taking care of their family needs as the sole earner.

This type of knowledge allows for the confidence to have critical discussions to make our voices heard as women.

Teach girls and women

With South Africans’ debt levels increasing, particularly after Covid-19, financial literacy levels need to improve.

We need to start teaching our young girls the difference between an exchange-traded fund and a unit trust, as well as the value of compound interest.

Most banks and other financial institutions these days offer access to various educational tools such as budget calculators and even free online programmes.

This should be part of the arsenal used to empower the women in this country to enable them financially.

There is power in women coming together to actively strengthen ourselves from a financial perspective.

The many stokvels in South Africa are proof of this and there are now industries that cater to this market.

The reality is, salaries are just not stretching as far as they used to. A quick dipstick of women revealed that the biggest concern with rising inflation is the cost of food.

“My biggest worry is that I wouldn’t be able to budget down to the last cent, due to the rising cost of food,” said Thandi (not her real name), a single parent supporting two children.

“What I could afford last month, I come out with dramatically less the following month.

“For example, a loaf of bread was R13.99 last month versus this month at R19.99.”

Employers need to acknowledge that employees are struggling to literally put food on the table and rethink the way they structure remuneration packages.

We are in the era of competition for staff retention so why can a monthly grocery stipend not be built into company benefits?

Benefits of abolishing gender pay gap

The less an employee has to worry about feeding her family, the more productive she can be, and this benefits all.

Employee value propositions need to be fit for purpose so that Thandi can feed her family at the end of the day.

Inflation is at its highest, unemployment is at 34.5% and GDP is growing very slowly. The economic outlook is not looking good and there are talks of a recession.

We need to start looking at how to empower marginalised segments in SA, like female-headed households.

Edwards is the senior marketing manager at Finchoice