Not many people might be aware of this, but 12th April every year is celebrated as Equal Pay Day. This date symbolizes how far into the year women must work to earn what men earned in the previous year. Equal Pay Day was originated by the National Committee on Pay Equity (NCPE) in 1996 as a public awareness event to illustrate the gap between men’s and women’s wages.
This year, on April 12th, Facebook announced that they were able to achieve full gender pay equity among their employees, with Lori Matloff Goler, VP of people at Facebook writing in a post: “We regularly review our compensation practices to ensure pay equity, and have done so for many years. We complete thorough statistical analyses to compare the compensation of men and women performing similar work. I’m proud to share that at Facebook, men and women earn the same.” Having conducted a successful #SocialSurfing project with Facebook in 2015, this news is a matter of great pride for us here at CSR.
In India, equal pay is an issue in almost industries, whether it is ecommerce, Bollywood, sports or music. Men are paid more for the same work, without any real base for this differentiation. This discrimination has been going on for a very long time, and is appalling to say the least, in a country where women have proved themselves time and again, in every field.
Equal pay is a matter of not just money, but also about dignity of the female workforce. This whole debate of equal pay reminds me how gender imbalances have permeated each sphere in society, and how much work is required to ensure a gender just society. We should reach a state soon when this debate is non existent, and equal pay is assumed.
Discuss this article on Facebook
