Women in the workplace

There have been no improvement in the disparity between salaries paid to women and men

It was National Working Women’s Day on December 22 and to the surprise of nobody, its celebration in Pakistan was to say the very least — muted. This is not to say that it went entirely unrecognised and there was the obligatory conference in the auditorium of the Lahore Council of Commerce and Industry. Speakers noted that an increasing number of women were entering an ever-broader range of professions, some of them previously the sole domain of men. The armed forces, the police and the media have all seen an uptick in the numbers of women they employ. The banking sector and finance generally have seen a surge in the numbers of women they employ. Women now outnumber men in home-based and informal sector work — and there the mostly better news ends.

Whilst there are undoubtedly more women in the workplace, their terms and conditions of service to say nothing of their salaries often fall far below those of men — even if they are doing an identical job. The conference was told that there had been no improvement in the disparity between salaries paid to women and men and in some instances where men and women were doing the same work, women were paid less than half of what men was getting. On top of wage disparity, women have to suffer sexual harassment, and gender-related discrimination is rife across all sectors. The expansion of women in the workplace numerically is being seen as an expansion of opportunities to exploit and abuse them in many instances. The conference heard that as well as the workplace, more women were needed in public decision-making forums. All too often those that are there today are little more than mouthpieces for male relatives who pull the strings from behind. Worthy as the conference was, there is a need for more proactive interventions, of affirmative action in protection of the rights of women, more positive discrimination regarding the appointment of women and further broadening of the sectors women work in. Women are half the population and there is going to be no development without them taking their place in the workforce.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 24^th, 2015.

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