Across Industries, Gender Pay Gap Remains A Yawning Maw

Would you read a book by M.V. Pant? Who바카라�s M.V. Pant? She바카라�s a well-known, critically acclaimed author. Wait, she?  Alluding to the likes of J.K. Rowling and E.L. James바카라�fem­ale aut­hors who adopted mascul­ine-seeming initialisms to be taken seriously바카라�Meghna Pant recalls, 바카라�I was told that if I had written under the name M.V. Pant, I would have sold more books.바카라� It certainly has more than a ring of truth to it. Be it in India or the wider world, the ­story바카라�s the same, as is the ind­ustry바카라�s res­ponse. Books by woman authors are priced lower and, 바카라�male aut­hors get much bigger adv­ances and royalties, and are also ass­igned much bigger marketing budgets than ­female authors, 바카라� says Pant.

A less than encouraging picture for women in publishing바카라�and other sectors hardly offer better prospects. According to the Monster Salary Index, 2017, women, who only make up 27 per cent of the Indian workforce, are paid 20 per cent less than men overall, and 68 per cent of working women report having experienced wage inequality. All this in spite of the Equal Remuneration Act, 1976, mandating equal pay for the same or similar work바카라�and this being a directive principle in the Constitution. And few women reach the top. Harpreet Kaur, director at the Genpact Centre for Women바카라�s Leadership, Ashoka University, says there are many factors which create a leaking pipeline for women, hindering them from reaching leadership positions. 바카라�While there are few entry points for women, the exit gates are many바카라�pregnancy, childbirth, child care, elderly care, lack of family support and uns­upportive work env­ironments,바카라� says Kaur.

Case in point: the legal sector.  Abha Singh, an advocate at the Bombay High Court, says, 바카라�After bosses refuse flexible work schedules, many young lawyer mothers are forced to quit their jobs in law firms. Women face a motherhood penalty in jobs due to taking more breaks in their careers,바카라� she says.  With such marginal participation of women in law, equal pay remains a distant dream.  바카라�There is no fair representation for women. Fees charged by senior counsel like Abhishek Singhvi, Kapil Sibal, Harish Salve would be at least ten times the fees paid to women counsel in the Supreme Court,바카라� says Singh.

Men dominate the higher-paying and hig­her-ranking jobs, with 22 out of 25 sitting Supreme Court judges and 89 per cent of high court judges being male, while support posts like par­alegal and secretary are often filled by women. Women more often end up practising in areas such as employment law, family law and some areas of property law, all of which are less well paid than male-dominated areas such as mergers and acquisitions, banking and finance, and commercial litigation. 바카라�Women directors at top law firms are paid 46 per cent less than their male counterparts,바카라� says Singh. 

What of the film industry? Shahrukh Khan made it to the Forbes Celebrity 100 list of the world바카라�s highest-earning entertainers last year after banking $38 million. No Bollywood actress could make it to this list. Actress Shefali Shah says, 바카라�Our industry is still male-dominated and everything boils down to this, be it roles and rem­uneration. An actress gets the heroine바카라�s role when she is 18 to 25 years of age. This doesn바카라�t apply to male actors. For a woman, once you become a mother, you are a mother for the rest of your life.바카라�

There is no viable reason for wages to differ based only on gender. Film director and writer Tanuja Chandra explains, 바카라�Female-led films are sold at a lower price to distributors because of the prevalent belief in the trade that they cannot earn huge money.바카라�  That seems to be a recurring theme.

In journalism too there is an inbuilt bias in terms of what kind of assignments women can handle better. Priyanka Sinha Jha, critic and senior entertainment editor says, 바카라�Even though media comprises a lot of women, the decision-making process is largely in the hands of men. In a newsroom meeting you really need to struggle to be heard. There are only features editors who are women. The numbers of women Editor-in-Chiefs in media organisations are few.바카라�