Closing the Women Pay Gap – A Different Perspective

There’s a lot of talk around the campaign started by Moran Zer Kartzenstein calling for women and their managers to take responsibility and reduce the pay gap between women and men.

I completely stand behind this blessed initiative. At the same time, I want to offer another perspective.

Eons ago when I was a student at university, I chose an assignment in Advanced Statistics, to find out the variables causing the gaps in pay between men and women (despite the fact that women have on average more formal education).

What did I learn? There were a few variables with statistical significance, but one topped them all, weighing more than all the others combined (including hard-to-measure factors such as discrimination).

And what is this variable, you may ask? Leaving the workplace to take care of children. This is responsible more than anything else - by far - for the fact that we women earn less.

So what should the takeaway be? We need to keep pushing for more equity in the workplace, sure. But also for better social rights that would equalize the load of caring for children between the two sexes. For example, extended maternity and paternity leave.

We also need to understand that taking time to care for children in today’s world holds a heavy penalty. We make changes in career trajectories towards jobs that, for example, make it easier to pick up the kid at four in the afternoon. And these changes push us to the sidelines of the working world, and the world in general.

It’s a cruel world that penalizes women for doing what is probably the most important job – raising children. But that’s reality, and we need to face it.

My mother told me that for years all that she earned went straight to childcare, but she persevered despite everyone telling her she’s a fool to do so. She got a doctorate and became a distinguished researcher at a time when few women managed to do so. Still, she paid a heavy penalty for the meager few years she took off to take care of us.

So, while we should continue to push for equal pay in the workplace, we also need to understand that the fight for equal pay begins at home: if we can establish a truly fair and equal approach to childrearing we will be able to contribute more at the workplace. It's that simple. What's more, we will show the next generation how child-rearing should be done, so our daughters will not have to make the same sacrifice that we did.