Women: Still making less
Photo: CD Bank
2006: Women earn less
Survey ahead of International Women’s Day finds that not only do Israeli women earn less than their male counterparts, but wage disparity has risen in past year
International Women’s Day will be celebrated on Wednesday around the world, but Israeli women may not have much to rejoice about. Despite legislation intended to advance equality between the sexes and the steady improvement of women’s status in various arenas, in many areas Israeli women are still treated substandard to men.
The workplace remains the place where the largest gaps exist between male and female status. Although the number of women in the workforce continues to rise, men still earn higher salaries for equivalent jobs, Israel's leading newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth reported Monday.
A new survey sponsored by Oketz Systems, which specializes in developing technological systems for management and accounting, reveals the sordid truth: Not only do men earn more than women, but the disparity has risen significantly over the past year. At the start of 2006, the difference between the average salary for a man and woman was measured at 24.7%, which means that on average, an Israeli man earns 24.7% more than his female counterpart, who may be doing the exact same work.
In comparison, in 2005 the salary gap was measured at 22.6%. In a few fields the wage disparity stands at more than 40%. The gap is lowest in management and secretarial jobs, where men earn “only” 6.4% more than women.
The Oketz Systems survey, which polled a representative group of 3,500 people employed in various sectors including hi-tech, engineering, and production, found the largest gaps in jobs considered traditionally “masculine”: project management, accounting, and marketing management.
“In all sectors, an increase in wages was measured over the past year,” Ami Bergman, co-CEO of Oketz, said Sunday. “But men’s wages rose 5.6% on average, and women’s only 3.8%. In other words, the increase in men’s salaries was nearly twice that of their female counterparts."
In spite of the data, the Women’s Lobby is trying to focus on the full half of the glass. "More women are participating in the workforce," Rina Bar-Tal, who chairs the Women’s Lobby, says. “But there are still two major obstacles: the failure to recognize the cost of daycare as tax deductible and wage disparity in the workplace.”
