Patricia Arquette It has been the voice of many mothers in the speech delivered on Sunday night at the Oscar delivery gala. Upon taking the stage to collect the deserved award for her role as mother of two children in the movie Boyhood, the actress has denounced the "maternity tax", wage inequality between men and women, which increases even more if the woman has children.
He said: "To all women who have given birth and pay their taxes, the time has come to have the same salary and the same rights for women in the United States." (Applause).
Mothers, the most disadvantaged
It is unfortunate but it is so. Mothers experience the widest wage gaps. According to figures from the US Department of Labor, women without children earn 93 cents for every dollar a man without children earns, while mothers with at least one child under 18 earn 76 cents for every dollar their peers earn male
It is a sample, but wage inequality not only occurs in the United States. According to a study conducted by the Gender and Development Group of the World Bank together with the Luxembourg Revenue Study, based on information from 20 "high income" and six "middle income" countries, the difference in income between genders is increased in women with children under six years.
In Latin America, the wage gap is "especially large" according to the study. In Chile, for example, the greater the purchasing power, the greater the gender wage gap. Chilean women earn an average of 19.4% less per hour than men, a figure that goes up to 32.6% in the high socioeconomic stratum.
The gender pay gap in Europe
And in Europe? We can find very interesting data in the World Salary Report 2014/2015 of the International Labor Organization (ILO) that analyzes the situation of 38 European countries.
The average salaries of women are between 4 and 36 percent lower than those of men but the wage gap increases in absolute terms for women who earn more. 10% of women workers in the lowest wage range earn 100 euros less per month than 10% of men in the same position. That difference amounts to 700 euros when analyzing the salaries of 10% of women with higher salaries.
The graph you see above expresses the wage disparity in Europe. There are two parts: in blue the “explained” part, that is, factors that can influence remuneration such as the level of education, for example, and in red the “unexplained” part that suggests the existence of discrimination in the labor market.
If this “unexplained” wage disadvantage was eliminated, the gap would be reversed in almost half of the 38 countries, and women would earn more than men based on work-related characteristics.
In Spain, the situation is no different. In public administrations, for example, the wage gap stands at 14%, above Germany (7.7%) and the Nordic countries (8%).
Work or motherhood, why choose?
It is shameful that women see themselves in the dilemma of having to choose between motherhood and career by becoming mothers. Or that they must support jobs in inferior conditions due to having small children. It is unacceptable that a woman charges less than a man for the same job, just as it is believed that the only one to reconcile is the mother. The responsibility for childcare should be more equal.
Patricia Arquette has denounced the sad reality of "maternity tax". The wage discrimination that women with children live all over the world, even in those countries that superficially seem egalitarian, but in which there is still a long way to go so that motherhood is not seen as a problem in the labor market. Both in the corner supermarket, and in Hollywood.
