The Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA ) has, for the first time, collected data on pay linked to age. The Wages and Ages: Mapping the Gender Pay Gap by Age presents an extremely dispiriting picture. It is a story of wasted talent and underpaid women. The wage gap starts off small and grows to a whopping 31.9% gap by the age of 55 and over.
The question I ask is, how do organisations and the people in them so consistently produce gender inequality, with the gender pay gap as an example of that?
WGEA have identified the link between part-time work and managerial status as one of the underlying problems. Simply put it goes like this. Managers by and large don’t work part-time. Women are much more likely to work part-time at all ages and stages of careers and therefore miss out on opportunities to develop and/or are not considered management material.
Acker’s gendering processes.
The good news is you can start your change intervention anywhere, for example through changing policies, but the other news is that eventually you will have to tackle all the pieces of the puzzle
But what’s with the puzzle pieces? I’ve long underpinned my Diversity and Inclusion work with Joan Acker’s brilliant work, her thinking about gendering processes, and how to bring about organisational change. I’ve taken some liberties representing her work as puzzle pieces, but it captures the way in which gender inequality is systematically produced though overlapping, mutually reinforcing and interlocking processes - some hardwired into organisations, but many of them supported and maintained by everyday individual interactions and assumptions.
The link between managers and needing to be full-time is a cultural assumption that is rarely questioned, despite is negative consequences for women in particular. It’s a cultural assumption I’ve always found contradictory. In my experience the more senior the manager/leader the more time they spend away from the office, or are unavailable to their staff. And yet, with a well managed team the work goes on. Why can’t a part-time manager/leader produce great results without being present and available all week?
The puzzle pieces show how the organisation and its people produce inequality in this case. The cultural assumption is embedded structurally (in the job advert for a full time person for example), is culturally embedded as an unexamined assumption that guides hiring and promotion, and is reinforced through interpersonal interactions, for example informal mentoring and sponsorship. Why provide opportunities or invest in someone who works part-time as they wont be manager material? And for individuals, in a continuously reinforcing cycle. Working part-time reflects unequal care arrangements and lack of career progress reinforces unequal gendered care arrangements.
Gendered stereotypes about who leads and who cares are reinforced.
Creating change is both complex and dynamic. The good news is you can start your change intervention anywhere, for example through changing policies, but the other news is that eventually you will have to tackle all the pieces.
The interpersonal piece of the puzzle is often overlooked. All those formal and informal interactions in the workplace. In particular the everyday mentoring and sponsorship that occurs. In my experience these nods of encouragement, taps on the should, career strategy advice dispensed over coffee, and advocacy for someone that opens up an opportunity, contribute enormously to the gap identified by WGEA. And as we can see in the data, it is cumulative over the course of a career. My career making spiral shows this cumulative process in action.
Leaders I’ve worked with have been open to reflecting on and changing their mentoring, and even more importantly, their sponsorship practices. It’s a positive way that all leaders can make a contribution to women’s careers and foster under-developed talent in their workplace.
If you’re change process isn’t tackling all of the gendering processes, and you’d like some assistance with design, please get in touch.