Jamaica to close gender gap in 100 years

The gap between male and female pay in Jamaica continues to shrink, but one should not expect gender parity in the island before the next 100 years, according to a new global report which ranks the island at 41 in the world.

That’s little consolation for those currently experiencing wage disparity. The Global Gender Gap Report 2020 indicates that Jamaica scores poorly in the subcategory of ‘wage equality for similar work’ at 95 out of 153 nations.

“We had a director at my current company who resigned because of this,” said a source at a call centre intimate with the details. “The director learned that she would have to train a new director to support her in the same role as the company was expanding. She, however, learned that he would earn substantially more than her, even without BPO (business process outsourcing) experience,” the source recalled. “Both are locals. The only difference that I could see is that she was female and he was male.”

The Gener Gap Report was published in late December by the World Economic Forum, a non-aligned European-based intellectual group. Women in Jamaica earn 62 per cent of money earned by their male counterparts, representing a two-percentage point movement towards parity over the last five years, and which aided the country’s rankings at 41 in the Global Gender Gap Report 2020. Iceland led the list of 153 countries followed by Scandinavian nations, with Nicaragua at fifth.

Women account for a little more than half the population in Jamaica, yet account for just 32 per cent of top managers at firms and 21 per cent of parliamentarians, according to data in the report.

Jamaica, however, continues to steadily improve its rank from 65th in the 2015 report and 44th in the 2018 study. The current report indicates that for every $100 made by a man in Jamaica, a woman earns around $62 on average.

The report’s ranking focuses on four key areas covering economic participation and opportunity, educational attainment, health and survival, and political empowerment.

“Projecting current trends into the future, the overall global gender gap will close in 99.5 years, on average, across the 107 countries covered continuously since the first edition of the report,” stated the World Economic Forum.

Jamaica’s regional rank was fourth among five countries. Trinidad & Tobago topped the region at 24, Barbados at 28 and Cuba at 31. Last among the listed Caribbean zone was the Dominican Republic at 86.

The average annual pay for women in Jamaica equated to US$6,300 (J$850,500) or 62 per cent of the US$10,100 ($1.36 million) earned by men. That ratio is up from 61 per cent in the previous 2018 report and 60 per cent in the 2014 report.

The Financial Gleaner noted that no country among the 153 surveyed in the category of economic participation and opportunity achieved parity with men. The highest in that category was Benin followed by Iceland. The report seeks to measure and rank gender parity which at times does not equate to economic development. In Benin, women on average earn US$2,400 per annum while men earn US$2,600 per annum. Icelandic women earned on average US$41,400 while men earned US$56,400.

Jamaica, however, did achieve parity with regard to the educational attainment for women versus men, particularly at the tertiary level, the report stated. It noted that while primary and secondary school achievement were nearly equal among both gender, more than 39 per cent of women achieved tertiary-level education versus 19 per cent of men.

“In some countries gender parity has been achieved, namely, Colombia, Bahamas, Honduras and Jamaica,” stated the 2020 report about the educational attainment in the Latin American region.

steven.jackson@gleanerjm.com