Equal Pay For Women

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31760, 17 August 1968, Page 12

Equal Pay For Women

In Britain, as in New Zealand, equal pay for women doing the same job as men is the exception rather than the rule. More than 33 per cent of the labour force in Britain, compared with less than 28 per cent of the labour force in New Zealand, comprises women workers. Women in Britain are paid an estimated 60 per cent, on average, of the wages paid to men for comparable work; in New Zealand the figure ranges from 64 per cent to 80 per cent, according to the industry. A higher proportion .of the labour force in Britain than in New Zealand stands to gain —and to gain more—from the institution of equal pay.

The Labour Party in Britain is committed to the principle of equality. But although a Labour member of Parliament was last month given leave to introduce a bill to establish the equal pay principle and to fix a. date for ending pay discrimination, the Government will probably avoid bringing it to the debating stage. At the moment the intention is to await the findings of a study group, representing the Department of Employment and Productivity (over which the energetic Mrs Barbara Castle now presides), the Trades Union Congress, and the Confederation of British Industry; this report is expected to be ready next year, or perhaps in 1970. Where, as in Britain, female employment is specially important for particular Industries, the consequences of equalisation must be taken into account An added wage bill of somewhere between £6oom and £l2oom a year—the T.U.C. and C. 8.1. estimates respectively—would obviously lead to big price increases, even if equal pay were introduced gradually. Policies aimed at stabilising wages, costs, and prices would be completely undermined. The morality of paying the female labour force as second-rate workers has long been questioned in many countries. The problem remains one of how to narrow or close the gap between rewards for men and women workers without radically disturbing the structure of industry. In some British industries equalisation would cause a 25 per cent rise in costs. Equal pay would also require a complete overhaul of the tax system; the differential enjoyed by men with dependants would have to be maintained and extended to women with family obligations The most practical approach in Britain may still be to make wage adjustment a voluntary arrangement within the system of collective bargaining. New Zealand advocates of equal pay for women will watch with interest the British progress —or lack of it—towards the same goal.