<\/p>\n
There is little public debate in Israel about the salary gaps between men and\u00a0women. One exception to this is the annual marking of International Women’s\u00a0Day, which occasions a flurry of articles about these gaps. Similarly, the annual\u00a0report of the Finance Ministry\u2019s Director of Wages, which contains a partial gender\u00a0analysis, receives some media coverage. The data presented in this report, like\u00a0others on the subject of gender wage gaps, reinforce the finding that wage gaps\u00a0between women and men reflect structural discrimination, not isolated instances.<\/p>\n
While monthly pay gaps between men and women derive partially from the fact that\u00a0women generally work fewer hours than men, hourly pay gaps suggest two more\u00a0factors at work. One is related to occupational segregation: For various reasons,\u00a0women and men are concentrated in different professions, and those dominated\u00a0by women generally have lower wage scales. The other factor is discrimination per\u00a0se, which has several roots: the gender division of labor within the home and its\u00a0implications for the role of women in the labor market; the prejudice of employers\u00a0concerning women’s abilities and willingness to work; employment norms that\u00a0perpetuate gender inequality, such as evaluating productivity by the length of the\u00a0working day; and women’s lower bargaining effectiveness and tendency to prefer\u00a0employment security over high remuneration.<\/p>\n
Beyond basic legislation, whose effectiveness in reducing gender pay gaps is limited,\u00a0no policies in Israel target the reduction of gender pay gaps. This contrasts with\u00a0long-standing policies designed to increase women’s labor market participation as\u00a0well as legislation that focuses on fair representation, mainly in the public sector.<\/p>\n
Furthermore, the Israeli economy lacks transparency regarding the very existence\u00a0of pay gaps. Although the annual report of the Finance Ministry\u2019s Director of\u00a0Wages includes a chapter on gender pay gaps in the public sector, the analysis\u00a0remains insufficient.\u00a0In the private sector, secrecy about salaries is the prevailing norm. This impedes\u00a0transparency and constitutes an obstacle for women who wish to compare their\u00a0salaries with those of their male colleagues. The idea of “corporate responsibility”,\u00a0which trickled down to private firms in Israel over the last decade, further occludes\u00a0the picture of gender pay gaps. Although some measures of the social responsibility\u00a0of companies, such as the Maala Index, include comparisons by gender, such as the\u00a0proportion of women on company boards, the figures are limited on the subject\u00a0of salary gaps. Moreover, efforts made by the “Equal Pay\u201d project to advance\u00a0legislation that would require all employers to gather data on gender salary gaps\u00a0ran into considerable opposition from private businesses and even the Ministry\u00a0of the Economy.<\/p>\n
This report seeks to illuminate the current situation with regard to gender salary\u00a0gaps in Israel, and to review the existing legal structures designed to reduce them.\u00a0A separate report will focus on policy recommendations to reduce gender pay\u00a0gaps based on experience accumulated in other countries.<\/p>\n
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This report is part of the project “Equal Pay”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5489,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,15,860],"tags":[124,388],"class_list":["post-1804","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gender","category-employment","category-gender-gaps","tag-pay-gaps","tag-gender-pay-gaps","author-106","author-yael-hasson","author-129","post-type-research","category-19","category-15","category-860"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n