The Impact of First Child on Salaries of Women
Introduction
The labor market of every country plays an essential role in the strength and weakness of its overall economic condition. In almost every county on the globe, one variable impacting the labor market is the disparity in pay among different gender. In other words, this is the difference in the amount that each gender takes home in the form of salary or wages. Differences in pay by gender include differences in the industry sector, discrimination, motherhood, and gender norms (Leythienne & Ronkowski, 2018). The disparity in pay is a significant measure of economic equity in a country. There are both non-adjusted and adjusted forms of the gender pay gap (Leythienne & Ronkowski, 2018). The non-adjusted wage disparity compares simply the wages paid to each gender at work.
The adjusted wage disparity considers the differences in individual occupations, and time difference worked. This includes differences in time taken off from a job and time away from the workforce entirely, typically for caregiving of family members (O’Brian, 2015). The non-adjusted pay gap is more controversial because it asserts that different genders choose to make less money based upon choices in when to work and in which occupations when broader social and economic conditions are often impacting these decisions. The BLS findings reveal that for every dollar that men earn, women only get $ 0.81 (Bureau of Labour Statistics, 2020). This finding is in line with the worldwide study of the non-adjusted pay on an international basis (Weichselbaumer & Winter-Ebmer, 2005). In some countries, such as in KSA, gender salary differences are more significant, with women earning $.56 for every $1.00 earned by men in the workforce (Saudi Gazette, 2018). Several historical factors likely contribute to the fact that women make little more than half their male counterparts. First, the prevailing culture in Saudi Arabia that women should receive a lower monthly salary than men (Baqi et al., 2017) because men are leaders naturally, and females are more ‘comfortable’ as their subjects. Secondly, in Saudi Arabia, women are often discouraged from taking part in the paid workforce entirely. Many families consider women working as improper, or evidence of the low social status of the entire family. These broader social and cultural norms often mean that women, even those with extensive education and skills, are often out of the paid workforce entirely. These historical practices are changing slowly as more and more women are entering the paid workforce and demanding equitable pay to their male counterparts (weichselbaumer & Winter-Ebmer, 2005).
Textual analysis and review show that disparity in pay among genders in Saudi Arabia may be accentuated during pregnancy and the perinatal period. During this period, many women choose or are forced to miss work and leave for several months during pregnancy and childbirth. This can be related to medical needs and the cultural norm that pregnant women should not be in the workforce (Mari & Luijkx, 2020). Women are also less likely to return to work following childbirth, which can make employers assume that their continued employment is a higher risk compared to their male counterparts (Rajkhan, 2014). This could result in a decreased willingness of employers to hire women after they have had a child. This literature review will explore the disparity in gender earning, especially after the family has a child. The discussion will also explain the cultural and policy underpinnings of these differences, and recommend more equitable policies that are still culturally responsive within KSA.
Research Question
Does the birth of the first child impact mother’s salary with biases of social, economic, and political issues in the KSA (Kingdom of Saudi Arabia)?
Method
The literature review on the wage disparity in KSA during the period after the first of a first child occurred using scholarly work.
The search for peer-reviewed journal articles involved the following keywords: “gender pay gap,” “motherhood and pay gap,” “pay after the first child.” Journals were individually queried for their application to gender pay in the United States and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Databases searched included the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia University database, Western Michigan University Library database, Social Work Abstracts database, and Google Scholar. Only the sources published within the past fifteen years were included for review. Full articles were reviewed to determine the appropriateness for inclusion in the discussion. Sources were limited to those available in Arabic or English, and a translation software was used to ensure that technical writing was understood.
The variables of interest to study the gender wage disparity in the US and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia following the onset of parenthood: number of children in a family, level of education for each gender, job profile, social status, and age.
Results
A total of 11 articles that applied to the research questions were found in the literature review. In total, these explain some of the gender pay gaps in KSA during the period of pregnancy and after the first child. I reviewed these articles and found the following thematic areas of interest concerning this study.
Gender Inequality at Place of Work
Among the countries with a high ‘gender pay gap’ in the Gulf Cooperation Council and internationally, KSA is among the poorly rated. For example, a research study was done by Samans & Zahidi (2016) entitled Global Gap Report showed that KSA is position 138, which is closer to the bottom of the 144 countries ranked in the report. Areas of interest in this particular study were economic and political empowerment. Precisely, the Global Gap Report was presented to the World Economic Forum in Geneva and had revealed that wage inequality in KSA was in the ratio of two to three (2:3) for women to men. In other words, women were forty percent worse off compared to men. In terms of labor market participation, women only accounted for 21 percent compared to men at eighty percent.
Women Employment Challenges in KSA
Most of the scholarly studies done in the past about the status of women employment in KSA showed that socio-cultural factors are the leading causes of women workplace woes. According to the studies reviewed herein, these challenges include low wage pay for the women compared to their male counterparts of the same qualifications, gender bias, and discrimination, and restrictive labor laws (Abalkhail & Allan, 2015; Pringle & Ryan, 2015). For instance, a study by Baqi et al. (2017) found consistent findings with other past reviews. For example, the study showed that gender inequality was partly caused by cultural norms and factors such as wasta (personal link) and male guardianship (Baqi et al., 2017; Abalkhail & Allan, 2015; Abalkhail, 2016). This finding is critical and will be deliberated in the discussion section. It explains why women stagnate in their careers and unable to break the corporate glass ceiling.
Work-Family Balance for Career Women in KSA
Finding a balance in work-family for career women is a significant challenge not only to women in KSA but also in different parts of the world. For example, research by Baqi et al. (2017) found no difference in the working hour’s duration that career women in KSA spent at work and doing domestic chores. The outcome of this study confirmed the Canadian research that found out that starting a family and raising children made women work shorter hours, unlike men (Wang & Sweetman, 2013). Additionally, a survey carried out in the US found out that practicing women physicians spent approximately eight and a half extra hours each week than the male counterparts on domestic chores. In this study, it was established that women were more likely to take a break/off from their official duty for parental responsibilities than their partners (Jolly et al., 2014).
The articles reviewed in this study showed that women in KSA also face high responsibility for childcare and other domestic chores than men (Baqi et al., 2017). Unfortunately, there is a lack of a legal and institutional framework for childcare services at the workplace. As a result, some women are forced to leave employment to care for their children (Al-Asfour et al., 2017).
Comparative Analysis
To consider at the start, the US and KSA have different legal protections for women and men, which impact their role in the workforce. While the United States and other countries are legislating some constructs related to gender equity, including a prohibition of discrimination based on sex, like the Equal Pay Act (Romero, 2019), the KSA has continued not only to allow but to endorse many differential legal practices in the treatment of men and women (Baqi et al., 2017). These unfair labor practices against women in KSA are guided by urf a provision of the custom and Sharia law (Abalkhail, 2015). For example, the urf conducts the need for gender segregation at the workplace to ‘protect’ women from sexual harassment and or fitna (temptation), which may result in antisocial behaviors like adultery (Al-Asfour et al., 2017) or moral erosion (Syed et al., 2018).
KSA remained persistent in providing professional careers for men in their society and categorize their women as domestic support despite attaining academic achievements. For example, Sharia Laws dictate that women are homemakers while men are the breadwinner for the family (Abakhail, 2015; Syed et al., 2018). These provisions of Sharia law that restrict women’s mobility in certain situations like pregnancy periods, make women depend on their husbands, brothers and close families for support (Al-Asfour et al., 2017; Syed et al., 2018).
For the KSA government, women employees remained inferior compared to the other women of the world in terms of potential attendance and productivity due to some of the legal protections individually available for women. Article 151-156 of Saudi Labor Law, entitle women to paid maternity leave for six weeks, and fifteen-day paid leave for widowhood period (Abakhail, 2015). However, the underlying cultural and custom Saudi culture that discourages heavily pregnant women from engaging in work out of the home may make the women request for extended maternity leave that goes beyond the prescribed six weeks (Syed et al., 2018). In some cases, this may be up to four months. However, during maternity leave, the need to find alternative ways to fill the gap left by the mothers on leave may disadvantage women following their first child (Hipp, 2019; Raheel & Tharkar, 2018). Therefore, it is almost impossible for women to advance their careers in KSA without the support of their husbands and family members like a brother (Syed et al., 2018; Pringle & Ryan, 2015).
A second factor related to the gender pay gap following a first child refers to employers’ other benefits to men and women. Not only do women have lower overall compensation than men, but they also are disadvantaged when it comes to taking opportunities for career advancement. For example, in the study of Baqi et al. (2017), the scholars established that even though both women and men have an equal chance to take scholarships to further their studies abroad, women were more likely to miss such opportunities in favor of marriage or childcare compared to men. As a result of not taking further education, they are unable to get to senior medical positions in the hospitals and medical field that requires a post-graduate degree from a recognized foreign institution of higher learning (Baqi et al., 2016).
Another significant variable contributing to the gender pay gap following a first child relates to the gender division of labor. An examination diagrams various parts of women’s subjection in the labor force, for instance, women laborers will, in general, be isolated into some new regions, and into specific occupations inside those segments like education, nursing, retail outlets like groceries (Abalkhail, 2016; ). Moreover, women are prohibited from working as judges of courts in KSA, as well as several senior leadership positions such as company president (Abalkhail, 2016). Within jobs, women, as a rule, have poor working conditions as compared to their male counterparts who are favored by employers. This reduced work condition is attributed partly by Sharia laws that require women to access a building via a different entrance like the one used by men (Syed et al., 2018). Such provisions make it difficult for employers to provide standard work conditions for women. Cheap alternatives may be used, or women are entirely excluded from small and medium enterprises (Syed et al., 2018; Abalkhail, 2016).
The gender division of labor is a general standard in all social orders and under various methods of creation (Al Alhareth et al., 2015). Much of the literature reviewed discussed that women not working outside of the home are treated as reserved labor. These women would only be expected to use their education for employment in an emergency (Kleven et. 2018). Due to women’s overall lower participation rates in paid work, monetary advancement has even limited women’s potential financial advancement to the domestic setting (Kelly, 2007; Sidan et al., 2015; Abalkhail, 2016). This is because the improvement projects have prompted the expanding training of women. In individual nations like in KSA, women are confined to specific employments, which are thought reasonable to their credited female nature (Kelly, 2007; Alsubaie & Jones, 2017).
In KSA, women are forbidden to work in areas that are perceived to be hazardous or dangerous. As a result, women hardly work in manufacturing plants. Instead, they form the largest workforce in education, nursing, medical field, groceries, and retail outlets like supermarkets, to mention but a few (Baqi et al., 2017; Syed et al., 2018). For example, women constitute a significant percentage of the labor market in learning institutions. Unfortunately, they are discriminated against based on their gender and perceived as incapable of performing management functions (Al-Asfour et al., 2017). As a result, they are sidelined from senior management positions like superintend or Dean of studies (Syed et al., 2018). These findings are consistent with previous studies of gender stereotypes in KSA that found out that women are perceived as better mothers and not corporate leaders (Sidani et al., 2015).
In addition to the policy and practice inequities that specifically impact women after their first child disproportionately in the workforce, some potential solutions were also reviewed in the literature. One possible solution speaks to the general concern of gender wage disparity in the KSA. The KSA government has been considering the implementation of statutes that would mandate equal wages for both genders. Adhering to the conservative practices of Islam constricted them from providing broad statutory equality measures (Tawfik Alkhteeb & Ahmad Sultan, 2014). However, a potential solution for this concern is to offer a unique civic approach program for the underprivileged KSA government, including women and children. For example, in partnership with Tata and General Electric (GE), corporate institutions like Saudi Aramco have launched a unique all-women empowerment program in Riyadh (Abalkhail, 2017). Adopting such specialized programs would help protect women’s rights when it comes to equitable pay.
The KSA market is developing a second potential solution due to the skills that women bring to the workplace. Today, women are gradually being considered by the KSA’s labor market at different levels at various organizations. They were proven to produce impressive outcomes through the persuasion of international human rights groups (Alsubaie & Jones, 2017). Some of these groups are seeking legislative support to ban gender discrimination in compensations among people at the workplace.
Discussion
The KSA government has seen the potential of women to be highly advantageous in the workforce. Allowing women to participate freely in working could benefit the country’s economy (Tawafik & Ahmed, 2014). However, the government and even individual employers have to be mindful of the conservative views implied by their religion and traditions. Currently, women in KSA have lower compensation than men, which is accentuated after having children, and fewer benefits or government-managed saving rights. Their salaries were even reduced once they started conceiving a child due to multiple maternity periods where their employers did not recognize their absences beyond the six weeks stipulated period in the KSA labor laws.
The potential solution for this concern is to provide a unique program for women and their rights, which include promoting women’s and children’s protection and improved quality of living. Matters such as an increase in payment, employment opportunities, and academic opportunities will be implemented through a particular program that can be separately implemented aside from existing policies. Seeking legislative support to ban any gender discrimination in compensation among people who do approach worth work is another solution that can be considered. Women have made significant steps in fighting for their rights, but more should be done to ensure that women get all their rights.
Conclusion
However, the full socio-economic and political liberation of women in KSA will be a tedious journey. The Kingdom rule is based on the Sharia Laws, which are considered supreme and not easy to change. For this reason, women will remain subjected to orthodox cultural and Islamic doctrines that promote gender segregation and oppression. The gender wage disparity after the first child and in employment, in general, is a problem that may not be addressed conclusively within the prevailing labor legislation subordinated to the Sharia Laws. The study, therefore, concludes that the structural socio-economic and cultural dimensions affecting women in KSA require further investigations.
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