The FINANCIAL — Female employees in Georgia still earn only 60 percent of what their male colleagues earn, according to GeoStat. The average monthly salary of male employees across 15 different business sectors in Georgia is GEL 828.4 as of the first quarter of 2012.
The sum is almost twice more than the average monthly salary of females in the different business sectors; the average wage of the fairer sex stands at just GEL 488.7. The reason for the discrepancy is that men largely hold more senior positions. All statistical data was provided to The FINANCIAL by the National Statistics Office of Georgia.
Financial, government, electricity, gas and water production are offering the highest range of monthly income for both genders. However, gender difference still remains an important factor. The education and HoReCa sectors offer the lowest wages for Georgian employees.
In accordance with the data at geostat, the number of staff employed at enterprises and organizations across 15 different sectors is 736,200. Education (144,300), trade, auto and domestic product repair (90,400), government (96,800) and manufacturing industries (74,900) are the main employing sectors as of the first quarter of 2012.
The average monthly salary of a male employee in the agriculture, hunting and forestry sector is GEL 508.3. The average male employed in the financial sector earns a salary of GEL 1,713.5. The sum is GEL 500 more than that earned by female workers in this sector. The average salary in the government sector is GEL 972.3; GEL 90 more than the salary of its female workers. The monthly salary of males in electricity, gas and water production is GEL 960.8. The education sector’s monthly wage of GEL 386.9 and HoReCa’s GEL 472.1 are paying their male workers relatively low amounts, yet gender still plays an important role in the calculation of wage amounts. GEL 386.9 vs 311.3 in the education sector and GEL 472.1 vs 339.6 in the HoReCa sector.
Female employees in the agriculture, hunting and forestry sector receive approximately GEL 488.7 a month as of the first quarter of 2012. In 2011 the average salary in the sector amounted to GEL 497.5. This year it was GEL 88 less in comparison to in 2010.
The highest wage of female employees is in the financial sector, where the average monthly salary of women is GEL 1,194.1 as of the first quarter of 2012. Their average wage in the government sector is GEL 881 and in electricity, gas and water production – GEL 880.6. Education and HoReCa sectors have the lowest wages with average monthly amounts of GEL 311.3 and GEL 339.6 respectively.
The average monthly salary for both genders was GEL 676 in various business sectors for the three months of 2012. In 2011 the figure amounted to GEL 690.7, which is 14% more than in 2010. Financial, government, mining production, electricity, gas and water production and division, construction, transport and communication were the sectors that distributed the largest volumes of salaries in 2011 and 2010.
Operations in real estate, construction, HoReCa, communal, social and personal service and trade, auto, domestic product repair recorded the largest number of average monthly salary increases in 2011 compared with 2010. Meanwhile the government and education sector had the lowest increases of employee wages from 2010 to 2011. The education sector increased salaries by just GEL 25.7 and the government sector by GEL 27.7.
“The current wage imbalance is due to the natural, historical advantage of males in Georgian society”, Eka Machavariani, HR expert, told The FINANCIAL. “Despite the progress of gender equality in modern times and the increasing number of women working at managerial level, men still tend to be prioritized when it comes to getting the top positions. Accordingly, their wages are higher,” Machavariani, told.
Machavariani is optimistic that the situation will soon change and that employees will one day be paid according to performance appraisal rather than by the advantages automatically given by their gender. “It would be interesting to conduct research within companies to find out who has the better work record on average during the year, men or women,” she added.
Gender wage imbalance is also common in the USA. Research from the Bureau of Labour Statistics indeed suggested that women on average make only 77 cents for every dollar earned by men.
While hoping to win women voters by a large margin, President Obama’s and his Democratic allies’ strategy involved making equal pay a big issue. “If you do the same work as a man, you ought to be paid the same wage as a man,” the President said at a reception honouring women from around the world in March of 2012, Fox News reported.
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