Editorial: When women's work is finally done

One day there might be no reason to wonder how women are faring in the workforce. That will be the day that women feel they can be fulfilled in any career they choose, advancing as far as their ability permits, paid as well as a man at the same position and capable of balancing work and family life to their satisfaction.

Our series this week suggests that happy day is still some way off. Thirty years on from the enactment of equal pay, the women we interviewed were not celebrating. They were conscious that the women who have reached the top in politics, business and the professions are the exceptions. Most women - 56 per cent in a DigiPoll sample surveyed for the series - did not believe men and women have an equal chance when applying for a job and most doubt their chances were equal when applying for a promotion. Most men, by a similar margin, believe there is no such discrimination.

Interestingly, when women were asked whether they thought they personally had ever been refused a job or promotion because of their gender, 71.3 per cent said no. As often happens, people acknowledge the existence of social problems although they do not accord with their own experience. Even those who have made it to the top believe there is a "glass ceiling".

The nature of the glass ceiling was possibly best described by Dame Ann Salmond, pro vice-chancellor for equal opportunities at Auckland University. She called it the "people like me" syndrome. "It is a hidden template of what the successful person looks like. People don't realise they're doing it," she said.

That might explain how male dominance of higher positions is perpetuated. And it is not one-sided. Dame Ann says women are inhibited by the same idea: That those who will be chosen for top positions are not people like them.

But subjective preconceptions are probably less pervasive in most high-level appointments nowadays. Smart firms and other organisations are more likely to buy professional advisory services when filling important decisions. The attitudes and judgment of candidates is tested with methods blind to gender.

The reason women do not feel they are yet matching male status in the workforce could have less to do with deliberate discrimination than with women's own ambivalence. They want satisfaction at work but not to the degree that it overwhelms their family and private life. Many in our series said feminism had been wrong to suggest they could have fulfilling careers both at work and at home. When they return to work from maternity leave, many want to reduce their paid hours.

The stress of juggling childcare with even a part-time job is well known to many women in the workforce today. It is easy to say male workers should shoulder an equal share of the burden, and many would, but motherhood is hard to replicate. If women's careers are not to suffer for their child-rearing years, work will have to be reorganised. Employers will need to be convinced that it is worth their while hiring working mothers on more flexible terms. And if that is to happen, women's advocacy groups will need to stop wailing about statistical pay differentials.

Women cannot ask to work fewer hours, share jobs and organise work for a more balanced lifestyle and complain that women's wages overall lag behind those of men. Nor should they be ashamed of the fact. Their efforts to balance paid employment and family commitments are admirable, and should be recognised in taxation and other state arrangements.

Who knows? When the day arrives that women find contentment in work, family and leisure, they may entice men to do the same.

Read the rest of this series:
nzherald.co.nz/nzwomen