International Equal Pay Day

257 years to close the global gender pay gap!
Humanity has been able to achieve many civilizational revolutions to transcend and overcome everything that is obsolete and old, but it has not been able to achieve equal pay between men and women. Therefore, the Sustainable Development plan seeks to mainstream a gender perspective and for both women and men to receive wages that are commensurate with the value given at work.

International Equal Pay Day

The International Day for Equal Pay celebrated on September 18, represents the longstanding efforts towards the achievement of equal pay for work of equal value.

Despite these efforts, gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls continue to be held back owing to the persistence of historical and structural unequal power relations between women and men. We, therefore, see progress in narrowing this gap as slow, despite considerable support, but in practice, it has been difficult and inflexible to change women’s reality of suffering and misery. [1]

Facts you should know

Women earn 77 cents for every dollar men earn in jobs with job insecurity and are under-represented in decision-making roles.
Despite the scientific achievements of women in the Arab world, women’s access to employment is significantly lower than men’s by up to 44%.
The overall rate of the gender pay gap in Saudi Arabia is 16.4%, and in the private sector, it is 36%. It was also found that the gender pay gap in the ratio of the average salary of women to men is 79% in the Sultanate of Oman, 77% in Egypt, and 61% in Lebanon. [2] [3]
Overall productivity will increase by investing in women’s skills because women currently represent 40% of the workforce and more than half of university students globally. [4]
If women have access to work on equal terms with the opportunities given to men, the global annual gross domestic product will increase by an average of 26%, which is approximately 28 trillion US dollars. [5]

Negative Effects of the Gender Pay Gap

The effects are not limited to women only, but to the whole family, especially when the woman is the breadwinner for her family. The results extend to reach the matter of hunger and poverty, and we move from the core of our problem, which is gender equality, to reducing hunger and poverty. [6]
The negative consequences do not depend on the foregoing, but rather the creative state of the woman is undermined because she does not have a stimulus to continue her work, and it may also cause her a state of anger and hatred for the man himself or for her being. All of this may lead us to psychological disorders that hinder women’s enjoyment of a decent life.
We also add a decrease in the level of job satisfaction among employees, and thus a decrease in the ability to produce and generate new ideas. Therefore, this will affect the establishment as a whole, and its reputation as well.

Gender Pay Equality in Syria

Syria is experiencing this kind of gender inequality like other Arab countries. The situation is exacerbated by the inability of some women to refuse their unequal remuneration, owing to the country’s low economic conditions and general wages. But fortunately, we live in an age that supports self-employment, so some women have gone into its market. Thus, women can follow their services’ pricing policy away from what they are exposed to in some companies.

The initiative’s relationship with the International Equal Pay Day

The initiative seeks, through its provided services, to increase the opportunities for women and girls to get better jobs. It also seeks to enable them to acquire skills with which they can start self-employment away from the policies of external work environments. The initiative’s services do not stop at enriching women with certain skills, but rather seek to remind them of the rights that they should enjoy.