Gender Equality in the Workplace

“No country can ever truly flourish if it stifles the potential of its women and deprives itself of the contribution of half its citizens.”

Michelle Obama

How accurate is this?

We would accomplish gender equality when everyone has equal rights, opportunities, and responsibilities despite our background and gender. Everyone is affected by inequality, not only women and men but children, families, trans so many more. Inequality is like a plague; it affects everyone without regard to our age  or background.

The inequality issue that is constantly highlighted is gender equality as it is one of the main factors preventing women from playing their role in contributing to the economy. Despite gender equality constantly being highlighted from the media, men’s perspective on equality on a global level differed as they felt that equality is a goal that we have long achieved.

Equality in Workplace

The most important factor that is preventing us from achieving equality in the workplace is because the employers from these organisations are not doing their best in closing the gender salary gap and promoting the employee to senior positions based on their gender, not their capabilities. There is a huge gap in their pay despite having similar responsibilities and roles. Let’s take a look at how much our world-renowned athletes are paid. The highest salary in Major League Soccer is $7.2 million while the highest salary in the National Women’s Soccer League is $46 200. Lionel Messi, the highest-paid male soccer player globally makes a total of $127 million, and $92 million is from FC Barcelona. On the other hand, the world’s highest-paid female player, Alex Morgan has a network of $5.8 million. However, her combined salary from Orlando Pride and U.S. national team is only $250 000 and the rest came from her endorsements.

How about Malaysia?

Equality and inequality can come in a package as well. Based on the Global Gender Gap Report by the World Economic Forum, it scored and ranked nations based on their equality in mainly five aspects; opportunity, economic participation, health, education, and political empowerment. 1.00 indicates gender parity and 0.00 indicates inequality. Based on the research done, Malaysia was ranked as 106 in the world based on inequality and carries the average score of 0.666. In education attainment, Malaysia scored 0.985. This shows that Malaysia upholds equality when providing education opportunities for students. Unfortunately, women do not receive equal treatment or equal status in economic opportunities.

What can we do?

The government as well as multiple organisations have been committed and are continuously taking various initiatives to reduce inequality. Profit, non-profit, and not-for-profit organisations such as Prudential, Nestlé, UNICEF, and AIESEC have constantly supported equality both directly and indirectly. Even global businesses like Visa are giving their best for equality and Visa was named the Best Employer for Women by Forbes magazine. Visa is put in the effort to create a workplace that provides its employees equal pay and equal opportunities. Visa had campaigns like its “Return to Work” campaign to support women from returning to the work environment after they took their time off from with to have a family. Additionally, AIESEC provides an example and empowers young leaders to uphold equality no matter where they are. AIESEC provides professional development, networking opportunities as well as equal pay for all their employees without any discrimination.

Equality is not something that can be taken lightly because it does not just affect you and me, it affects everyone. It has the potential to cause economic downfall. All of us need to play our role as part of this society to create a sustainable future for everyone.