Understanding Women's family-career crisis perspective and its impact on Gender Pay-Gap:A Survey Study

Abstract

Currently, the causes of the gender pay gap worldwide have been reduced to gender inequality in terms of salary differences and other occupational disputes such as the alienation of Women's participation in top managerial positions. Although this may be correct, both these factors hold no major contribution to the current gender pay gap in many countries worldwide. This is because of many gender equality efforts that have been put in place such as feminism, equality of opportunity, employment equity Acts, Labour Relations Acts, International Labour Organisation (ILO), Gender equality regulations, and Women empowerment movements. As the world strives for egalitarianism, there has been an observable growth in the current gender pay gap. As such, this survey study investigates the impact of "Women's family-career Crisis" on the gender pay gap. In light of that, this survey study was conducted on 134 women in South Africa from 18 to 50 years, to understand the impact of women's family-career crisis on the gender pay gap. Quanti-qualitative approach was utilised and found that women aged twenty-five to fifty do not hesitate to abjure their career development when they have to choose between starting a family and building a career. Secondly, this study found that the primary priority of women from the age of twenty-five lies in starting a family compared to career development. Through linear correlation analysis, a strong negative correlation of R2=0.9773 between family and career was found. Moreover, family career crisis’s impact on gender pay gap reported a significant p-value of 0.04. This study further found that women's natural desire for family nurturing creates a strong negative correlation between family and career, which impacts negatively on their career development, and ultimately increases the gender pay gap.