WageIndicator Gazette - 12 - October 2006
Preparing for Global Wage Monitoring system - 66 countries
The international Wage Indicator team is preparing a long term - 10 yeras - program for the development of a Global Wage Monitoring system. At a recent meeting - August- the ILO committed itself to this endeavour by offering its support in fund raising. As a first step a list of 66 countries has been drawn up for inclusion in the program. If successful the program would make the WageIndicator system and its salary checks the world’s first global standard for comparative research into wages.
No deliberate gender wage discrimination found in Belgium
Wage Indicator researchers in Belgium (Vrouwenloonwijzer.be, VotreSalaire.be) found no substantive evidence of deliberate wage discrimination between men and women. The pay gap of approx. 20% on average may be considered unfair. Yet, its persistence can be ascribed to career breaks, part time jobs, positions held, years of experience, company size and the like – leaving a very small percentage unaccounted for. This is too little to conclude that deliberate gender discrimination contributes significantly to the existing pay gap, researchers from HIVA (Louvain) say, although it indicates a generally unfavourable position of women in the labour market.
Fresh updated salary checkers
Fresh checkers in the Paywizard, LohnSpiegel, Loonwijzer.nl, Votresalaire.be, Palkkalaskuri.fi.
Special WageIndicators for women
The WageIndicator concept started 5 years ago with a WageIndicator for women. Now we have many more indicators for women. Check Frauenlohnspiegel, Ecartsalarialfemme.be or MeuSalarioMulher.
AbangAfrica and GoInAfrica offer trips for prize winners
Win a trip to Africa! An exciting opportunity offered by most of the WageIndicator-countries. A smart offer. Good for the WageIndicator project, great for the winners and a nice opportunity for GoInAfrica and AbangAfrica to offer their environmentally responsible tours and packages. Africa looks forwards to welcoming you!
Euroccupations to systematize up to 2000 occupations in 7 EU-member states
Early in 2007 experts in the UK, Germany, France, Spain, Poland, Belgium and the Netherlands will be requested to contribute their knowledge to the so called Euroccupations project. This EU-funded project will result in a shared database for the comparison of occupational titles and their ISCO-codes, gender and education distribution in each country. It also facilitates wage comparisons: f.e. does a welder in Germany earn more than a welder in France? Evidently there is an overlap here with the dataset of the European WageIndicators and a community of interest. The experts will be sought in a wide circle of labour market specialists. Their contributions are expected to generate in depth information on 150 benchmark occupations to be selected shortly. Labour market experts who want to join in the initiative are invited to contact the Euroccupations project management.
First offline survey under way in India
It took quite some time to balance the required questions, the need for international comparison, manageable-ness of length as well as relevance and language of the questions asked. For data the PayCheck- research team so far interviewed taxi drivers (unionized), vendors, masons, carpenters, watchmen, cleaning persons and secretaries. The paper survey is done in Hindi, Kannada and Marathi languages. The experience thus gathered will be made relevant to research teams in other countries where a combination of online and face-to-face surveys is necessary, given large informal sectors and limited internet access.
Compare your salary with your VIP's
Vip salaries in Mexico (Vincente Fox). In India: prime minister Singh earns 0.57 rps per minute! International WageIndicator VipPay data base.
Research in EU countries: Bored on the job?
Being bored on the job and poorly paid go hand in hand. The less bored we are, the likelier that we are earning more. Magda Andralojc and Piotr Michon from the Poznan Economic Academy conclude this on the basis of the European WageIndicator-(Woliweb) dataset gathered over the last 2 years. They explain this relationship as follows: interesting work tends to bring out the best in a person, who is then likely to perform better and be renumerated accordingly. Secondly, more interesting work as a rule presupposes higher qualifications of the performer. And these again are usually reflected in higher pay. Both researchers also addressed the question of work satisfaction. They found that the majority of workers in the 9 EU-member countries on which the dataset is based, are satisfied with their jobs. In Poland, Spain and the UK however comparatively many workers are dissatisfied with their jobs. The Polish researchers suggest that these workers find themselves in situations where unemployment is high, as is job insecurity, in combination with a weak bargaining position vis-à-vis employers and relatively poor pay.
International division of labour in WageIndicator teams takes shape
What one might have hoped for is really happening: some of the 17 participating WageIndicator country teams by now take actively part in a division of labour. The Argentinian team specializes in calculating salary checks for (all) others. MeuSalario/DIEESE from Brazil is successfully coaching the MiSalario/Mexican team with marketing tips. Tusalario/Spain helps Argentina with calculators.
