Kerre Woodham: The burden of parenthood should be shared equally

You have woken up to the news that New Zealand businesses can now take meaningful action to drive down the gender pay gap. You need no longer wait for governments to legislate – the power is in your hands. The launch of an online calculator to help do so was announced yesterday by the Minister for Women, Nicola Gregg. The previous Labour government announced plans last year before the election to require public and private companies with more than 250 workers to publish a gender pay gap report. Earlier in the year, Acting Minister for Women Louise Upston said the Government was committed to addressing inequity in the workplace, but she said “we do not want to overburden businesses with unnecessary costs and regulations.   

So the Gender Pay Gap Toolkit was set up by working with businesses and organisations like Spark, ANZ, Tonkin + Taylor, to make sure it's user friendly and has a common methodology. It was also shaped and road tested, apparently, by many other organisations across the country, including Transpower, the Port of Auckland, Champions for Change, and Global Women. Although the pay gap has reduced steadily from 16.3% in 1998, its stuck at around 9 to 10% for the past decade, except for 2015/2016 when it hit 12%. So, it's come down a bit and now it's stabilised.  

My colleague Heather du Plessis-Allan had a hot take on why the gap remained stubbornly in place, which she shared with her audience last night. It's up to women, she says, not employers to fix the gender pay gap: 

“Here's my tip if you are a woman and you don't want to have a gender pay. Don't take maternity leave. Make the baby's father take the paternity leave and don't always be the one to stay home with the kids when the kids are sick, make the father stay at home with the kids when the kids are sick, because I think that is now part of our problem. We are literally, as women, a more unreliable workforce than men, because think about this: I mean this is brutal, but it's true, right? If you've got an equally qualified man and woman standing in front of you, let's say early 30s, married, but haven't had babies, are you going to hire the lady? Because I don't know about that.  

“I'd look at the lady and go oh, she hasn't had babies yet, so now she can have babies, now she's going to want take a year off for every single baby. Now, when the babies sick, got a bit of a cough, the woman's going stay at home. She's unreliable. The guy is more reliable. Guy gets the job. Right. I know that this is hard, and I know we want it all in the modern age, right. We want heaps of money, we want all the big jobs, and we also want to be the ones who stay at home and raise the babies when they come out. But life is tough, and choices are tough, and I suspect women are going to have to start helping themselves a little bit here by getting the dads to do the heavy lifting too, instead of just complaining that life ain't fair.” 

So she has a point. If you are going to take a couple of years out of the workforce to be the primary caregiver and you’re female, then you're going to have missed work opportunities, missed promotion opportunities, and that's just the way it is. If you're not around for two years, your employer can't gauge just how effective you are, how good at working you are.  

At the same time, we all know the first three years of a child's life are vitally important. Every single child psychologist will tell you that. If you're given $100,000 to put towards your child's education, stay at home for the first three years or employ a primary caregiver to do the same. It just has to be a person who can talk to the baby, speak to the baby, take it out, stimulate it, and it has to be a kind of one-on-one relationship. A best practice according to child psychologists. Not always able to do that, we all just muddle

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Carywood of Mornings podcast from News
Talks ad B.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
You have woken up to the news that New Zealand
businesses can now take meaningful action to drive down the
gender pay gap. You need no longer wait for governments
to legislate. The power is in your hands. The launch
of an online calculator to help do so was announced

(00:32):
yesterday by the Minister for Women Nikola Grigg. The previous
labor government announced plans last year before the election to
require public and private companies with more than two hundred
and fifty workers to publish a gender pay gap report.
Earlier in the year, Acting Minister for Women Louise Upston

(00:54):
said the government was committed to addressing iniquity in the workplace,
but she said we do not want ooverburdened businesses with
unnecessary costs and regulations. That it be good businesses would
be very grateful for that. So the Gender pay Gap
Toolkit was set up by working with businesses and organizations

(01:15):
like spark A and Z Tonkin and Taylor to make
sure it's user friendly and has a common methodology. It
was also shaped and road tested, apparently by many other
organizations across the country, including transpar the Port of Auckland
champions for change in Global Women. Although the pay gap

(01:37):
has reduced steadily from sixteen point three percent in nineteen
ninety eight, it stuck at around nine to ten percent
for the past decade, except for twenty fifteen twenty sixteen
when it hit twelve percent. So it's come down a
bit and now it's stabilized. My colleague here the duplice.

(01:57):
Ellen had a hot take on why the gap remains
stubbornly in place, which she shared with her audience last night.
It's up to women, she says, not an employers, to
fix the gender pay gap.

Speaker 3 (02:08):
Here's my tip. If you are a woman and you
don't want to have a gender pay gap, don't take
maternity leave, Make the baby's father take the paternity leave.
And don't always be the one to stay home with
the kids when the kids are sick. Make the father
stay at home with the kids when the kids are sick.
Because I think that is now part of our problem.
We are literally as women a more unreliable workforce than men.

(02:31):
Because think about this. I mean, this is brutal, but
it's true. Right if you are standing, if you've got
an equally qualified man and woman standing in front of you,
let's say, early thirties, married, but haven't had babies. You're
going to hire the lady because I don't know about that.
I'd look at the lady and go, oh, she hasn't
had babies yet, So now she's gonna have babies. Now
she's gonna want to take a year off for every
single baby. Now when the baby's second got a bit
of a cough, the woman's gonna stay at home. She's unreliable.

(02:53):
The guy is more reliable. Guy gets the job, right.
I know that this is hard, and I know we
want it all in the modern age, right. We want
heaps of money, we want all the big jobs, and
we also want to be the ones who stay at
home and raise the baby when they come out. But
life is tough and choices are tough, and I suspect
women are going to have to start helping themselves a
little bit here by getting the dads to do the
heavy lifting too, instead of just complaining that life ain't fair.

Speaker 2 (03:17):
So sheares a point like, if you are going to
take a couple of years out of the workforce to
be the primary caregiver and your female then you're going
to have missed work opportunities, missed promotion opportunities. And that's
just the way it is. If you're not around for
two years, your employer can't gauge just how effective you are,

(03:40):
how good at working you are. At the same time,
we all know the first three years of a child's
life are vitally important. That is it. Every single child
psychologist will tell you that if you're given one hundred
thousand dollars to put towards your child's education, stay at
home for the first three years, or employ a primary

(04:04):
caregiver to do the same. It just has to be
a person who can talk to the baby, speak to
the baby, take it out, stimulate it, and it has
to be a kind of one on one relationship. A
best practice, according to child psychologists. Not always able to
do that. We all just muddle along the best we can.

(04:27):
I was back at work when my daughter was six
weeks old. I hired a nurse, a young trainee graduate
nurse to look after her. Not ideal, but needs must.
The money had to come in somehow. I tried to
keep breastfeeding that first year and managed to do so

(04:48):
pretty much, but it was a struggle if you want
to have children, and many couples do, I think it's
a lot easier these days to share the load. I mean,
we've had a child sack at home and their parents
have divide at the time. Dad stayed home three days

(05:13):
because he has had a busy week, but it's work
he can do from home. Mum has stayed home the
last two days. She'll be staying home the last two
days of the week to give them the best possible
chance of recovery and to allow everybody to get the
most important parts of their job done on the days

(05:35):
they really have to go into the office. They've had
to juggle it between them. It's not expected that the
mum has to give up five days of working in
the office to stay at home. I just don't think
there is that expectation among young parents. I think there
really should be a shared responsibility between men and women.

(05:57):
Perhaps the mother has the first six months off, then
the father has six months off, so that when you
do have a man and a woman apply for a job,
they're both thirty two, they both have the same level
of qualifications for whatever excuse me, for whatever job they're
applying for. Then an employer can look at them both

(06:18):
and go, I know that at some point, if they
want children, I'm going to lose that person for six months,
be it the man, be at the woman. If there
is an expectation that the man will take time off too,
an expectation from within the family, from within the community,
from within the workforce that men are just as likely

(06:41):
to take six months off as women are, that kind
of evens the playing field. So I think here they
had a point. It's not always going to be possible
for a woman to give birth and then skip back
to work the next day, leaving the man literally to
pick up the baby. But I think if there is

(07:01):
an expectation that will be equally shared between men and women,
it will help level up the playing field.

Speaker 1 (07:12):
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