Close the Gender Pay Gap in the PH

Despite women’s rights progressing over the last century, there is still a lot to be done.

Women are still experiencing a disparity when it comes to wages and is being paid significantly less than their male counterparts.

In the agriculture sector, based on a 2018 Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) survey, male farmworkers received higher pay than female farmworkers.

To compare, the daily earnings of a man in agriculture stood at ₱310.16 per day back in 2018 while women only received ₱285.51 daily.  This report showed that there had been no substantial changes to the gender pay gap in agriculture for the past three years since its release.

According to ILO, an estimated two million Filipinas work in the mining, fishing, and agriculture sectors. Women are often put aside and neglected despite their contributions to these fields.

“Women rural workers are more likely to earn less than men since their jobs are in lower tiers of the supply chain with long working hours, poor working conditions and are equally hazardous and precarious as that of men,” mentioned International Labor Organization (ILO)’s Country Office Philippines Director Khalid Hassan.

The rural work sector is only the tip of the iceberg. Women are still underpaid across several industries despite being employed in the same position as their male co-workers.

Policies should be incorporated and most importantly, we should start talking about this more to address this issue. As mentioned by the ILO, social dialogue is the key to advancing gender equality and ensuring compliance with these standards.

Sources: ILO, Business World, Philstar