WageIndicator Gazette 12 - October 2006
WageIndicator in 66 countries? * The truth about boring jobs *
Fresh updated salary checkers * Fair trips in Africa * Offline - online
research in India * Pay gap.
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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 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.
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.
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