HBO

Teachers m/f do not earn equal

On average, women are still paid less than men in higher professional education, even if they do the same work. They linger longer in their shell and suffer from persistent sexism.

Tekst Daniëlla van 't Erve - redactie Onderwijsblad / Beeld Nanne Meulendijks - - 8 Minuten om te lezen

Pay gap spread 1

Karima is happy to start as an economics teacher at a university of applied sciences in scale 11. She earned a lot less in her previous position and she thought she had negotiated this salary well. It turns out that her colleague Ronald fulfills the same function on a higher scale, while they work just as much and have the same education and work experience.

These kinds of examples of unequal pay between men and women in higher education still occur. Certainly in the teaching positions in scales 10, 11 and 12, there is often no good explanation for the difference in salary. This is evident from the research 'Equal pay in higher professional education' van Zestor, the labor market and education fund for higher professional education.

Compared to 2016, the salary differences based on the average gross monthly salary for all job grades together at six universities of applied sciences studied have fallen sharply, from 9,1 to 4,1 percent. However, the gender pay gap at all nine institutions that participated this year is nearly 6 percent.

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The biggest explanation that men earn more than women is difference in function (80 percent), followed by difference in age (11 percent). If they hold the same position, men also earn more; a wage difference of 1 percent. In other words: there are mainly more men working in higher positions, so they earn more than women.

Men also more often have a guarantee scale, which means that they retain their higher salary, while their position has now been valued lower. In addition, male colleagues in higher professional education are often older, which is often accompanied by more work experience and therefore a higher salary. From the age of 60, men are even in the majority, while proportionately many more women than men work in higher education.

Simply explaining differences will not resolve them

“The fact that the difference in salary has shrunk is of course good news,” responds Sophie van Gool, economist and author of the bestseller Why women earn less and what we can do about it. “But just explaining those differences doesn't solve them. I often see circular reasoning among employers: 'Yes, there is a pay gap, but that is simply because we have few women in senior positions.' Yes, and that's exactly the problem! You can also turn it around. Women have been highly educated for twenty years and are still underrepresented at the highest levels. In the Netherlands, they earn on average 13 percent less than men. In higher professional education it is lower, but there is still a large, unacceptable difference.”

A difference of 4,1 percent amounts to an average of 200 euros less per month and 6 percent to 276 euros. For job grades 10, 11 and 12, the wage difference is around 1 percent to the detriment of women. That equates to an average of 50 euros per month. Van Gool: “A difference of 1 percent sounds like it's not that bad, but it's an average. This means that there may also be women who earn the same or more or receive hundreds of euros less per month. And if you calculate this over someone's entire working life, it leads to enormous amounts. On average, women in the Netherlands miss out on 300 euros in salary.”

On average, women in the Netherlands miss out on 300 euros in salary

Moreover, especially for scales 10, 11 and 12, it often turns out that no good explanation can be found for the difference in pay, while 70 percent of all employees - and these are mainly teachers - are involved. For job scale 10, almost 60 percent of the salary differences are unexplained and for 11 and 12 this is around 40 percent. Men therefore earn more than women for the same work, even though they have the same backgrounds. “That is not good and we have asked Zestor to investigate this further,” says AObdirector Douwe van der Zweep. “A difference of 1 percent is also unjust, but it is small beer if you compare it with who gets the higher positions. These are still the men in both management and teaching positions.”

Part time

Zestor will also investigate further why that is. One reason may be that HBO copies wage differences between sectors, thinks AObdirector Van der Zweep. “If you come out of technology with a high salary, you may end up in a higher scale than if you make the switch from healthcare to education. And that is unjustified, because the profession of higher professional education teacher is equal to technology and care.”

His suspicion seems to be correct if you compare the collective labor agreements of the sectors mentioned. For example, a nurse in a hospital with ten years of experience earns 3.771 euros per month. According to the collective labor agreement, a programmer with the same amount of experience earns 3.930 euros. A difference of almost 160 euros per month. “If the pay from previous work is a guideline for what you will earn in education, then you copy pay differences,” explains Van der Zweep. “While the professional experience and the requested position must be decisive for a correct scaling.”

Women are usually underpaid from their first job

So never show your salary slip from your previous work, is the advice. “That is not mandatory and maintains pay differences,” says Van Gool. “Women are usually underpaid from their first job.”

Another cause that is often mentioned is part-time work. Van der Zweep: “In HBO you only get a scale 11 if you develop education and scale 12 if you are responsible for large parts of the curriculum. This task is substantial and employers therefore usually do not give part-timers. And so women are once again failing because they are more likely to work part-time.”

According to economist Van Gool, the pay gap will not be closed if women start working full-time. “In countries where women more often work four or five days, they don't end up in higher positions either. You may not be able to perform certain tasks part-time, but I also see women working overtime more often and taking on more responsibilities that they don't get paid for. That remains invisible in numbers and I suspect that the pay gap is much larger because of this.”

Apples

Zestor's research shows that women in higher professional education earn more than men in the lower job grades. This seems positive, but the difference is mainly explained by the difference in age. 'It seems that women are staying in these job scales hangen because there are relatively many women in the older age category compared to men', the research report states.

The fact that men and women hold different positions would explain 45 percent of the wage difference. For example, a woman who holds the position of secretarial assistant is rated higher than her male colleague who is a security guard. “It's a bit strange to compare people within scales in this way,” says economist Van Gool. “As soon as the wage difference is in favor of women, you see that that happens: both look at scale 8, but women are higher and that is good news. But as soon as the difference works out well for men, they say: 'no, you have to compare apples with apples, because men earn more because they have more experience.' Moreover, you apparently accept that women stick around and cannot move on to higher scales.”

The biggest problem is that women, and in fact everyone who deviates from the norm, have to deal with (unconscious) prejudices. When we think of the word leader, we quickly think of a man, and people who are similar to ourselves are judged to be more competent and intelligent. Van Gool: “It's a vicious circle: men are in higher positions and hire other men who look like them. Women are rated lower and are less likely to be promoted than men. It's a myth that this is their fault because they don't negotiate well. They ask for a higher scale just as often, but have less chance. That's just persistent sexism."

She is pleased with the new European directive to oblige organizations to investigate and report unequal pay. But she believes that we will not be there with more transparency alone. She argues for an extension of the legally required women's quota, which now only applies to supervisory boards. “I used to be against this: you don't want to sit somewhere just because you're a woman? But in practice it appears to be an effective measure: as soon as there is a quota, people start looking better. Nothing changes without clear rules.”

 

Female professors earn 2,7 million less annually

In university education, too, women are paid less than men and are less likely to hold higher positions. The pay gap is widest between male and female professors. Research in 2016 by the National Network of Female Professors (LNVH) shows that female professors miss out on a total of 2,7 million euros in salary on an annual basis. Follow-up research in 2020 will also show that women are given less time and resources than men for doing research. They negotiate just as often about their terms of employment, but they are less satisfied with the results. They indicated that they had 'the idea that their wishes had been taken less seriously and that they had a stronger impression that they were asking too much'. The number of female professors is increasing and is now a quarter, but according to LNVH it will take until 2040 before a proportional male-female distribution is achieved among professors.

The Education magazine investigates experiences with higher grading: aob.nl/scaleup

Also read: Fighting for a higher pay scale

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