Ambitious women, overqualified in underpaid jobs
Women are as ambitious as men when it comes to their career. Just as men they find a decent salary and reward opportunities the most important career drivers. Having children does not influence these priorities. Yet working women too often are overqualified for the work they do, whereas men are not. This means that there is a lot of potential on the labour market that remains untapped because women are frustrated in their career ambitions. This picture emerges from an international comparison of the factors influencing women’s decisions to work, involving 43 countries. The picture becomes worse still, since working mothers on the whole are paid less than working women without children. The burden of household and child care in combination with being underpaid for the work they do, puts working mothers in a dead-end street.
These findings are based on a sample of 345,000 data collected by WageIndicator online surveys in 2008 and the first quarter of 2009 in those 43 countries. The data was analyzed by Income Data Services, the British research partner of WageIndicator, on behalf of ITUC, the International Trade Union Confederation. The results are published on March 8, international women’s day.
