Women earning less than men for the same job

Women are earning less than men for doing the same job, a women’s rights advocate yesterday said.

"We want equal pay for work of equal value," Emmeline Verzosa, executive director of the National Commission on the Role of Women said in a press briefing at the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) office.

However, Verzosa failed to give data to show the disparity in income between male and female workers.

According to Verzosa, most of the work women do goes unpaid, given that they are part of the informal sector — a segment that she admits is hard to regulate.

UNICEF said that treating women better can translate into economic gains, because empowered women can augment the labor force to spur economic growth.

Likewise, a better economy can mean more resources to invest for the welfare of both women and children — primarily investments in health care and education.

However, Unicef Regional Director for East Asia and the Pacific Anupama Rao Singh said economic growth is necessary to improve the situation of women.

In the same conference, UNICEF said the Philippines is among the top-ranking nations in terms of the "gender face."

Singh said the average spending of GDP for health services worldwide, generally across the world, is 13 percent. In East Asian countries only one percent is spent on health services, though these countries have greater investment in education than in health, she added.

The UNICEF’s State of the Women’s Children 2007 report also showed that both women and men in the Philippines share the same literacy rate of 93 percent.

Singh said that despite this high literacy rate, women’s health care remains a pressing concern in the country.

UNICEF representative to the Philippines Dr. Nicholas Alipui said most of the Filipino women in Mindanao — specifically Basilan, Sulu and Maguindanao — have no access to proper health services during and after their pregnancies.

He said 300 to 400 maternal deaths are recorded in Mindanao, more than the high maternal mortality rate of 200 deaths per 100,000 live births.

"We are also not seeing reduction in malnutrition among children in more than 10 years," Alipui said.

Alipui said the government should invest more in the health sector to assure Filipino women and children of their right to proper health care.

"Over and above the availability of resources is the crucial issue of public policy that addresses these issues of disparity," Alipui said.

The government is pointing out the growing economic stability in the country owing to the administration’s fiscal reforms.

Alipui said the Philippine government spent two percent of its GDP in 2005 on health, while 19 percent went to education and five percent was allocated for defense.

The Philippines is among 13 nations that currently have, or recently elected, women as heads of state. President Arroyo is the Philippines’ second female president. President Corazon Aquino was the first.

Also boosting the role of women in the country is the fact that Filipinas are generally more participatory in making household decisions.

Only nine percent of the women interviewed said that their husbands make the final decision in their families.

On the negative side, UNICEF said the Philippines still lags behind a number of areas especially in women’s health. Only 60 percent of childbirths are supervised by professionals, doctors, nurses or midwives. A growing concern for the Philippines is the 8.4 percent increase in the number of women HIV victims.

The study also said more and more women and children fall victim to sexual abuse, exploitation and trafficking through rape or incest.

Based on the UNICEF report, Alipui said there was an average of 25 neo-natal deaths in the country in 2005 and added that the Philippines ranked 86th in the world list of under-five mortality rates.

Alipui also compared the health services investments made by Cuba and Canada. He said the Cuban government, despite its limited resources, has addressed the issue of maternal and infant mortality by spending more of its GDP on health services.

He said the Cuban government allotted 23 percent of its GDP for health, compared to Canada’s nine percent.

"This is what Cuban public health policy has done despite their limited resources: they had addressed the issue of inequality of access to health care compared to Canada," he said.