It’s been two decades since South Africa became a democratic republic and the issue of gender equality in the workplace continues to surface. We have our Constitution as the supreme law of our land – that is widely acknowledged as one of the most progressive in the world. Enshrined in Section 8 of the Constitution is the right to equality. This provision prescribes that no one can be discriminated against on grounds of race, sex, religion and sexual orientation. However, there is an unfair disparity between the salaries of females and males in South Africa.
According to statistics published by the South African Revenue Services (SARS) in 2013, the average taxable income for females was around R193,908 ($14,543) per annum, while males earned an average of R254,347 ($19,076) per annum. This effectively means that the average female earns around a third less than males. There are, however, a number of plausible reasons: firstly the job market that succeeded the Industrial Revolution was primarily designed for men, men were, and still are to a degree, seen as the providers and women as caregivers.
However, this has progressively changed over the past few decades with gender equality groups, in recent years vehemently stating their dissatisfaction for the slow rate of transformation for women in the workplace. Interestingly, South Africa has funnelled out more female graduates than males in recent times and the pay at which both parties start is often based on the educational level, skills and experience. Thus, on the surface, it appears as though males and females start on a similar pay grade.
Nonetheless, what would be interesting to investigate is why the gap widens over the years. Are males offered better opportunities for career advancement than women purely based on the fact that they are men? Or perhaps are employers wary of the disruption pregnancy might have on labor supply? If the Constitution states that we are all equal, why should the latter even be questioned? After all, women do not get pregnant by themselves. Some sociologists believe that the proverbial ‘work/life’ balance for women may be an illusion, citing that females might have to concede a thriving career for a more family-orientated lifestyle.
A recent survey that was conducted in numerous university campuses across South Africa states that most female graduates’ biggest concern is how they will take care of their families amid ambitions of conquering the corporate world.
Some may wonder why the conversations surrounding the disparity of income between males and females are pertinent. In a South African context it is simply unavoidable: the country’s social structure tells us that more houses are headed by women than men. Thus females earning potential not only impacts their immediate spending potential on the people they care for but could possibly have an adverse impact their ability to take care of themselves in their pension years.
The call from gender equality organizations for the eradication of income disparities between men and women has never been more boisterous. This call includes getting more female participation in management and senior executive positions within organizations. Ironically, the private sector can learn from the government. Our government has taken the lead and should be commended for employing women as cabinet ministers, premiers, MECs, mayors and directors and CEOs in state organizations.
Diversity can be a significant competitive advantage for organizations that implement it correctly. Women are the backbone of our society and the role they play in our family structures is indispensable. Despite the prejudices women have overcome in the ‘free world’, there are biases that are firmly rooted in the workplace and should be addressed. Going forward, our labor legislative framework should consider shared paternity and maternity leave in order to minimize the biases that women encounter for falling pregnant – what I would call the ‘career penalty’. Conversations around the disparity in income of men and women is a decent start, but whether anything will be done about this remains to be seen.

Are Women Really As Equal As Men?

Boko Haram’s latest victim may have been Nigeria’s national elections.
Citing security concerns as reason for postponing the nation’s February general elections by six weeks, the Nigerian authorities have once again succumbed to the bogey of insurgency and insecurity bedeviling Africa’s largest and most populous economy.
The elections will now be held between March 28 and April 11 this year. National Security Adviser, Sambo Mohammed Dasuki, says the government will flush out the terrorists in six weeks. It was a shaky excuse. Nigerians are watching; waiting to see what security magic government will weave in six weeks.
The postponement has near and far reaching implications for the nation and the rest of Africa.
Professor Attahiru Jega, Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), had previously maintained the commission’s readiness to conduct free and fair polls. Now INEC’s independence and neutrality is being questioned. According to media reports, government may even be shopping for a new, more compliant chairman for the commission.
If this happens, it will translate to political chicanery and serious credibility worries for INEC and the incumbent administration, which funds the commission. The fear that even the new election dates may not be sacrosanct is palpable. Constitutionally, federal and state-wide swearing-in of elected officials must be held on May 29. Observers have called this unfolding scenario a looming coup against democracy in Nigeria.
A prolonged political crisis in Nigeria would further harm efforts at national harmony and stall trade and investment in West Africa, already hit by the Ebola crisis, insurgencies in northern Nigeria and Mali, a democratic interregnum in Burkina Faso, poor external trade balances, fiscal deficits, weakening currencies and mass unemployment.
For most of 2014, Africa’s global image was defined by the Ebola epidemic, despite the scourge being confined to a few countries in West Africa.
Ignoring Africa’s rising middle class, the epidemic revealed the specter of a failing continent,  with poor sanitation, poor health budgets, poor health education, poor medical inventories, poor infrastructure, an entrenched culture of graft and official disregard for society’s commonwealth.
Nigeria’s democratic debacle will therefore be an ignoble chapter in the history of Africa.
For the last 30 months or so, the rest of the world struggled to empathize with Nigeria over its inability to curb the despicable rein of the Islamist fundamentalist group. Boko Haram has made the Sahel forest region around the Lake Chad basin its homestead, launching sporadic attacks into northern Nigerian cities and towns at will; making a mockery of Nigeria’s national security and defense systems. Huge sections of north eastern Nigeria have thus been rendered comatose and ungovernable.
A regional diplomatic initiative involving the governments of Chad, Cameroon and Nigeria failed to plug the onslaught. Indeed the group has become bolder. Last month, Boko Haram threatened to ‘deal with and defeat’ an African Union anti-Boko Haram special force. The group has unleashed more mayhem on northern Nigerian towns even after it kidnapped over 200 teenage girls from their Chibok village school in April 2014.
The political season began last autumn and soon, it would seem that the world had moved on from the sad case of the Chibok girls and the #BringBackOurGirls social media campaign. The conscience of the nation was on the chopping block. Also on the chopping block were investor sentiment and market forces. Agriculture and the automobile industry welcomed new investments in 2014; in the same period, the Nigerian Stock Exchange saw its market cap decline by $8.5 billion, a 13% drop.
Slumping oil prices forced the finance ministry to lower its economic projections for 2015. This year’s national budget was consequently slashed by $3 billion. Nigeria has never saved for the rainy day, largely due to politicians who earn stupendous salaries and allowances and insist on appropriating proceeds from the reserve Excess Crude Account (ECA). Nigeria’s four petroleum refineries operated at less than 50% of their installed capacity between 1985 and 1999 and have remained dormant since then. Parochial politics and economic perfidy has ensured that no new refineries were built in over 30 years.
If business is a natural extension of politics, then it is easy to see why Nigeria Inc. will continue to underperform. The consistent heating of the polity and absence of truth in practically all spheres of Nigerian life is a key hindrance to progress. The system resists reforms. Governance is driven by regional and religious sentiments. The current political class offers little hope. With little or no ideological difference between political parties, defections across party lines is the order of the day. It would therefore seem that principles have no place in Nigerian politics.
With a raft of political parties, presidential and governorship candidates vying for office, this will be the country’s most hotly contested and most expensive elections ever – complete with rented crowds, political hubris and multi-million-dollar media blitz. Nigeria’s cash-and-carry political culture was fully at work.
The late Chinua Achebe once quipped that the problem with Nigeria was Nigeria. The master storyteller would be turning in his grave now, as his beloved nation treks further away from established democratic ethos.
The protracted survival of Boko Haram is a national embarrassment and a scandalous testimonial for leadership in Nigeria. It reflects the failure of the social contract between government and the governed. And as the world prepares to replace the Millennium Development Goals with a new set of goals and priorities this year, Nigerians will also be desperately seeking to replace the mirage of hope with tangible political and economic achievement.

Tag: Democratic

FORBES AFRICA SOCIAL MEDIA

Are Women Really As Equal As Men?

A Coup Against Democracy?