Reducing Gender Inequality in the Workplace 

What is Gender Equality in the Workplace?

Gender equality in the workplace refers to the principle that all employees, regardless of their gender or gender identity, should receive equal treatment and opportunities within their workplace. The concept has its roots in various movements throughout history and has evolved over time.

In Hong Kong, as the economy developed in the 1970s and 1980s, more women entered the workforce in managerial and professional roles. However, despite significant progress, gender inequality and discrimination continue to persist in various forms, such as unequal pay, limited career advancement opportunities, and sexual harassment in the workplace. The pursuit of gender equality in the workplace remains an ongoing effort.

Men & Women in the Workplace in Hong Kong

Numerous companies in Hong Kong are now promoting gender neutrality in the workplace, but there are still some ongoing issues just like the rest of the world, which include:

Sexual Harassment

According to a recent survey by the Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC), nearly one in eight or 11.8%, reportedly experienced sexual harassment in the workplace, but only 14.7% of the victims had made a formal report to their organization, the EOC or the police. Most of the time, the case got reported by women.

Discrimination

A study conducted by the EOC in May 2016, titled “Study on Pregnancy Discrimination and Negative Perceptions Faced by Pregnant Women and Working Mothers in Small and Medium Enterprises,” revealed that women still face discrimination despite the existence of the Sex Discrimination Ordinance (SDO).

The importance of Gender Equality in the Workplace

Gender equality in the workplace can significantly and positively impact a company and its employees. These benefits include:

• Reduction of workplace conflicts

• Improvement of employees’ mental health

• Increased team productivity

• Prevention of sexual harassment

• Higher job satisfaction

• Enhanced ability to attract and retain talented employees

• Access to a larger talent pool

• Improved employee retention

• Fostering a better work culture

• Building and improving the company’s reputation.

By prioritizing gender equality, a company can create a more positive and supportive work environment that benefits everyone involved.

Promoting Gender Equality in the Workplace

If you are wondering about how to reduce gender inequality in the workplace, there are several things you can implement to help promote gender equality:

1. Start From the Recruiting Process

Did you know that gender diversity in the workplace benefits your company? Having gender differences in the workplace can bring more perspectives to your team and increase positive outcomes for the company. Also, it might be easier and better to find perfect employee matches for your company.

You can begin by including more women on shortlists, utilizing skill-based assessment tasks, and conducting structured interviews.

2. Implement an Equal Pay Policy

Paying employees equally for the same work, regardless of their gender, helps to create a more positive and productive work environment. It also shows that the company values its employees and promotes gender equality.

A company can initiate various measures, such as setting annual market rate goals, conducting pay equality audits, and implementing a structured promotion process.

3. Offer Career Development Opportunities

As you may know, fewer women are hired for executive roles. Providing skill development opportunities for women in the workplace can lead to a more diverse and skilled workforce, which can benefit a company in many ways, such as increased innovation, better problem-solving, and improved productivity.

4. Provide Unconscious Bias Training

This helps raise awareness among employees about their own biases and provides them with tools to mitigate them to increase productivity, creativity, and innovation. It can also help to reduce discrimination and harassment, which can boost employee morale and retention.

One way to initiate gender equality in the workplace is through a company-wide training program that includes mixed-gender groups. Establishing a clear policy on discrimination and goals related to gender equality can also help guide employees toward this objective.

5. Implement Parental Leave Policies

In Hong Kong, female employees are entitled to 14 weeks of maternity leave, while male employees are entitled to only five days. To provide better support for your employees, offering parents more flexibility can help them better balance their responsibilities of caring for their child and their career.

A company can also consider establishing a shared parental leave policy and offer paid leave for employees who provide adequate notice. By implementing these actions, your company can better retain and attract talented employees.

6. Provide a Safe Space

Finally, it is essential for a company to provide a secure environment for its employees by fostering an open and transparent culture. Employees should feel comfortable discussing any issues they may encounter with their team, manager, or HR without any fear of repercussion.

The company should demonstrate that it has their employees’ best interests at heart in any situation. One way to start this process is by holding managers accountable for their teams and promptly addressing any issues, no matter how small they may seem. This will definitely help promote gender neutrality in the workplace.

7. Be more flexible

It’s not just about work-life balance but also about the sense of freedom employees feel. This can include aspects such as dress code, working location, working hours, or flexible time off. Such flexibility can benefit employers by attracting top talent, reducing recruitment costs, and increasing productivity.

8. Understanding the Laws Better 

In Hong Kong, Sex Discrimination Ordinance (SDO) is an ordinance that prohibits discrimination on the grounds of sex, marital status, or pregnancy in employment, education, and the provision of goods and services. It also established the Equal Opportunities Commission responsible for promoting equal opportunities and eliminating discrimination.

There are additional laws in place to promote gender equality and safeguard employees from discrimination based on their gender or other personal characteristics. Nevertheless, there is still much work to be done to attain genuine gender equality in Hong Kong.

If you are an employee in Hong Kong, it is important for you to be aware of these laws in order to understand your rights and protect yourself against any forms of gender inequality in the workplace. Likewise, if you are an employer, familiarizing yourself with these laws can help you better understand what improvements you can make to promote gender neutrality in the workplace.

Gender inequality in the workplace: The fight against bias

Gender inequality in the workplace isn’t limited to unequal wages, either. Women, especially black women, LGBTQ+ women, and women of color, continue to face barriers to move into leadership positions and are likely to face microaggressions — offensive statements or insensitive questions — related to race, ethnicity, gender, and sexual identity.

Leaders need to close gender gaps in career advancement and eliminate workplace discrimination. There are concrete ways to achieve this ideal — transparent salaries, flexible work options, training opportunities for women, and a focus on well-being and mental health. Employees, too, can play a part in ensuring gender equity on all fronts by becoming allies, speaking up against instances of discrimination, and giving honest feedback to leaders.

The fight against gender discrimination started in the 19th century

In 1872, Belva Ann Lockwood, an attorney, persuaded the U.S. Congress to pass a law guaranteeing equal pay for women employed as federal employees. Nearly a century later, the Equal Pay Act was passed in 1963, making it law to pay equal wages to men and women in all workplaces. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 granted equal rights to women in all areas of employment and was amended in 1991 to allow women to sue employers for sexual harassment.

Despite the federal law against gender inequality and discrimination, it creeps into workplaces in insidious ways. While some progress has been made, gender inequality continues to persist even today.

Gender inequality in the workplace: What does it look like today?

Gender inequality in the workplace takes many forms — unequal pay, disparity in promotions, incidents of sexual harassment, and racism. Often, it presents itself in more nuanced ways, like fewer opportunities for women who are mothers and a higher incidence of burnout in women.

Unequal pay

Equal pay for men and women is still not a reality. In 2020, women earned 84% of what men earned for the same job, and Black and Latina women earned even less. This gender pay gap has persisted over the past years, shrinking by just 8 cents in 25 years. There are multiple reasons to blame, including “sticky floors” that result from traditional social norms that keep women from choosing higher-paying roles and male-dominated industries, unequal access to education, and discrimination.

In addition, women, especially those living intersectional realities like transgender and immigrant women, grapple with a fear of negotiating pay and being penalized if they do. One recent study questioned this idea and found that women ask for pay raises just as often as men, but they get it only 15% of the time as compared to 20% when men ask.

Barriers to Promotion

There is a “broken rung” at the manager level: “For every 100 men promoted to manager, only 86 women are promoted.” This problem is compounded at higher levels of leadership: fewer women managers means there are fewer candidates to promote to heads of department, directors, and C-suite positions, too. You can see this lack of representation clear as day: 62% of C-suite positions are held by white men, compared with 20% taken up by white women (greater than the 13% occupied by men of color) and a mere 4% by women of color.

Incidents of sexual harassment

Thirty-five percent of women in the U.S. experience sexual harassment at some point during their careers: a sign that sexism is overlooked in the workplace. Sexual harassment could also be a direct side effect of disparity in pay and promotions.

Following the #MeToo movement that started in October 2017, incidents of sexual coercion and unwanted sexual attention declined. But there has been a sharp increase in hostility towards women — a survey uncovered that gender harassment (sexist remarks and inappropriate stories from male colleagues) spiked to 92% in 2018, from 76% in 2016.

Experiences in racism

Compared to white women, women of color and women with marginalized identities face a higher rate of disrespectful and “othering” microaggressions like being questioned or interrupted. Women of color also do not have active allies at work. White employees think of themselves as allies to women of color, but less than half actually take even basic actions like calling out bias or rallying for new opportunities for women of color. Often, this is because white "allies" and women of color have very different ideas of what’s helpful.

Steps managers can take to eliminate gender inequality in organizations

1. Educate employees on unconscious gender bias

Everyone can have unconscious biases and prejudices about people or groups. Offer implicit bias training through the Implicit Association Test (IAT) to managers to make them aware of these hidden biases towards minorities so that they can actively avoid discriminatory behavior and make more informed decisions to promote gender equality.

2. Conduct an audit and make salaries transparent

Conduct a company-wide audit to ensure that men and women in the same roles get paid equally. Use the findings to adjust salaries and close any gender wage gaps. In 2013, Buffer adopted complete transparency and disclosed all salaries. As a result, their job applications rose from 1,263 in the 30 days before the announcement to 2,886 in the next month, expanding the talent pool.

3. Give employees the flexibility to work when and where works for them

The pandemic has proven that remote work is equally, if not more, productive. Provide flexibility in when and where employees can work. For women, this flexibility in work hours can prove to be a “critical enabler” of retention in the workforce because it allows them to maintain a work-life balance. However, if your organization follows a hybrid model, beware of falling prey to presenteeism, where men who choose to go to an office may be more ‘visible’ at work and therefore disproportionately rewarded.

4. Provide resources to improve well-being and mental health

At any given time, 55% of the workforce is languishing. Make mental fitness part of the company culture by modeling empathy and training managers to be more empathetic. Offer personalized support to meet women where they are at and help them grow in their careers. 

Steps employees can take to combat gender inequality

Employees, too, can play an active role in advancing gender equality in their workplaces. Individuals who are proactive at work help in creating a better future and prevent the recurrence of existing problems. 

1. Call out instances of gender discrimination or biases

Just like the #MeToo movement started with one instance of speaking out against sexual harassment, taking a stand even if you are alone can bring about lasting change and empower others to speak up.

2. Provide honest feedback to leaders on their gender inequality initiatives

Employee feedback on initiatives around advancing gender equality can be a driver of change. Be honest with your employers about what’s working and what’s not.

3. Join or build a women’s Employee Resource Group

ERG groups help develop internal leaders, educate employees, and have a positive impact on retention. Join or create an ERG to help build psychologically safe spaces for women, women with disabilities, women of color, and LGBTQ+ women.

References:

Berke, L. (2021, November 22). How Data Can Help Improve Equality in the Workplace. Dimensional Insight. https://www.dimins.com/blog/2021/04/14/how-data-can-help-improve-equality-in-the-workplace/

Chirumamilla, L. (2023, May 19). 8 Ways to Reduce Gender Inequality in the Workplace. Pacific Prime Hong Kong’s Blog. https://www.pacificprime.hk/blog/8-ways-to-solve-gender-inequality-in-workplace/

Gong, P., & Thomas, J. (2023). Thumb on the Scale: Do Employers Manage Glassdoor Reviews? SSRN Electronic Journal. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4460625

Gender Inequality: Work Place Issues. (2020, October). Journal of Economics and Sustainable Development. https://doi.org/10.7176/jesd/11-20-05