WOMEN AND PAY INEQUALITY WHEN RACE IS THE FOCUS
The Truth Behind Systemic Racism and Black Women’s Pay
What recent research shows us for black American and British women
Many of us would say we could recognise systemic racism at play when we see it; but sometimes we don’t see it — we feel it. As in, our pockets feel it. A recent report from the American Association of University Women (AAUW) highlighted key data on women’s pay inequality, and took race into consideration. The report titled The Simple Truth About The Gender Pay Gap highlights how systemic racism impacts black American women’s pay. Page one of the report gives us a clear picture of how race and gender affect pay in the U.S.
When looking overseas — closer to home for me — black British women face historical systemic racism also, which has resulted in them experiencing pay inequality via the systems that were put in place long ago.
The big question is how? How does systemic racism do this to black women and women of colour regardless of a British or American nationality?
First, understanding the state of play for black American and British women now, in the twenty-first century, gives us insight into governmental systems which uphold the racism that impacts black women and their pay.
Then, looking back at the systems of oppression in the USA, and the United Kingdom, which invited black women to the country from the Caribbean islands, helps us understand how they were placed at a great disadvantage on arrival.
Systemic racism and black (American) women’s pay inequality
A supplement to the AAUW’s report, Systemic Racism and The Gender Pay Gap, found that as of 2019 within the occupations considered to be the lowest paid, American black women and women of colour are experiencing pay inequality, even if people of colour and women who identify as black or of colour make up the largest percentage of employees in these occupations. Looking closely at the data, in all but four areas where there is no data to compare men and women’s pay for the occupation, we see that black women have been:
- Paid less than their black or of colour male counterparts across the board in all occupations, apart from food preparation
- Have made up over 50% of the employee population in the occupations deemed as the lowest paid, apart from cooks and dishwashers
Further evidence of the pay gap for black women within the lowest paid occupations is shown in the above data for four professions where tipping is common as of 2019.
What this data shows when looked at in detail is:
- Black American women face an average of 126.00 USD less pay per week, on average, compared to their male counterparts, when the total deficit across all four occupations (504 USD) is averaged out.
- The profession of barbers/hairdressers have the largest pay gap for black American women, with women being paid 220.00 USD per week, on average, less than men. In other words, black American women receive just 72% of what men earn in this profession.
The AAUW argues:
“The significant pay disparities between substantially similar occupations provide further evidence of the undervaluing of women’s labor and explain a large piece of the gender pay gap.”
And
“The problem is not that women choose to do lower-paying work. The problem is that our society has always undervalued the work that women do and responded by lowering their wages.”
Essential workers and pay inequality for black American women
When looking at industries and the impact of systemic racism on pay inequality for black American women, we can see from the data above that:
- Health care is the industry with the highest amount of people of colour employed at 28%. However, black American women make up the most employed in this sector: 47% compared to men.
- Even though women make up the most employed in the health care sector, they face $5.12 less pay compared to men for the hourly wage, and $1.05 less than all workers over sixteen in the profession.
- From this data, it’s clear that generally speaking black American women are earning less per hour in industries composed of “essential workers” compared to not only men, but any and everyone over the age of sixteen.
- The biggest pay gap black American women face is in the financial sector: $14.32 less per hour than men; also $5.57 less than everyone over the age of sixteen. The second biggest gap is $4.81 less per hour when compared to everyone over the age of sixteen in the industrial, commercial, residential facilities, and services sector.
Why is this happening? And where does the “system” come into play to uphold pay inequality for American black women and women of colour based on the findings across the sectors above?
“De Jure” occupational segregation and inequality
The AAUW assert in their report that:
“Women and men tend to work in different kinds of jobs. Even though a pay gap exists within nearly every occupational field, jobs traditionally associated with men tend to pay better than traditionally female dominated jobs that require the same level of skill. Women are also concentrated in many of the lowest paying occupations. [Fig. 2] This is no accident, nor is it merely the result of women’s choices. While there are many modern factors that contribute to occupational segregation, its roots run deep.” — Page two of the report
The roots that “run deep” that they refer to are de jure — these are age old laws that applied across the USA to justify segregation and separation of races from a legal stance. Thought.co defines this as:
“De jure segregation refers specifically to potentially discriminatory segregation imposed or allowed by government-enacted laws, regulations, or accepted public policy. While they are created by their governments, instances of de jure segregation in most constitutionally governed nations, like the United States, may be repealed by legislation or overturned by the superior courts.
The clearest example of de jure segregation in the United States were the state and local Jim Crow Laws that enforced racial segregation in the post-Civil War South.”
These laws clearly applied at a time where a woman’s role or place was seen to be in the home. However, black women and women of colour were working outside of the home in large numbers for various reasons. Most likely, their male partners found it hard to find well paid work, even if they had male privilege and society (at the time) expected them to be actively employed and to be the only one in the household that should be employed when these laws were in force.
This dynamic of devaluing women’s jobs in paid (and unpaid) workplaces is apparent not just in the USA, but globally. This is justified by beliefs that women should be at home, not in the workplace, creating a chance to exploit women when it comes to fair pay. All women face this, not just black women, and women of colour. However, it’s women of colour and black women who were exploited the most — due to race discrimination also being a factor. Based on the findings in this study, it looks like not much has changed in the twenty-first century.
The AAUW argue that it’s the general devaluing of women in the workplace that is adding to the disparity for American black women and women of colour at work with regard to pay inequality. The data supplied above would support this: women are doing similar jobs in the same occupation as men, and also make up more than 50% of the workforce, bar two occupations (cooks and dishwashers shown in the first set of data images above). Even with women being present in such large numbers, the lack of pay equality would support the theory that women are still being undervalued in a general sense.
What the data from the AAUW study shows
Today, systemic racism via systems like de jure that date to post-slavery in the USA is still at play. Employers, it could be argued, are still either:
- Not willing to employ black women or women of colour in higher paid jobs, thereby relegating them to lower paid ones. This could be argued is a form of de jure — the dated, systemic way of upholding oppression, segregation, and keeping black people, minorities, and women at the bottom of the social hierarchy. However, it would appear that the de jure systemic racism is impacting black women more than men, in the lower paid job sectors.
- Women in the lower paid jobs (as evidenced in the study), are still being underpaid for like-for-like work compared to men. This could also be argued to be a form of de jure — the dated, systemic way of keeping women out of well paid work, and less independent.
- If employers are willing to employ black women or women of colour in higher paid jobs, they face a strong chance of de jure systemic racism based on their race; it’s not just gender that is an issue.
The evidence for the last point could be found when we consider how diverse organisations are at the top and/or in the highest paid jobs — with first women, and second black women and women of colour not appearing in those high-paid positions.
What we can conclude from the AAUW’s study is that dated, systemic racist systems are keeping black American women in lower paid jobs, as they occupy them the most. Also, while they are there, this same dated system and belief system about the value of women’s work while at work seem to keeping them underpaid — compared to men. If these logical assumptions taken from the data and history were not true, the evidence from the AAUWs study would show a different picture.
Black British women and pay inequality: the equivalent to de jure
Across the water, black women have a similar situation when it comes to pay inequality. As reported in The Guardian Newspaper last November, black British and Asian workers have earned less than white people for the last ten years.
The Guardian confirmed that:
“Among UK-born workers, black employees had the biggest pay gap, earning 5.6% less than white employees.
Non-UK-born black employees registered the highest pay gap in 2022, earning 12% less than UK-born white workers, according to the statistics produced by the Office for National Statistics.”
They also confirmed that black workers had the highest pay gap compared to white workers in 2022. Another disappointing thing to learn is that in the UK, a person’s country of birth also impacted how much employees were paid.
Racism for black British women and its “roots”
In the USA, the AAUW argued that the roots of systemic racism dated back to de jure laws, which made systemic racism within organisations possible and arguably is still doing so when we look at the state of women’s pay inequality in the USA in lower paid jobs.
In the UK, information found in the Heart of The Race: Black Women’s Lives in Britain (1985) by Beverley Bryan, Stella Dadzie, and Suzanne Scafe, shows cases of women who were invited over from the Caribbean islands experiencing the systemic racism that was already in place, ready for their arrival in the UK.
For myself, as the daughter of immigrants from the Caribbean who came to the UK, I have heard the first-hand experiences from my parents of the racism they experienced when it came to work. This was despite black people being “invited over” to “build up the Motherland” as the British government of the time advertised it, giving those descendants of slaves from the Caribbean islands the promise of a British passport, work, and streets paved of gold if they sailed to the UK. It was women who experienced the greatest amount of systemic racism upon arrival.
For black women, many whom were skilled workers who left the Caribbean islands for the promise of work in the National Health Service (NHS), the UK’s health care system, Stella Dadzie et. al. write in their work that:
“The deliberate policy of enrolling black women as State Enrolled nurses rather than State Registered nurses, effectively limited our career prospects and chances of returning home. Many of us entered the hospitals on the mistaken assumption that we would receive SR nurse training. Others were told that only an unspecified period of time spent as an auxiliary would qualify them for training.” — Chapter two, pg 40
It appears that while the British government had a serious skills shortage around the late fifties, and as a result invited “third world women” over from the Caribbean islands to train for highly skilled jobs such as nurses, they placed restrictions within the “system” that would not allow them to qualify as quickly, easily, or be as paid as well compared to their white counterparts who were training to be nurses. This in turn kept black women from the Caribbean trapped in a country and system they would not have necessarily chosen if they were aware of the systemic racism at play.
What we can take from the AAUWs report for black American women, and Stella Dadzie et. al.’s writings in chapter two of Heart of The Race: Black Women’s Lives in Britain (1985), is that historically these systems did a very good job of restricting our foremothers on both sides of the Atlantic.
Today, with the evidence that in America black women are facing pay inequality problems across a number of sectors, and black people as a whole are facing the same in the UK, which of course would include black British women — it shows not much has changed from our foremother’s time when whether you were an American or British black woman, systemic racism was very much at play. It’s a fair and logical assumption that this impacts black women and women of colour greatly when it comes to fair pay, if we analyze the research.
Have you ever experienced pay inequality as a black woman or woman or colour?
Thanks for your readership, I hope my writing gave you something to think about. If I’ve caught you in a good mood or you’re feeling kind, you can buy me a cup of herbal tea here: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/MeAndMyMuse
Further reading on women’s pay inequality
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