On average, males’ earnings surpass females by between 14 per cent and 27 per cent, and there is even a difference among those with the same age and education reveals, with the men earning 25 per cent more.

That’s the conclusion of an Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) examination of gender earnings gaps in Barbados and Jamaica released last month.

The assessment, which the IDB said was based on data from the Barbados Statistical Service’s Continuous Labour Force Sample Survey for 2004. The Barbados Statistical service conducts the CLFSS on a quarterly basis.

According to the document, Gender Earnings Gaps in the Caribbean: Evidence from Barbados and Jamaica, in Barbados females’ educational achievement surpasses that of males, as 27.8 per cent of females have reached the tertiary level while only 22.6 per cent of males have done so.

But it added “when looking at average earnings per educational level, males earn more than females at all levels”.

“It is also interesting to see that average earnings for females with none, primary and secondary educational achievements are statistically similar. Among females, there are only notorious increases in earnings when they reach the tertiary level. For males the situation is different as earnings among secondary graduates are higher than earnings among those with none or primary education; moreover, earnings among tertiary graduates are even higher than among those with secondary achievement,” the report concluded.

“The presence of children and also other wage earners in the household is higher among females than among males. The differences in earnings, however, show different patterns. The earnings premium linked to children living in the household is higher for males than for females. The earnings premium linked to the presence of other wage earner at home is nonexistent for males and negative for females.”

“That is, females who have the sole responsibility of income generation at home tend to have higher earnings that those who have the support of a partner or a different person generating income with them.”

It was pointed out that the majority of workers in Barbados were private and public sector employees (82 per cent of males and 92 per cent of females) and as it stood now in Barbados being an employer was a male-dominated category, which it said was typical of most labour markets.

The report added, though, that what was uncommon was the fact that self-employment in Barbados was also male dominated, something that was “in sharp contrast with the rest of the developing world where this is a female-dominated category”.

Another observation made was that in Barbados while the highest earning males were the employers, public sector employment was the segment in the labour markets “that pays the most for females”.

“The highest-paid occupational group consists of professionals, which has important gender gaps comprising eight per cent of males and 14 per cent of females. The economic sectors of finance, insurance, real estate, business services and community, social and personal services have higher shares of female workers with respect to males (55 per cent of females versus 43 per cent of males), with important gender gaps in the business sectors and almost no gaps among social workers,” the IDB study noted.

“An economic sector with notorious gender differences in participation is construction, as it employs 18 percent of male workers and only one per cent of females. It is interesting to note, however, that the few females working in this show earning that are on average higher than those of males (although the table does not show statistical significance of the differences in earnings).”

“Regarding experience, males have higher representation in the segments with more experience. About 38 per cent of males show 11 years of experience or more, while 30 per cent of females report having similar experience. It is clear that earnings increase monotonically with experience for both females and males.” (SC) (Barbados Today)