WOMEN working in the community and voluntary sector may be soaring through the glass ceiling accounting for half of the top CEO roles in the country, but exactly how much are they valued.
A National Guide to Pay and Benefits in Community Voluntary and Charitable Organisations has just been launched by the Community Foundation in Ireland, and it shows that female CEO’s in the sector are paid substantially less than their male counterparts.
The report is very much a case of ‘good news’ ‘bad news’ for a sector that prides itself on equality.
On one hand it proves that the voluntary and community sector is much more proactive recognising the abilities and potential of female staff than it’s private counterpart. In fact figures show almost equal numbers of male and female CEOs – 77 to 78 respectively.
However this seems to be where the ‘good news’ ends for voluntary and community bodies striving for equality. The survey shows the overall annual rate of pay is 16% lower for female CEOs than for male CEOs.
The survey of 261 voluntary, community and charitable companies disappointingly mirrors the inequality that exists in the private sector and makes for disappointing reading for a sector that prides itself on employing women in key high level roles
According to the survey the disparity in pay varies among organisations depending on size, sector and income, but in EVERY case the female rate was found to be lower than the male rate.
•In smaller organisations and those earning less than €100,000 the difference was as high as 20 per cent in pay rates between male and female CEOs.
•Even in the biggest organisations, those employing over 20 employees and earning upwards of €5,000,000, there is a disparity of between 10 and 15 per cent.
•The biggest offenders are in the social services sector where there is a difference of 29 per cent in the wages paid to women CEOs in comparison to their male counterparts.
While anecdotally accepted as the norm in private companies, the pay inequality is even more serious for female workers in the voluntary sector where pay rates are already, according to this survey, “significantly below those of the private sector in relation to higher management grades”.
Overall in the voluntary sector women make up seven in ten workers- 2,101 male employees to 5,813 female employees. In fact two thirds (66%) of full time employees and more than three-quarters (76%) of part time workers in the area were female.
While representing 70 per cent employees they are found at the helm of just half of Irish organisations, and female representation on Boards of Management was, on average, 50 per cent of all board members.
Looking to both extremes in 14 organisations, all members of the Board, were female, while three organisations had no female board members at all.
Of particular interest to women working in the voluntary sector will be figures that show just 39 per cent of organisations paid employees over and above the statutory entitlement when they were out on maternity leave.
Of those who do pay over and above this entitlement, just over half, require a minimum service requirement, ranging anywhere from 6 months to 4 years.
It is universally accepted that female workers take most advantage of flexible working arrangements and it is encouraging that almost three-quarters of voluntary and community organisations operated flexible working arrangements, mainly in the form of part time work or flexi time.
•71% offered flexitime
•70% part time work
•53% personalised hours (individually negotiated)
•51% working from
•24% job sharing
•25% career breaks
•10% term time (working only during school terms)
The salary report however makes interesting reading not only in terms of highlighting pay inequalities in the sector.
Overall it looked at a total of 261 organisations- employing 8,281 workers- 60 per cent of whom work full-time. There were also approximately 67,500 volunteers working within the organisations surveyed, adding up to a total almost 76,000 people.
The context of the survey is also interesting, it is the first that has been carried out since 2008 and comes after a period of severe recession during which demand increased on all non-profit organisations. It was also a period during which “60 per cent of non-profits experienced a decrease in their income resulting in 44 per cent of organisations dropping some services between 2009 and 2015”.
“It was also a concern that at a time of increased demand, a number of high profile scandals in the non-profit sector over 2013 and 2014 raised questions about the integrity of the sector, drew public attention to the issue of pay and benefits of the sector and anecdotally damaged fundraising and income for many organisations,” the survey suggested.
Other key figures included in the survey include:
~35% of organisations had between one and five employees, 27% have twenty or more employees. Overall there were more full-time employees (60%) than part-time employees (40%). Salaries are the biggest expenditure in the sector.
~In comparison with pay data from the 2008 survey- broadly eight out of ten average pay rates were either lower (64%) or had not changed (15%) in the 2015 guide. Only one in four (21%) average pay rates had increased.
~28% of organisations gave a pay increase to some employees in the 12 months prior to the survey, with 16% planning to give a pay rise in the coming months.
~93 per cent of organisations do no pay for overtime working.
~Sectors- most common identified areas of activity were- social services (34%), health (16%) and international development (10%).
~More than half of the organisations (55%) in the survey had an annual income of less than €500,000 in 2014, while almost a third (30%) had €1million or more.
~Average funding in 2014 from Government represented 58.3% of income with the second highest contribution coming from donations at 15.6%
The aim of the report is to support transparency in the non-profit sector, but also to provide a benchmarking tool to support Boards of Management to determine fair and competitive pay rates for their staff.
Written by Mary Murphy
