A new style for the same thing

Education, women, and the labor market

The social and the economic conditions of the Salvadoran families are critical aspects of the every-day life. The performance of the country’s economy is characterized by a deterioration of its activities, a high level of unemployment, and an informal sector that is constantly growing. In this context, there are other particular elements that affect the conditions in which the families live, especially those families that have women at the head of the home. In El Salvador, there are approximately 510,358 homes in this situation. This figure corresponds to 33.5% of the total number of homes. That is why it is important to know what is the income level of these women, since this could throw some light on the economic conditions of these families, and, in addition, reveal the biased issue of the genders in the performance of the economy.

It has constantly been said that one of the most important roads for the development of a country is education. Those who keep this thesis alive say that an adequate process of education is connected, for instance, with better standards of economic remuneration. Therefore, one efforts of the State should head itself to make it easy to have access to education. This thesis cannot always be technically proven right. This could be due to the fact that its defenders evade the idea that man and women are not equally remunerated, even when they have the same level of education.

In El Salvador, in general terms, the average salaries tend to grow accordingly with the educational level. A person that has never followed a formal education process could have an average salary of $126.60 dollars per month. On the other hand, those who have finished high school and have a superior level of education are able to make approximately $575.70 dollars a month. It seems odd that this tendency of the salaries is not a steady one. For example, those people that studied from the first to the ninth grade have access to a very similar amount of remuneration (between $180.9 and $201.6 dollars). There are also those that had the possibility to go to high school or get technical training. These people have an average salary of $283.10 dollars. There are those that have been able to have a college or a university degree with an average salary of $575.70 dollars.

In the case of the women, this information is not consistent with their daily lives, because they have a low level of remuneration if compared with the salaries that men receive, even when women have had the same level of education. There are always exceptions; however, for the women who have an education level between the first and the ninth grade, the salary that men receive with the same education level receive is 35% higher than the one of these women. The men that have finished high school are paid approximately 58% more than the women with the same level of education.

When the higher levels of education are analyzed, the difference in the salaries that men and women make seems to grow wider. The professional field is the one that has the largest gap. A man can practically make an income twice the amount of the one that a woman can make in this field. However, some people could say that these differences are fundamentally the result of the fact that even if men and women have the same level of education, that does not mean that they work in the same sector of the economy or that they have the same identical responsibilities, something that could actually determine the level of remuneration. This article will focus on the fact that even if this element is taken into consideration, the formerly described differences in the salaries are a fact.

The group of workers that represent the higher levels of discrimination in the professional field are directors, officials, and scientists. Inside the private corporations and the State, those people that have a “medium amount of control”, receive a monthly salary of approximately $1,300 dollars. There is a considerable difference between the salary that a men and a woman receives. At this level, men make 46.5% more than women, and, in absolute terms, this difference is $429.15 dollars.

In the professional and the scientific field of work this salary gap is $430.36. Everything seems to contradict the thesis that says that the salary level corresponds to the educational level. This relation generally works among women, but it loses its value in relation to the men with the same academic level.

If this phenomenon is observed through the different branches of the economic activity, the results tend to vary. There are sectors where women make a larger income than men do: construction, transportation, department stores, communications, public administration, and defense. Even so, in the educational field men earn 70% more than women do. According to this information, the merits of the academic background are not really taken into consideration when it comes to the remuneration of men and women, even when they have practically the same level of education. This means that in the scientific and the professional field there is a dramatic difference between the salaries of men and women.

In addition, in those branches of the economy where qualified working skills are not required, women are discriminated. In the maquilas, the general characteristics that reflect the situation of women are the following: 80% of the staff are women between the ages of 20 and 26. Among these women, 50% are forced to work beyond the 44 laboring hours that are legally established because of the production “goals” programmed by their bosses and supervisors. Approximately 47% of these women suffer from respiratory complications due to the inadequate conditions in which they perform their tasks inside the factories, especially because of the lack of ventilation. On the other hand, 40% of the maquilas installed in the country have been reported for, mistreatments, threats of firing people, salary cuts, and physical violence (see the document of the CEPAL titled “The working and the economic situation of the maquila in El Salvador: an analysis of gender”).

In this context –a growing number of women who become the heads of the home, the existence of a considerable difference between the salaries for men and women in favor of men, the precarious employment conditions for women-, it is necessary that the State makes a systematic effort to promote the public policies that can help the society to eliminate the discrimination of salaries and the mistreatments inside the factories and companies. These changes would bring many benefits for the country, especially if the person that provides for the family is a woman. Women represent 55% of the Economically Active Population (PEA, in Spanish). A measure of this nature could increase the life standards of more than half of the PEA.
 

The employment pact or the monologue of the right wing

President Saca had a meeting with several businessmen to discuss how to increase the employment level. These businessmen are old acquaintances: the business elite gathered at the ANEP, and the nucleus of thought that they sponsor, FUSADES. The director of the Salvadoran Banking Association (ABANSA, in Spanish), Gustavo Belismelis, the members of the governmental cabinet, and other important business people attended to the meeting as well. However, far from the expectations of the media, created by the conclave, there are no signs that could allow us to see if there will be any changes inside the labor policy of the last few years. The alleged dialogue between the businessmen and the President was nothing but a conversation held by the most important figures of the hegemonic block of the right wing, numerous intellectuals, public officials, bankers, and men of the industry that have traced the destinies of the country during the last fifteen years.

A meeting full of flattery
The discussion was about the creation of an institutional ground for an “employment pact” between the businessmen and the government. This initiative had been announced on June 1st, during the presidential inauguration. However, this particular encounter was the scenery to pay mutual respects. Camaraderie was the rule. Belismelis said “this will be an exemplar government, there will be a dialogue with each sector”, and he also mentioned that the Salvadoran banking system was willing to support the decisions of the government. The president of FUSADES, Antonio Cabrales, stated, according to a press release from the Presidential House, that the associations that he represents felt satisfied with the meeting “especially because they felt that everyone heard what they had to say to the Saca administration”. Cabrales also said that they were at the disposition of the President: “we want that the President counts with his tank of thought, that is, FUSADES”.

By the end of the meeting, President Saca said that he would keep in constant communication with the business sector, and that one of the first steps would be to establish a dialogue table directed by the Vice-President Vilma de Escobar and integrated by the technical secretary of the Presidency, Eduardo Zablah; the minister of the Internal Revenue Service, Guillermo López; the minister of Economy, Yolanda de Gavidia; and the commissioner for Governance, Gloria Salguero. The new President wanted to speak about a public issue: the union between his administration and the business elite, the same people who financed his campaign.

A table for just a few people
The initiative of Saca responds to his intentions to establish a dialogue with all of the national sectors. He has been repeating this statement since he was developing his campaign. “In order to govern –said during his presidential inauguration- it is necessary to know how to listen”. His disposition to establish a dialogue process was one of the virtues of his powerful advertising campaign, which led ARENA to its fourth governmental period. The pact for employment, in the best of cases, is a first step to establish the foundations of a national dialogue. However, experience suggests more of an skeptical attitude.

Saca listened to most people during his campaign tour around the country. His faithful allies had a recent meeting with him, that is, the business elite, that together with the financial sector and the state’s apparatus controlled by the official party, form a union able to make the decision for the country without any obstacles on the way. Outside that circle, there are those who, thinking differently from the official discourse, did not meet with the President simply because they do not fit in that exclusive group. Other national sectors that have to do with the labor conditions in the country did not arrived to the meeting either. The representatives of the workers were not there.

In a less optimistic scenery, the widely advertised pact of employment is nothing but a monologue of the right wing, a sector interested in keeping a false open image for the political, the social, and the economic sectors of the country. This is the old and failed strategy used whenever a new administration period begins, the same strategy of open arms and will that characterized, for instance, the beginning of the Flores administration. In this sense, Saca has the challenge to fulfill his promises, the promises he made during the electoral campaign, and the challenge to open his circle to include those that do not necessarily share his perspectives.

Outside the presidential office
The situation of the national employment level does not seem to be as positive as the official discourse sustains. The statistics used by the government speak about an unemployment level of 6.2%; however, it usually evades the growing phenomenon of both the informal jobs and under-employment. For 2002, for instance, 49.7% of the urban population began to work in the informal sector, and women ended up representing 52.5% of the total number of informal workers, according to a recent study made by FUNDE. For the same year, the under-employment level represented 17% of the Economically Active Population (PEA, in Spanish), definitively a high level. The same report indicated a series of methodological limitations, which suggest that the official statistics are not necessarily accurate, and that, therefore, the unemployment, the under-employment, and the informal employment levels are much higher.

The announcement of the employment pact was parallel to the presentation of the report made by the Human Rights Watch organization that denounces the humiliations that children suffer in the sugar plantations located all over the country. This report has created a debate between those that, just like the editorialist of El Diario de Hoy, consider that it is better to see children working extra time than to see them committing crimes on the streets or joining a gang. There are others who, on the other hand, say that children should not be working beyond the regular schedules because they are exposed to terrible dangers for their health, and because this prevents them from having full access to education and to other benefits.

The same organization also reported by the beginning of the year the abuse committed against the girls who work as house maids in El Salvador, explaining that their duties interfere with “their education and they are exploited, economically speaking. They are exposed to hazardous duties, and the Salvadoran legislation might be violated here, as well as the international rights’ accords”. The truth is that children working as adults is one of the most important challenges for those that have discussed with the President the situation of the national employment level.

The hegemonic group of the right wing does have the capacity to change the employment situation in the country due to its mobilization capacity, its resourcefulness, and its cohesion. However, it suffers from a chronic apathy. The business elite is not interested in anything that goes beyond its ambiguous notion of “the social responsibility of the business companies”, and its members believe that to help others is the duty of the philanthropists and public charity associations.