Gender Pay Gap report calls for tax relief for female-headed households

A comprehensive Gender Pay Gap report by Catalytic Strategy, an evidence-based advocacy mechanism for Women’s Economic Justice in South Africa, calls for an urgent review of legislation to improve the monitoring and measurement of the gender pay gap in the country.

Current legislation, including the Employment Equity Act and the Promotion of Equality and Prevention of Unfair Discrimination Act, fails to adequately address the complex and intersectional nature of gender-based disparities.

Additionally, the informal sector, where many women are employed in precarious and low-paying jobs without legal protections, remains largely unaddressed in existing policies. This omission makes it difficult to challenge pay disparities and perpetuates existing social, economic and cultural inequalities.

Speaking at the launch of the report yesterday, Shirley Machaba, the chief executive officer of PwC, said creating a more equitable workplace was not just a moral imperative, but a catalyst for economic growth and prosperity. “Over the past few years, countries across the OECD have had to grapple with periods of economic slowdown, and due to their disproportionate representation in insecure employment and low-paying sectors, women have often been most heavily impacted by exacerbating existing inequalities. Downturns pose a monumental challenge to achieving gender equality at work,” she said.

Speaking at the launch, Girlie Silinda of Arche Advisory, who researched, wrote and edited the Gender Pay Gap report, said while a lack of economic growth was arguably the most critical problem facing South Africa, it served to hide the bigger and darker face of the gender pay gap.

“It [the gender pay gap] has actually become a cancer intersectionality within the industries and companies,” she said. 

Tax relief

The report notes that although some affirmative action policies have been implemented, this has not effectively translated into tangible improvements for women in terms of equal pay and representation in senior positions. One suggestion in the report is the introduction of tax relief for families headed and supported financially by women.

Silinda said weaker enforcement of employment equity laws has resulted in persistent gender disparities in the workplace, with women continuing to face discrimination in hiring, promotion and pay.

“This undermines the overall effectiveness of employment equity policies,” she noted. One of the suggestions in the report is the introduction of tax relief for families headed and supported financially by women.

This would require a comprehensive approach that addressed various aspects of the financial challenges faced by such households.

“Government could, for instance, consider implementing a progressive taxation system comprising targeted tax credits. By taxing higher incomes at higher rates and providing specific deductions for single parents, governments can directly reduce the tax liability for these households,” the report says.

Although the Employment Equity Act already makes provision for equal pay, the report takes it a step further by recommending policy interventions to ensure that the Act’s provisions are effectively implemented. Interventions suggested include the introduction of a quota for the minimum representation of women in the leadership structures of an entity, accompanied by punitive measures for non-compliance, where such quotas have not been attained.

Disparities highlighted in the report include:

• 40% of households in South Africa are led by women. Although women are increasingly taking on more financial responsibility and tax obligations, only 14% of women fall into the category of top earners.


• Women accounted for 43.4% of total employment in the second quarter of 2021, while the labour force participation rate for women stood at 54.3% compared with 64.9 % for men, a gap of 10.6 % points.


• Women’s representation within the private sector remains the lowest, with women constituting only 25.3 % of top management positions, as opposed to 36.9 % in the public sector. Women constitute less than 3% of CEO positions at JSE-listed companies.

The JSE, one of the key supporters of the report, has itself made huge strides towards gender equality. Vuyo Lee, director of marketing and corporate affairs at the JSE, says the stock exchange has 80% female representation on its exco team, 58% female board members and 53% of staff are female. “That’s something our management worked on intentionally over the years. We have a number of women development programmes and the intent is to grow our own timber, so we have leadership courses so that when the time comes for a replacement at higher levels, we promote from within,” she told Daily Maverick.

Dr Janine Hicks, senior lecturer in the Law Faculty at the University of Kwazulu Natal, hailed the report as a “fresh and timely analysis of the history and extent of the gender pay gap in the South African labour system, and the driving factors that enable its insidious perpetuation … not only in the formal sector, but equally in the informal sector. ”

Currently, there is no uniform methodology for calculating the gender pay gap, leading to inconsistencies in data collection and reporting. The introduction of a national measurement tool would facilitate accurate comparisons across industries and job categories. Such a tool would ensure that the data collected is comprehensive, reliable and actionable, providing a clearer understanding of the true state of pay equity within the country.

Faith Khanyile: chairperson of Catalytic Strategy. says one of the critical areas that needs to be addressed is the recognition and quantification of unpaid work, which contributes significantly to the national GDP but needs to be accounted for in current economic policies.

The Gender Pay Gap research was undertaken by the Women Economic Justice Catalytic Strategy, established in 2019 by the International Women’s Forum of South Africa and WDB Investment Holdings with the support of Anglo American South Africa and the Johannesburg Stock Exchange. DM