Women Can Beat 'Gender Pay Gap' With Some Key Skills

By upgrading your skills in digital fluency, choosing different career paths and increasing technological and digital skills, young women can definitely wave off the age old gender pay gap persisted for generations. As per a report by CNN, combining these three strategies would narrow the worldwide pay gap by 35 percent by 2030. "Young women are making decisions now that could help close the gap," said Julie Sweet, North American CEO at Accenture. To achieve pay parity, the report outlines three things that need to happen: digital fluency, career strategy and tech immersion.

Digital fluency: Better incorporating digital technologies to connect, learn and work through things like online banking and using social media to network, would bring more women into the workforce and reduce the pay gap by 21 percent by 2030. "Women tend to lag in adopting new technology quickly," Sweet explained. To boost their participation in local job markets, women have to become more efficient in digital technology.

Career strategies: By choosing different college degrees and career paths and improving workplace support can also increase women’s earning power. Men are more likely to pursue a major with higher earning potential than women, and are also more likely to make choices that help advance their careers, Accenture found.

For instance, 53 percent of male undergraduates continuously learn new digital skills compared to 44 percent of females. When it comes to career advancement, 51 percent of male undergraduates hope to move into a senior leadership position one day, compared to 41 percent of female undergraduates. Tech immersion: Increasing women’s technological and digital skills is also a major factor in bringing pay parity. While earning a STEM-related degree increases a woman’s chances of working in a higher-paying career, it’s not necessary.

Taking classes in more science and math-related fields can also be career and salary boosters. "It’s literally immersing in more technological skills through course work," said Sweet. "It is taking a computer science or coding course." "There is a very clear and achievable road map," said Sweet. "This is not some pie in the sky idea." The gap tends to narrow when factors like education level, total hours worked, type of work, experience and job tenure are taken into account. In developing markets, these three steps would fast forward pay equality by 100 years, achieving it by 2066.

Source-ANI