It’s no surprise that for many years – decades even – women’s pay cheques have been lagging quite far behind those of men. However, things have dramatically changed as freelancing and being self-employed has become more common. The pay gap between the sexes for jobs that are freelance or self-employed is very small, in some professions, women even earn more. Online services marketplace Bidvine.com have analyzed data to come up with some helpful results that show how the pay gap really is for freelancers and the self-employed.
The study asked 150 men and 150 women from each of the sectors on the website some questions in order to provide information about their rates. The results show that there is little-to-no proof that there’s a substantial pay gap between the sexes in freelancing work. This is a refreshing change from many of the other industries where women are often paid substantially less than their male counterparts.
If you’re interested in specific freelancing industries and hourly rates, here are some examples of freelancing work and the pay differences between the sexes:
As you can see, while both sexes earn very similar rates across the board, women actually earn more in the following five freelance professions: wedding photography, domestic cleaning, music lessons, language lessons and singing lessons. In this example there are a total of 10 professions listed, so to have women earn more in 5 of them, means that in 50% of these freelancing positions women earn more than men. This is exciting because women are becoming a more regular part of the workforce, investing more in their education and at the end of the day they deserve to be compensated the same way for the same work.
Why Could This Be Changing?
Freelancers and the self-employed get to choose their rates, as in they can refuse to work for less than they expect. When you work in a traditional work environment, while you can negotiate your salary, I personally feel you have a lot less influence on how much you really get paid in the end. Likewise, when you’re working in a freelancing or self-employed role, you do not receive benefits such as maternity leave, which may influence how much salary female workers are given.
Personally, I feel very excited about this news and I hope to see the other industries become more equal. Women work hard and have a lot to offer in the workplace and should be compensated accordingly.