Four hundred euros: That’s the gap between the salary of a midwife and that of a hospital engineer after twenty years of work. With comparable functions, complexities and responsibilities, jobs are not subject to the same financial recognition depending on whether they are predominantly carried out by men or women.

This is the result of a study by the two economists Séverine Lemière and Rachel Silvera, which they developed in their contribution to the scientific communication project “What do we know about work?” ” from Interdisciplinary laboratory for public policy assessment (Liepp), distributed in collaboration with Presses de Sciences Po on the Jobs channel from the website Lemonde.fr.

Using two professional examples, that of a midwife and that of a hospital engineer, the two economists compare the work content and determine the inequalities in treatment. To do this, they did the following a study of 7,000 people in the industry “Care and connection to others” between September 2021 and December 2022.

The principle of “equal work, equal pay” enshrined in the Labor Code (Article L. 3221-4) has been in force since the Roudy Law of 1983 “Work that requires comparable professional knowledge secured by a title, diploma or professional experience, skills resulting from acquired experience, responsibility and physical or nervous stress”.

Two possible grades compared to four

Midwife and hospital engineer are both category A professions in the public service and at the Bachelor + 5 level. Complexity of the job, responsibilities and organizational requirements are important for the two professions under consideration. In her daily life, a midwife is at the same time a childcare worker, a nurse, a carer and hospital service provider, a social worker for the weakest and a psychologist in the most dramatic situations, the authors describe.

The role of the midwife is both technical and organizational: she can supervise multiple deliveries at the same time and oversee a service at the same time. For his part, the hospital engineer directs, coordinates and controls the various activities of the technical services, develops and manages programs. He ensures the maintenance of the equipment. Solving problems is also the focus of his work.

However, if you read the job benchmarks and analyze the pay scales, salaries diverge more and more as seniority increases, always in favor of engineers. And career progression for midwives, who have only two possible grades, plateaus earlier, compared to four for hospital engineers.

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