“When your work is not rated by professional skills, but by the fact that you are a woman.” Astghik’s story

28-year-old Astghik (name changed) has lost her job twice because of her gender. Astghik, an economist by profession, says: “Perhaps I was not lucky to be a girl because when one’s job is not valued by professional skills, but by being a woman, I think, if I were a boy, everything would have been easier”.

Years ago, Astghik worked in a non-state enterprise the name of which she did not want to publish, saying that she was admitted by an interview first performing secretary tasks and then helped the accountant.

She was bearing the whole burden of the difficult work, doing everything properly, trying to satisfy the leadership, but unfortunately, they were repeating year-by-year that she was a beginner and had to work longer in order to have an increase in salary. As she had no other choice she was working waiting with patience for that day to come. So just having a slight increase in her salary, she was told that in comparison with her male colleague she cannot be paid much, as he had a family and problems to solve, instead she was alone and could manage to live even with that amount of money which was extremely offensive for her.

Her next job was the repetition of the story – low salary compared to male colleagues’ salaries and inequality.

According to the report of the National Statistical Service, “Labor Market in Armenia 2016”, the average nominal wage for men in 2014 was 189,868 AMD  and that of women – 124,586 AMD. In 2015 the average nominal salary of men was 204 720 AMD and that of women – 135 627 AMD. That is, men’s salary has apparently increased more than women’s in a year. Meanwhile, men in 2014 were paid by an average of 65,000  higher than women, the same figure in 2015 was 69,000 AMD.

According to the data of the last RA National Statistical Yearbook, 2016, the average monthly nominal wage of women in Armenia was 66.4% of male earnings or gender fraud (the difference) was 33.6%. Meanwhile, the number of women with higher or vocational education in the labor market is greater than that of men.

Full text in Armenian