Male

• Yet, it’s easy to see how pay transparency can make pay systems fairer and more effective.
• When pay is weakly aligned with employee contributions, pay transparency can be embarrassing for firms.

The salary taboo

• Buffer lists the salary of every company employee, in descending order, on its website.
• Does Buffer’s pay system make you cheer – “yay, no uncomfortable salary negotiations!”, or squirm – “what, my salary is on the website?” Most probably, both.
• There is a persistent social norm researchers call the salary taboo.

The problem with not knowing

• Historically, companies have given employees only minimal information about their pay systems, and some have even prohibited them from sharing their own pay information.
• The more managers become convinced that pay decisions accurately reflect employee contributions, the less diligent they become about monitoring their own personal biases.

• Second, in the absence of comparative information, employees often suspect they are being underpaid – even if they aren’t.
• In a survey of over 380,000 employees by data firm Payscale, 57% of employees paid at the market rate and 42% of people paid above the market rate all believed they were being underpaid.

Pay transparency is trending

• Broadly speaking, pay transparency policies see companies report their pay levels or ranges, explain their pay-setting processes, or encourage their employees to share pay information.
• Read more:
  Pay secrecy clauses are now banned in Australia; here's how that could benefit you

  The European Union’s Pay Transparency Directive already publishes gender pay gaps and requires employers to provide comparative pay data to employees upon request.

Pay transparency usually has positive effects

• People also generally underestimate their bosses’ salaries, so pay transparency can inspire employees to aspire to higher-paid senior positions.
• And pay transparency identifies staff with unique expertise, so employees seek help from the right coworkers.

Pay transparency has also been shown to help narrow gender pay gaps. As pay transparency rules spread across public academic institutions in the US, the pay gap between male and female academics dramatically narrowed (in some states, it was even eliminated). In Denmark, where firms are now required to provide pay statistics that compare men and women, the national gender pay gap has declined by 13% relative to the pre-legislation average.

But it can still be risky

• Pay transparency exposes these exceptions, so they can be immediately explained or corrected.
• Over the long run, pay transparency leads to flatter and narrower pay distributions, but distributions can also be too flat and too narrow.

Proceed with caution

• As stakeholders on this issue demand more transparency, employers would be wise to stay ahead of legislative moves.
• Independently making the first move is a show of good faith and can unfold in stages.

Carol T Kulik does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

• These attitudes stand in the way of musicians wanting to make a career out of their art.
• I am a professional musician, music scholar and environmental activist who’s interested in the global challenges that musicians face.
• In a recent paper I examined the strategies adopted by Okyeame Kwame (OK), one of the pioneers of hiplife music in Ghana, to sustain his career.
• Hiplife music combines traditional Ghanaian music styles like highlife music with hip hop.

Resilience

• Resilience can be defined as the capacity to recover and maintain an identity and continuity despite setbacks and change.
• Ethnomusicologist Jeff T. Titon explains that resilience involves finding weaknesses and strengths related to changes, then improving in the weak areas and enhancing the strengths.
• Based on my research I concluded that Okyeame Kwame had shown resilience through difficult times.

Diversification

• He used his music to become well known and then built on his popularity to create another business to earn money.
• He explained:
  The music itself is not valuable, but the secondary economy of being a musician is valuable.
• The music itself is not valuable, but the secondary economy of being a musician is valuable.

Interconnectivity

• Musicians must nurture a good relationship with their fans and colleagues by collaborating on music and other projects.
• Economists Jordi McKenzie, Paul Crosby and Liam Lenten, in their work on creative production methods in the music industry, recognise the rise of collaboration among musicians on individual song projects.

Conclusion

• The viability of any music culture depends on the availability of musicians.
• Hence, not paying attention to musicians’ economic sustainability can lead to unsustainable music.

Josh Opoku Brew does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

• Recent education policy changes and protests about sex education reveal increasing concern and polarization over how sex and gender identity are taught in public schools in Canada.
• They also expose the significant role now played by school boards in constructing the meaning of gender identity and gender expression.
• Changes in how words and terms are used can impact our ability to know about people’s lives and protect their rights.
• Significant shifts are taking place around how we define and understand sex and gender in education and public policy in Canada.

Sex, gender and law

• Yet sex, gender identity and gender expression are not defined in human rights legislation in Canada.
• They should be able to express their concerns and participate in open discussions about the meaning of words we share.

Changes in the definition of sex

• The Charter of the United Nations prohibits sex discrimination.
• The United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights precludes discrimination based on sex.

Changes since 2018

Since 2018, the word sex is increasingly defined by the federal government as something that is “assigned at birth.” But there is no consistency across federal departments and agencies. Some continue to define sex as a biological question of male or female. Those that define sex as assigned at birth do not consistently explain how sex is assigned or by whom.

Conceptual shifts around word ‘woman’

• Similar conceptual shifts are taking place around the word woman.
• The word woman was formerly linked to sex and used to refer to female people.
• Now, government departments including the Department of Justice increasingly use the word woman to refer to all people who identify as women.

Defining gender identity

• When gender identity was added to federal human rights legislation, the Department of Justice defined gender identity as:
  “each person’s internal and individual experience of gender.
• A person’s gender identity may or may not align with the gender typically associated with their sex.”
  “A person’s internal and deeply felt sense of being a man or woman, both or neither.
• A person’s gender identity may or may not align with the gender typically associated with their sex.”

School boards define terms differently

• Researchers have identified that secular boards across Ontario define gender identity and gender expression differently from one another.
• Some school boards now define gender identity as something everyone has.

Data collection shifts away from sex towards gender

• A shift away from sex and towards gender (identity) has occurred in data collection practices at the federal government level.
• In 2018, the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat and the Department of Justice Canada recommended “ways to modernize how the Government of Canada handles information on sex and gender.” They recommended that “departments and agencies should collect or display gender information by default, unless sex information is specifically needed.” They used “sex” to refer to biological characteristics, and “gender” to refer to a social and personal identity.

Open discussions are overdue

As Canadian society shifts to accommodate the legal recognition of gender diversity, there will be tensions. Ultimately, courts will be tasked with deciding how some of those tensions are resolved, when sex, gender identity and gender expression are all protected in human rights laws. In the meantime, as a society, we need to openly and transparently grapple with some increasingly important questions:
First, how will foundational concepts such as sex, gender identity and gender expression be defined and given effect in education, law, public policy and beyond?
Second, how will tensions between experiences, interests and rights associated with sex and those associated with gender identity and/or gender expression be resolved?
Third, who is best placed to decide how these questions are answered in education, law, public policy and beyond?
Everyone who may be impacted by the answers to these questions should be included in the conversation.
Debra M Haak receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, the Canadian Bar Association Law for the Future Fund, and the Queen's University Faculty Association Fund for Scholarly Research.

• McWhorter expresses Patronage for Pope Francis's "Dignitas Infinita," emphasizing the infinite dignity of all individuals.
• Recognizing his own journey, McWhorter admits to the human tendency to judge others, a misstep he believes all share.
• This verse underscores the Christian call to view and treat every individual with equality, respect, and love, transcending religious and cultural differences.
• This stance is not about compromising beliefs but about reaffirming the essence of Christian love and grace as the foundation for interactions with all individuals.