With this year marking 100 years since women got the right to vote in the UK and International Women’s Day having recently passed, Wednesday 4th April 2018 was the deadline for the UK’s biggest companies to release their gender pay gap data. According to the BBC, over 10,000 large firms have provided details of their gender pay gap. This is the difference between average earnings for men and women.
The results of this annual data showed that 78% of firms pay men more than women. The national average of women being paid less than men is 18.4%. This is because generally, men are employed to higher-paid positions than women. This should then raise the question of why are women not employed as much to higher-paid positions?
There are many reasons behind this, but here are two, perhaps on opposite sides of the spectrum. One is recruitment bias. Glassdoor’s economic analysis of its gender pay gap has an “unexplained” section due to workplace bias or unobserved worker character. Although this category only made up 36% in the UK, it proves to be a contributing factor to the existing pay gap. Another explanation is that more women often care for children or elderly relatives, making them more likely to take up part-time positions, which tend to be lower-paid or limited promotion opportunities.
In the airline industry, pilots are overwhelmingly men, whilst cabin crew are mainly women. For example, Ryanair’s pay gap is 71.8%. However, the reason the gender pay gap is particularly problematic is because more women in lower-paid jobs and fewer in higher-paid jobs demonstrates a pattern shown across various sectors and most firms. Even Boots, a female dominated workforce, has a pay gap of 21%. So, what are the next steps to tackle this issue?
ITV have launched a working group to tackle their gap, whilst Hachette UK Ltd have set targets for women to form two thirds of its top pay quartile by 2020. These are both steps in the right direction. Other suggestions could be to enforce paternity leave or shared paternity leave, so not all pressure is put on women to leave or reduce work hours. Sweden legalised this in 1974. Furthermore, more flexible job roles to work from home could prove to be useful. Moreover, training more women for higher positions and mentoring on how to negotiate salary and working conditions could help close the gap.
By: Maxine Harrison
Sources:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-43668187
https://www.hachette.co.uk/assets/HachetteGroup/Hachette%20UK%20Gender%20Pay%20Gap%20Report.pdf
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/mar/20/itv-sets-up-working-group-to-tackle-119-gender-pay-gap
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/boots-uk-gender-pay-gap-21-percent-female-workforce-majority-report-senior-management-a8264661.html
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/may/28/swedish-fathers-paid-paternity-parental-leave
