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Women: Like men, only cheaper

Amber Thomas
Hurray! It’s equal pay day! The day when men and women are finally paid the same… Oh, wait – no, it doesn’t mean that at all. Equal Pay Day actually refers to the day of the year when women stop earning, compared to men.


The current pay gap between men and women in the UK is 13.9%, which means that this year, Equal Pay day falls on November 10th. This is an improvement on last year (November 9th), but is progress being made quickly enough? There are 51 days left of the year – if we only improve one day a year, most people reading this are more likely to see retirement before they see wage parity!


Women are increasingly well educated, so why isn’t this translating into higher pay? In the UK, the aggregate (full and part time) gender pay gap for graduates ten years after graduation is 23% [1] Why do you think this is?


The gender pay gap also varies by occupation and ranges from 3.9% for sales (a decrease) and customer service, to 25.1% (an increase) for skilled trade occupations in April 2015 [2] (such as electricians, plumbers, carpenters, welders, technicians, engineers etc. - you know, those jobs we are trying to get more women into...).


Why, when the 1970 Equal Pay Act has been around for nearly 50 years is there still such discrepancy?


The Government is bringing in mandatory pay transparency rules, which mean that all companies with more than 250 employees will be required to disclose how much they are paying in salaries and bonuses to their male and female staff. There is a further plan for a league table to be produced which will rank the worst offenders. This league table is scheduled for 2018. Come on, Businesses! You’ve got 2 years to sort out these gaps before you are named and shamed!


In the meantime, if you are being paid less than a man and wish to dispute it, you are able to bring your employer to a tribunal – if, that is, you have £1,200 for the upfront fees (brought in by the 2013 Coalition government). Unfortunately, the introduction of upfront fees is likely to deter women from seeking justice over gender wage imbalances, as (being lower paid) they are less likely to have the money to afford the case! [3]


And spare a thought for those in other countries – the worst gender gaps around the world last year were found in South Korea (where women earn 36.6% less than men), Estonia and Japan (26.6%), Israel (21.8%), and the Netherlands (20.5%). The narrowest gap was found in New Zealand, where women earned 5.6% less than men. This was followed by Belgium (5.9%), Luxembourg (6.5%), Denmark (6.8%) and Norway (7%). [4]


Should we talk to our colleagues about how much we/they earn? Many people are taught that it is perhaps impolite to discuss money, but perhaps the not-knowing is compounding the problem? Has anyone here discussed salaries with their colleagues, and if so, did you find that there was a gap? How did you approach the subject?


Aside from mandatory wage lists, are there any other policies or conversations that could be had to reduce and (hopefully) eliminate the pay differences?

Previous UK Equal pay days:
  • 2016:  10th November

  • 2015: 9th November

  • 2014: 4th November

  • 2013: 7th November

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  • Former Community Member
    0 Former Community Member

    Amber Thomas:



    A friend of mine works for Microsoft, and they have on-site childcare facilities and many parents (male and female) can pick up their child every day for lunch and eat together in special child-friendly areas of the staff canteens.



     




    I completely agree with everything you said in your first 2 paragraphs. As a father I would be thrilled if I could have my daughter cared for in the same building I work in, it would make life so much easier! I think there are still many mothers out there that would prefer to be the ones spending time with their children, but what you have said would be amazing for those that want to get back to work, and for the businesses as well!

    I do want to defend myself on the point you disagreed with. When you quoted me on women being offered less you missed out the sentence right after where I said "They may be offered less in some cases but there could be a number of reasons for this." The thing is that at the moment no one knows for sure what these reasons are. Maybe we will soon.


    I pretty much agree with the rest of what you said as well. It's valuable to hear things from other perspectives. You are obviously speaking from the perspective of a woman, but there are systemic disadvantages to being a man as well. I won't go into them in detail here because that's not what this group is about. But any father that doesn't want to pay child support isn't a good father in my opinion. Whatever the reason is for a marriage breaking up, it's not the child’s fault.

    I appreciate the responses to my comments. I don't really have anything else to say but I will read any further comments out of interest :) 

     

  • Former Community Member
    0 Former Community Member

    Amber Thomas:

     




     But none of the studies so far clearly indicate that women are being offered less than men purely because they are women, on a systemic level. 




    I disagree. Studies have shown that women are offered less money. There is also evidence to say that (lower) pay offered also relates to ethnicity. See : http://www.512tech.com/technology/tech-companies-offer-lower-salaries-women-data-shows/J8ZKIgaSYJXUaYhJZ6MhRK/.




    I know I said I wasn't going to comment anymore but I just read the article you shared. These are quotes from that same article:


     "Hired has access to not only salary offers being extended to job candidates, but it knows the "salary expectations" that job seekers set. One of Hired's more interesting conclusions about the causes of the wage gap is that women are setting their salary expectations lower than men do."

     

    "Women might also under-sell themselves, she said. For instance, before she started working for Hired, Kirkpatrick used the Hired platform to try to get a job. A talent advocate who works for Hired told her that she was under-pricing herself by $30,000. She ended up getting a job that paid her $30,000 more than she had originally expected."


    So it's quite clear that there are reasons for the gap other than discrimination.
  • 0

    Aaron Thiele:
    I do want to defend myself on the point you disagreed with. When you quoted me on women being offered less you missed out the sentence right after where I said "They may be offered less in some cases but there could be a number of reasons for this." The thing is that at the moment no one knows for sure what these reasons are. Maybe we will soon.




    Perhaps there are "a number of other reasons", but I don't think it can be denied that a common denominator in wage levels is gender. I don't think that this is because women simply aren't asking for more money (see http://fortune.com/2016/09/06/women-men-salary-negotiations/ and https://www.cfa.harvard.edu/cfawis/bowles.pdf)


    The "other reasons" you mention could be due to career breaks, but I think this is almost a separate issue as there is a gender pay gap before children are added to the equation (in fact, studies have shown that a gap starts even before we even make it into the work place - at the pocket money level - and the attitudes that parents imprint on their daughters might contribute to attitudes towards salary and negotiations further down the line).  If a woman has a career break, then it is quite easy to explain the wage gap by saying that that person will have less experience than a person who has spent those years working in their chosen career. Many people have more than one child, so if a woman returns to work in between children, then goes on maternity leave again, then it is harder to ask for a pay rise based on what she has achieved for the company in that timeframe if she has not been in the office for two years in a three year period (whereas a father is more likely to have been in paid work in that time and will therefore have evidence of his work-based achievements from this time to support his pay rise request). As well as losing her salary over this time (depending upon the maternity package the company offers), she will also most likely forfeit her pension contributions during this period, which will have further long-term consequences. A pregnant woman is also less likely to be given long term (rewarding) projects that could justify a bonus or pay rise as it will be seen that she will not be around to complete them. So an employer can easily say "It is nothing to do with gender - it is the contribution of the individual. John deserves this pay rise for taking the lead on XXX project, but Jane's projects were shorter, easier, less prestigious, so she hasn't earned the same bonus". Also, being pregnant is exhausting, so women are perhaps less inclined to put in overtime or (particularly in engineering) there might be health and safety reasons preventing a pregnant person from performing all of the duties a particular role might demand (eg. working at height etc.) All of these factors might be seen as "other reasons" for wage disparity, but I think most of them trace back to issues of gender.


    I'm not at all questioning the parenting skills or dedication of men who choose to be fathers, and I don't doubt that many will be seen (by themselves, their partner, and by society) as the "breadwinner", but I think that the reality is that the long term financial consequences of having a child/children do (tend to) land more at the feet of the mother. This is why, in my opinion, the government needs to legislate to ensure that pay is fairer (from the beginning and at all levels), and should also make strides to tackle the societal causes of wage disparity, and by encouraging employers to accommodate flexible working practices, on-site childcare facilities, remote working etc. or could even look at options that allow fathers to pay their pension contributions to their partner for the time their partner is raising the children (so she will have a bigger nest egg/more independence further down the line if the relationship breaks down or the partner passes away etc.)


  • Former Community Member
    0 Former Community Member
    An interesting report from the CMI


    I think Ann Francke makes a really useful point: "The problem we face isn’t so much that women aren’t receiving equal pay for equal work – but that they aren’t getting equal work."


    My personal observation is that there are no winners when it comes to unequal pay.
  • 0
    I found this article spot on.



    The gender pay gap is about motherhood. Everything else is just noise - The Telegraph

    apple.news/A5vXUkSf_S4WLQZsvy_5tGA


  • Former Community Member
    0 Former Community Member
    This is a very interesting article!  Thank you for posting.
  • 0

    Rajeswari Pillutla:

    I found this article spot on.


    The gender pay gap is about motherhood. Everything else is just noise - The Telegraph

    apple.news/A5vXUkSf_S4WLQZsvy_5tGA




    Interesting article - thanks for posting :)


    There is an interesting report on parenthood and the pay gap that was referenced in another discussion posted in in the IET Women's Network (See Man up and take your paternity leave). The report (by the TUC) found that fathers working full-time get paid a fifth more than men with similar jobs who don’t have children. The report shows that dads who work full-time experience, on average, a 21% ‘wage bonus’ and that working fathers with two kids earn more (9%) than those with just one. The findings are in stark contrast to the experience of working mothers, says the report. Women who become mothers before 33 typically suffer a 15% pay penalty.


    A recent poll by the Fawcett Society suggests that public opinion in the UK reflects this bias, with more than a quarter (29%) of respondents saying dads are more committed to their jobs after having a baby – and almost half of those who answered (46%) saying they think women are less committed to their work after becoming parents. 




     

  • 0
    I wrote the original post 2 years ago. Since then, equal pay day has been static, falling on 10th November this year and last.  It seems the slow progress has slowed completely!


    Since the post was written, companies with over 250 employees (including the IET) are now required to publish their gender pay gap. There are some interesting articles from the Guardian on this topic, which include an option to look up your own employer. 


    On this page, you can see how many pence a woman earns for every £1 earned by a man (type in your employer in the box under the graph): https://www.theguardian.com/news/ng-interactive/2018/apr/05/women-are-paid-less-than-men-heres-how-to-fix-it


    And on this page, you can see the equal pay day for each company (type in your company name in the box about halfway down the article): https://www.theguardian.com/news/ng-interactive/2018/apr/04/gender-pay-gap-when-does-your-company-stop-paying-women-in-2018.


    How does your employer fare?
  • 0

    Catherine Foley:

    Interestingly, my company (and most likely a lot of others) aren't listed in the database for these links.




    Catherine Foley‍, how big is your company? Currently only those with more than 250 employees are required to publish their data. Alternatively, you could try looking here: https://gender-pay-gap.service.gov.uk perhaps (although, at the time of writing, I actually found more companies seemed to be on the guardian websites than on this government one!).


    If your employer has fewer than 250 employees, it might just be a matter of time before they publish their data. MPs are talking about getting smaller companies to follow suit. The business, energy and industrial strategy committee (BEIS) has recommended that all companies with more than 50 employees should have to report their gender pay gap from 2020.


    Rachel Reeves MP, chair of the BEIS committee, said its analysis of gender pay gap reporting, which saw companies report for the first time in April had found “obscene and entirely unacceptable gender pay gaps of more than 40%”.


    According to figures lodged with the government for women’s median pay gap, the worst offenders included: Ryanair (71.8%), JP Morgan (54%), Capita Resourcing Limited (50.8%), Clarins (UK) Limited (49%), Merrill Lynch International (46.7%), EasyJet (45.5%), Sainsbury’s Bank (45.3%), Barclays Bank (43.5%) and Specsavers (41.9%).


    Read more here: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/aug/02/smaller-firms-should-have-to-report-gender-pay-gap-mps-say

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