Statistics

The pay gap

The Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE) is the source for calculating the pay gap which is published late autumn every year. ASHE reports the pay gap using the mean and the median hourly earnings of men working full-time compared to women working full-time and women working part-time.

The pay gap in Scotland is reported using the mean. In 2011 indicated that the gender pay gap in Scotland is:

• 10.7% (comparison of men's full-time hourly earnings with women's full-time hourly earnings, using the mean)
• 32.1% (comparison men's full-time hourly earnings with women's part-time hourly earnings, using the mean)

In Scotland the gender pay gap is reported using the mean, as the median figures underplay the fact that there are a few extremely high earning staff, most of whom are men, and that many women are clustered in the lowest paid professions. The mean takes into account the outliers and reflects the structural inequality between men and women and the issues relating to vertical occupational segregation.

In some cases the gender pay gap is reported as one figure combining full and part time earnings. This can again hide a number of systemic structural problems which cause the pay gap.

On average women working full-time in Scotland earn £89.80 per week less than men.

Labour market

• 48% of people in the labour market are women.
• Around two in five employed women work part-time and one in ten employed men work part-time.
• Women are found working across 10 occupations.

Occupational segregation

• Around 80% of administrative and secretarial workers and those in personal service jobs are women.
• Women are more likely to work in the public sector (67% local government and 81% NHS), but only 24% are chief executive officers.
• 97% of childcare and early years education are women and 98% of classroom assistants are women.
• Less than 3% of chartered civil engineers in Scotland are women.
• 10% of senior managers in science engineering and technology professions are women.
• 27% of Modern Apprentices (16-19 age group) 'in training' in 2011 were women.
  

Table 1: Mean hourly gross pay, excluding overtime for male and female employees in Scotland by occupational group 2011

*Read as: percentage difference between men and women's hourly gross pay according to occupational group. % Difference (PT) is the difference between men working full-time and women working part-time. **Lower than the living wage estimated at £7.20 per hour for Glasgow City from April 2012.

[1] 2011 Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE)