It's Equal Pay Day, again.

The nights are drawing in, the sound of fireworks is (thankfully) fading, and the heating has been cranked up. Yes, it’s that time of year again: it’s Equal Pay Day.

Equal Pay Day is the day from which women are effectively working for free for the rest of the year because of the gender pay gap. In 2018, UK Equal Pay Day falls on Saturday 10th November. It’s an ideal time to take stock of the progress, or lack thereof, made over the past year for women and work.

Two weeks ago, new data from the UK Office for National Statistics revealed that Scotland’s gender pay gap had narrowed ever so slightly from 15% to 14%. However, this should not be cause for celebration or complacency. Progress on closing the pay gap has stagnated, with the figure hovering around the 14-15% mark for many years, and the picture of women’s labour market inequality remains a concerning one.

In April this year we saw the first round of reporting under the (then new) UK Gender Pay Gap Information Regulations, which revealed some extraordinarily high gender pay gaps and bonus gaps, and stark occupational segregation across the UK. The regulations themselves were presented as the solution to the gender pay gap under which employers would, motivated by the inequalities highlighted, take concrete steps to close the gap. This has unfortunately not been the case, with less than a third of employers publishing a narrative which explains the causes of their pay gap; less than a fifth of employers committing to take action to close the pay gap; and only 5% setting targets to reduce their pay gap. While the regulations provide welcome transparency around pay data, evidence shows that employers are unlikely to take action on the pay gap unless required to by law. There is therefore some way to go before the regulations drive meaningful change in employer behaviour.

Employer reporting reveals a key factor underlying the lack of action on the gender pay gap: there remains widespread confusion over what the gender pay gap really is. This is a problem we encounter on a regular basis. Most employer reports quickly point out the fact that just because they have a gender pay gap does not mean they have an equal pay issue; however the evidence shows that most employers have never done an equal pay review. This undue complacency represents a major barrier to action on equal pay and women’s inequality at work. Taking the steps necessary to realise equal pay is an important part of closing the pay gap, however employers’ narrow focus on the legal issue of equal pay will not in itself tackle the gender pay gap.

The gender pay gap goes far beyond the issue of equal pay for equal work. Models of the pay gap, including our own, consistently find that gender itself is the biggest driver. Gender stereotyping begins early, shaping the education and future employment paths of children and young people. Women’s under-representation at senior levels is a critical problem, but also important is women’s persistent concentration in the lower-paid jobs in all organisations. Close the Gap is about to publish research that shows that the right to request flexible working regulations have had no discernible impact on women’s access to flexible working. A lack of quality part-time and flexible working means that many women who require to work part-time to accommodate their caring roles become boxed in, unable to progress into overwhelmingly inflexible senior roles, and end up working below their skill level. This contributes to women’s higher levels of in-work poverty, and to child poverty.

The economic undervaluing of work seen as ‘women’s work’, in particular that of care workers, sees this work amongst the lowest paid in the UK labour market. This is compounded by the fact that our economy rests on the unpaid domestic labour of women, and yet this work is not counted or valued by systems of economic measurement. One study estimated the valued of unpaid care in Scotland at £10.8bn, which is more than the entire budget of NHS Scotland. Another national study put the value of unpaid work done by women in the UK at £1.24tn a year – that’s £19000 per person. The undervaluing of the work done by women, and the perennial problem of equal pay, was highlighted keenly by the recent Glasgow women’s strike.

We know the benefits of closing the gender pay gap would be wide-ranging. Women would benefit from more equal employment outcomes, employers would benefit from an increase in productivity and innovation, and the economy would benefit from the full utilisation of women’s skills, to the tune of £17bn in Scotland alone. In order to realise this, we need a national strategy on the gender pay gap which recognises and commits action on all of its causes. Close the Gap is advocating that Scottish Government takes a bold approach in developing its national gender pay gap action plan. We are also piloting the first employer accreditation scheme on advancing gender equality and preventing VAW, with our Equally Safe at Work project.

We hope that next Equal Pay Day we’ll be able to tell a more positive story but, for now, we’ll be continuing to work with employers, policymakers and unions to encourage and support action on women’s inequality at work.

October monthly reading roundup

This month saw the UK’s gender pay gap drop so slightly that you’d be forgiven for not even noticing, low paid women walking out of their workplaces for two days demanding an end to their decade long equal pay dispute and us, playing with this majestic owl.

Slight drop in Scotland’s gender pay gap but meaningful change still out of reach for women

New data from the UK Office for National Statistics shows that there has been a very slight narrowing of Scotland’s gender pay gap from 15% to 14%. There is an across the board 1% narrowing when also looking at the experiences of women working full-time and those working part-time. Women working full-time earn 10.2% less than their male counterparts, while part-time women earn on average 29.7% less than men working full-time illustrating the systemic undervaluation of "women's work" which continues to be concentrated in part-time, low-paid jobs.

The persistent lack of meaningful change for women shows us that the time for action is now. The pay gap is an endemic problem which requires a cohesive, strategic response to address its many inter-related causes. Close the Gap is very pleased to be involved in the development of Scottish Government’s gender pay gap action plan, as announced in the child poverty delivery plan. We’re advocating for bold action that will make substantively tackle the causes of the pay gap and realise women’s labour market equality.

We’ll be looking at the ONS data in more detail, and will be updating our gender pay gap statistics paper. In the meantime, you can read the 2017 paper here.

Want to more about the pay gap? Read our research which looks in detail at the causes of, and solutions to, Scotland’s pay gap The Gender Penalty.

Only have a couple of minutes but want to know more? Watch our film on the pay gap here.

The perennial problem of equal pay

Ten years ago, Close the Gap held an event, with support from Unison and the TUC, to celebrate the 40^th anniversary of the equal pay strikes which eventually led to the passing of the Equal Pay Act in 1970. We were lucky to have two of the Ford Dagenham sewing machinists speak about their experiences of the strikes, and reflect on the significance of their actions. We also paid homage to Agnes McLean who led the Scottish fight for equal pay, first at Rolls Royce Hillington in 1943, and later in a series of strikes across the West of Scotland in 1968. The right to equal pay for equal work is fundamental to women’s labour market equality but, almost 50 years on, we’re still very far from that right being realised.

Today, 8000 low-paid women working at Glasgow City Council are striking over their claim for equal pay which has been rumbling on for 12 years. The work that they do as school staff, nursery workers, care workers, caterers and cleaners is integral to people’s lives and to the functioning of our economy. But historically, such “women’s work” has been systematically undervalued resulting in the low pay which characterises these jobs and sectors.

Although there have been a number of pay modernisation programmes in the public sector, there are still tens of thousands of equal pay claims in Scotland’s tribunal system. The public sector equality duty, which includes specific requirements for employers on equal pay, has also not resulted in the transformational change as was hoped.

The new gender pay gap reporting regulations have shone a welcome light on private and third sector employment practice. In spite of this, equal pay is largely missing from the public discourse on the gender pay gap. In April, Close the Gap did an analysis of Scottish employer reporting under the new gender pay gap information regulations, and we found that only two out of 200 reports mentioned an equal pay review or job evaluation.

Most pay discrimination isn’t intentional, and there are many employers who have taken steps to rectify the sex bias that was built into the design of their pay and grading systems. However, research by Close the Gap, and from the UK Government, shows that the main reason employers don’t take action on equal pay is that they believe they’re already paying their staff equally. This undue complacency coupled with, in some cases, a lack of will to advance women’s workplace equality creates the most significant challenges to realising equal pay and closing the gender pay gap.

A current focus for Close the Gap is our new Equally Safe at Work employer accreditation programme. Equally Safe at Work is an innovative programme which will be piloted in local government next year. We’ll be working closely with a small number of councils to support them to work towards accreditation by developing employment practice that both recognises the barriers to women’s workplace equality, and also violence against women-competent. Pay practice is an essential component of this, and we hope that Equally Safe at Work will encourage employers to be sector leaders in not just equal pay, but in women’s labour market equality more widely.