Equally Safe at Work Community of Practice: Harnessing the power of peer learning to improve employment practice

Last week, Close the Gap held the fourth meeting of the Equally Safe at Work Community of Practice. We had employers from across sectors in Scotland come together to discuss gender equality and violence against women (VAW) in the workplace. In attendance were colleagues from local government, NHS, the third sector, the Scottish Government and COSLA.

The Community of Practice was developed to bring together employers who were working on, or interested in, the Equally Safe at Work accreditation. Peer support and learning have been critical success factors for employers engaged in the programme, and as Equally Safe at Work has expanded, we wanted to look at the role of collaboration in facilitating change. The innovative Community of Practice model aims to test out a new approach of shared learning by bringing together different sizes and types of organisations which are at different stages of their journey on gender equality and VAW. This will also test out whether participation in the group helps to lever improved employment practices on gender equality.

The Community of Practice enables participants to share their experiences of working through the programme, discuss challenges, and foster new approaches to problem-solving and improvement. It also provides an opportunity for employers at the early stages of their work on gender equality and VAW to start building an understanding of what is needed to create meaningful change in their workplace.

In the meetings, participants have reflected on where they are now in their practice, where they want to be and what steps are required to get there. While participants shared frustrations about barriers to progress, they were encouraged to use appreciative inquiry when thinking about their organisational practice. Working towards culture change inevitably focuses on identifying problems and designing solutions. It can be a frustrating process because it can be difficult to see progress at the systems level. That’s why the Community of Practice aimed to create a space where participants could reflect in what has been achieved by identifiying small indicators of change within their organisations.

Several participants shared success stories of VAW now being seen as a workplace issue, with more colleagues discussing it and wanting to take action to address it. Others shared how the programme has helped push open doors, resulting in commitments to address occupational segregation, and new policies being developed on VAW and sexual harassment.

In addition to sharing where progress is being seen, participants have also spoken about challenges around data collection, and securing senior leadership buy in. Others highlighted that gender equality is not seen as a priority, but something that was nice to have but not essential.

We’ll be evaluating the Community of Practice model, along with the other range of activity delivered during this phase of the Equally Safe at Work activity, so that we better understand what works when it comes to improving employment practice. We’ll then be using the learning to design accreditation activity so that Close the Gap can better support employers to take action on gender equality and VAW.

For more information on Equally Safe at Work, you can visit our website. If you would like more information on the Community of Practice and how to get involved, you can contact Kelsey Smith at ksmith@closethegap.org.uk.

A vision for a childcare system that works for everyone.

Close the Gap and One Parent Family Scotland have launched a joint vision for a childcare system that centres women’s equality, prioritises positive outcomes for children, and addresses women’s and children’s poverty. It’s a set of principles for high-quality childcare provision that is flexible, accessible and affordable for all families, including those on low incomes. The principles are endorsed by a broad range of 25 civil society organisations.

Why childcare is important

Women continue to do the bulk of unpaid childcare in Scotland. This combined with the lack of affordable, accessible and flexible childcare works to reinforce women’s socio-economic and labour market inequalities. Research has found mothers are twice as likely as fathers to report the availability of childcare had a “big impact” on their ability to work. Women routinely struggle to balance work with childcare which drives the clustering of women in part-time work. Because part-time work is concentrated in lower paid jobs, this restricts women’s progression opportunities and contributes to the gender pay gap.

Women are more likely to live in poverty, more likely to experience deeper poverty, and find it harder to escape poverty. Single parents, 90% of which are women, disproportionately experience poverty. Young single mothers are at particular risk, with more than half (55%) living in poverty in Scotland. Women’s poverty is inextricably linked with children’s poverty, rendering action to tackle women’s labour market inequalities key to addressing child poverty.

The propensity for women to be primary caregivers shapes their labour market engagement, with the current childcare system often determining whether women have a job, the type of job they have, the hours they can work and how much pay they get. This has a particularly profound impact on single parents.

Moreover, for many families the high cost of childcare is a significant barrier to financial stability, and means childcare is becoming increasingly unaffordable. Three-fifths of parents have reported difficulties affording childcare, with single parents and parents of children with additional support needs being more likely to report difficulties. High childcare costs are particularly problematic for single parents, as it restricts their labour market participation, drives their higher rate of poverty and leads to more debt accumulation.

Problems with the current system

Close the Gap has welcomed the expansion of the funded entitlement to 1140 hours, but it should be seen as the starting point of reform, rather than the end. 1140 hours of childcare only equates to the school day and is delivered on a term-time basis. It therefore doesn’t enable women to work full-time if they need to or want to. Research from the Scottish Women’s Budget Group highlights this inflexibility, with two-thirds of women reporting the delivery of these hours don’t cover their childcare requirements due to its lack of flexibility. The inflexibility of the current childcare system is a particular issue for single parents and those who work atypical hours and shift work, who face greater challenges in finding childcare that suits their needs and may struggle to arrange childcare on short notice. Furthermore, the rigidity of childcare provision combined with the inflexibility of the labour market further compounds inequalities caused by the current system. This, in turn, places additional financial pressure on women, and prevents many women from accessing employment, training or education.

Additionally, the current expansion has not reduced the need for parents to purchase expensive, top-up childcare. The high cost of childcare is particularly challenging for parents of disabled children, as they face higher than average childcare costs. These above average costs can act as a barrier for employment and also contributes to higher poverty rates amongst families with a disabled member. Three-quarters of parents and carers of disabled children have had to reduce their hours or leave their job entirely due to difficulties in accessing appropriate childcare, which further exacerbates their experiences of poverty.

Women’s experiences of managing childcare is shaped by the multiple intersecting inequalities they face. However, there is a significant lack of intersectional data on how the current childcare system is meeting the needs of different groups of women such as disabled women and racially minoritised women. Research by Close the Gap found that accessing affordable, appropriate childcare was identified as a significant barrier for many racially minoritised women, and a particular challenge for some migrant women. For migrant women, the absence of informal networks of family or friends close by to help with childcare increased the burden of childcare, limiting their ability to enter the workforce or increase their working hours. There is a significant need for more granular data to better understand women’s diverse experiences to ensure that services are designed to meet the needs of their family.

Childcare work is significantly undervalued in Scotland’s economy which results in the low pay which characterises the overwhelmingly female-dominated sector. The undervaluation of childcare is driven by stereotypes around gender roles and assumptions about men’s and women’s skills, capabilities and interests. Women are seen as ‘natural’ carers, and therefore better suited to caring professions. These factors contribute to the undervaluing of the skills needed to do childcare work.

The undervaluation of childcare work and the sector-wide low pay has created workforce recruitment and retention challenges, which in turn impact the quality of childcare services. Action to improve the pay, and terms and conditions of the childcare workforce would have a significant positive impact on gender equality, as women make up 96% of workers. Increasing pay would also act as an economic imperative for more men to enter childcare, which would reduce the acute levels of occupational segregation which characterise the sector.

Finally, childcare is not recognised as critical social infrastructure. Within mainstream economics, spending on childcare and social care is categorised as current consumption, rather than capital investment. Unpaid care is not recognised at all. Despite evidence from Scotland and internationally highlighting investment in care infrastructure stimulating job creation, community regeneration and employment opportunities for women, it is still overlooked in Scottish policy making. Recognising childcare as social infrastructure is key to creating a wellbeing economy, and is an important enabler of paid work and women’s socio-economic equality. Reframing how childcare is seen in the economy is also essential to ensure there is sufficient investment and policy focus to addresses the undervaluation of the workforce and deliver high-quality services that meet the needs of women and their families.

Principles for a childcare system

The principles created by Close the Gap and One Parent Families Scotland are intended to shape the next stages of Scotland’s childcare offer. These principles should underpin a system that promotes women’s socio-economic and labour market equality, advances children’s rights, and addresses child poverty. The principles are:

• A system of childcare that puts choice for all families at the heart of provision.
• A universal funded entitlement of 50 hours per week for children aged 6 months and above that is free at the point of use for all families.
• A high-quality service which delivers positive outcomes for children and realises children’s rights.
• A diverse and skilled childcare workforce that is valued, fairly paid and gender balanced.
• Flexible delivery that enables families to access childcare when they need and want it.
• Investment in childcare should be considered as necessary infrastructure for a sustainable wellbeing economy and good society.
• Work towards a childcare system that is not based on profit making.
• Investing in childcare is good for the economy.

You can read the report here A childcare system for all: A vision that puts gender equality at the centre of Scotland’s childcare strategy.

What is the gender pension gap?

Lifelong inequalities and women’s pensions

Retirement is often seen as a part of women’s lives that is far off in future, especially when the State Pension age (SPA) is projected to keep rising beyond 68, with these changes rumoured to be accelerated by as early as 2035. This is despite Scottish data showing that life expectancy is falling alongside similar figures for the UK, which show a decrease in life expectancy, in recent years. Healthy life expectancy figures have also seen a decline in Scotland, which impacts people’s ability to remain in the labour market. As women, on average, live longer than men, it’s especially important to consider the circumstances that will constrain women’s ability to plan for, and enjoy, their years in retirement.

However, the gender pension gap is a systemic issue. The gender pension gap (here given in terms of savings) means that women are currently retiring with £123,000 less than men. Further, a woman who is currently aged 25 is set to retire with £100,000 less than a man. The gender pension gap is also one of the main causes of female pensioner poverty, with single female pensioners, and racialised minority women pensioners at much higher risk than pensioners in couples and pensioners who are white.

Unlike the gender pay gap, there is no set definition or official measure of the gender pension gap in public and policy discussions. Overall, it’s generally understood to mean the different outcomes in retirement between men and women. The main difference is that, in some cases, the gap is calculated by looking at the difference in income between men and women in retirement. Other measures may look at the difference in wealth between men and women in retirement instead.

The drivers of the gender pay gap overlap with the drivers of the gender pension gap. There remain however, enduring structural barriers within the pension system itself that can inadvertently affect women’s pension outcomes. We know that what happens during a woman’s career is directly linked to her future pension pot. Responsibility for unpaid care shapes women’s working lives, impacting their ability to earn and to save, while enabling men to maintain better paid, uninterrupted careers.

Gender inequality in the pension system

The pension system itself is highly gendered, reflecting the traditional male working pattern it was built on post-war. Both state and private pensions were designed to reflect the ‘male breadwinner model’ which benefits men and places women at a significant disadvantage. For example, gaps in women’s employment due to caring responsibilities mean they will often not earn enough to make National Insurance contributions and therefore not build up their entitlement to a state pension at the same rate as men, who are more likely to work full-time.

Even now reforms to the state pension system have failed to consider gender, for example auto-enrolment excludes the lowest paid part-time workers, who are more likely to be women.

Continuing crises and the impact on women

The lasting impact of over a decade of austerity means that women are far more likely to have suffered significant hardship, with less capacity to absorb the impact of recurrent crises and increases in the cost of living.

Covid-19 exposed many of the entrenched inequalities that have seen women generally placed at an economic disadvantage. Women’s labour market participation was severely affected, with women more likely to be:

• in the sectors that were shut down, such as retail and hospitality;
• furloughed; and
• made redundant.

During this time, women were also more likely to be bearing the brunt of increased household labour and care, including supervising home-schooling.

The cost of living crisis has exacerbated poverty and financial precarity. More women report that they have cut back on household essentials, including basic clothing, transport, often skipping meals to help provide for their families, and with a greater reliance on foodbanks.

Evidence from Scottish Widows reveals that the crisis is having a direct impact on retirement savings, with 16% of women cutting back on their retirement savings to cope with rising living costs . The figures were similar for men, however women were already less likely to have been saving for retirement due to the adverse gendered consequences of past crises.

Unequal distribution of unpaid care

As highlighted above, there remains an unequal gender distribution of care, which typically falls on women’s shoulders. This is a key contributor to women’s pension inequality.

Women are more likely to have unpaid caring responsibilities for children and other relatives with caring needs, which drives the high levels of women working part-time. Women are overrepresented in low paid, part-time work and, simply put, lower wages mean lower pension contributions.

Caring responsibilities also often mean that women withdraw from the labour market completely, and these interruptions to employment have a huge impact on their pension contributions. Women therefore have less time to build up a good pension for retirement.

A necessary step in addressing the gender pension gap is better support for childcare. The high cost and lack of availability of childcare that meets working women’s needs restricts women’s choices in employment and limits their ability to save for retirement.

Divorce and separation

The need for women to accumulate their own independent pension is vital for women’s safety and economic wellbeing. In opposite-sex relationships, women are more likely than their male partner to take time off to care for children. This results in gaps in their employment and sees them funnelled into low-paid work, which reduces their ability to save for retirement. Meanwhile, men face less interruption in their careers, with better opportunities to progress and the ability to save more.

Research from Now: Pensions, shows that when divorce happens within opposite-sex relationships, and women reach retirement age, they leave work with only 12% of the pension wealth of men. This represents only £26,100 compared to a staggering £205,800 for men. Pensions are often not considered during the separation process – just 12% of divorces include a division in pension. Women are therefore effectively penalised for their caring roles.

Demographic factors

On average, women live 3.7 years longer than men, but are also more likely to need care later in life. This means they need more savings in their retirement, and to be able to live off their retirement savings for longer. Scottish Widows estimates that, on average, women would need £85,000 more in their retirement savings to ensure financial stability and a quality of life comparable to their male counterparts.

This also means the rise in the SPA does not produce gender neutral outcomes. Women are more likely to exit the labour market early, before reaching retirement age, often due to caring responsibilities or for health reasons. The increase in SPA therefore means that women will be left with an even larger gap in income to fill. Research focusing on the increase in the SPA from 60 to 66, for women born after March 1950, shows a detrimental impact of the reform on women from lower socioeconomic groups, with widening health disparities, an increase in self-reported clinical depression and a negative impact on their physical health. The WASPI (Women Against State Pension Inequality) Campaign are among groups such as BackTo60 and We Paid In You Pay Out, who have been vocal in highlighting the injustice that significant changes to the SPA were made without providing sufficient notice to those who would be most affected: women. Rather than opposing the equalisation itself, a shared concern of these groups is that the government had accelerated the timetable but failed to notify the 1950s-born women, who would be severely impacted by these changes.

Women’s divergent experiences of pension inequality

It’s also vital to recognise that women’s experiences vary, and different groups of women will face different and multiple barriers which will contribute to the gender pension gap.

Those who are most likely to be from under-pensioned groups include racially minoritised women, disabled women, carers and single mothers. In addition, COVID-19 has made it more likely that carers will experience potentially damaging effects on their pension contributions as they have found it more challenging to maintain employment.

Furthermore, women from some racially minoritised groups are more likely to cite they had no pension as a source of income in their retirement, but using cash savings instead, placing them at greater financial risk due to the high levels of inflation. Single mothers are one of the groups hardest hit by the increase in the cost-of-living and are typically the least prepared for retirement, while also being unable to rely on other forms of retirement income such as investments. This places them at considerable vulnerability now and in retirement.

Change is needed now.

Wide-ranging reform to the pension system is necessary if it is to work for women. Likewise, there are many steps government and employers must take to address both the gender pension gap and gender pay gap.

We need a childcare system that ensures provision is flexible, accessible and affordable to tackle barriers to good quality work for women, increasing their ability to save for retirement. Pension rights must be a compulsory part of divorce proceedings to ensure women’s economic wellbeing and safety. Finally, the pensions system itself need radical change to reflect the realities of working life for women.

Urgent action is needed from government and employers to mitigate the impact of pension poverty experienced by older women now and, to challenge the current drivers of the gender pension gap for future generations of women.

Positive shifts, persistent problems: an assessment of five years of employer gender pay gap reporting

It’s now five years since the introduction of gender pay gap reporting for large private and third sector organisations. We’ve published our latest employer assessment today, which looks at the reports of 50% of Scottish employers covered by the reporting regulations. It presents an in-depth analysis of reporting in 2021 and 2022, and compares this with previous reporting to identify if progress is being made.

The reporting regulations were introduced following a UK Government initiative – Think, Act, Report – which sought to encourage employers to report their pay gap voluntarily. Of almost 300 employers who signed up, only seven reported their pay gap, demonstrating the need for mandatory reporting.

In 2018, organisations published their first reports. In this year, and every year employers have reported since, Close the Gap has completed an assessment of the extent and standard of reporting, and whether it is creating change for women in the workplace in Scotland.

Despite some positive shifts, there remain persistent problems. More employers are taking action, but the majority of that action remains small-scale and untargeted, which is simply not enough. Too many employers point to gender inequality at a labour market and society level as a reason they’re unable to create change in their organisations, instead of taking action. We found some great examples of employer action that are included in the report, and prove that progress is possible.

First Bus (FirstGroup) has taken long-term action to attract more women and has doubled its female workforce since 2017. A significant contributor to this has been a trial of part-time bus driver roles (15-25 hrs per week) which has resulted in 50% of new hires being women, up from 2%.

Natural Power have introduced a scheme to contribute to the cost of childcare for employees returning to work after maternity or parental leave, which pays returners a £400 bonus payment per month for 12 months.

Calmac Ferries has established a working group to identify barriers to working at sea faced by women, including around caring responsibilities and returning from maternity leave. They have held focus groups with female employees to understand their experiences and identify how they can improve practices.

Despite this positive change, we’re still a long way from seeing the level of consistency and commitment needed to tackle women’s inequality in the workplace.

The key findings of the assessment are as follows:

• There has been little progress made in narrowing the gender pay gap: the average pay gap of employers assessed remains stubbornly at 12%. In 2022, the vast majority of employers (80%) have a gender pay gap in favour of men, up from 78% in 2021.
• The prevalence of bonus gaps has not changed, however the average bonus gap itself has narrowed significantly from 33% to 11%. It’s possible that bonuses may be generally lower in 2022, resulting in a drop in men’s bonus pay with a smaller or no drop in women’s bonus pay. It’s also possible that organisations reduced some of their highest bonuses, which are more likely to be paid to men, due to economic uncertainty arising from the pandemic. However, as most employers did not describe any changes in their approach to bonuses, it was not possible to identify why this gap has narrowed.
• In 2021 there were high pay gaps of up to 60% in male-dominated sectors such as sport, construction, finance and manufacturing, and up to 80% in the same sectors in 2022. The average pay gap in the most male-dominated organisations in 2022 was 24%. This is double the headline average of 12%, and an increase from 21% in 2021.
• There remain very high bonus gaps of up to 100% in male-dominated sectors such as sport, manufacturing, wholesale and retail trade, and transport and storage. This aligns with existing evidence on the causes of the gender pay gap. In the wider labour market female-dominated organisations generally do not have high pay gaps.
• Since 2018 there has been a significant increase in the proportion of employers publishing a narrative report alongside their pay gap information, up from 30% in 2018 to 48% in 2022. This is positive, as publishing data alone will not lead to change. However, the vast majority of analysis (76%) was found to be of poor quality, indicating employers may still need to build their understanding of how to use their data.
• The proportion of employers that have committed to action to tackle their pay gap has almost doubled from around one in five (19%) in 2018 to more than a third (36%) in 2022. Encouragingly that the quality of actions has also increased with just over a fifth (21%) considered satisfactory and another fifth (21%) considered good. There has also been a doubling in the proportion of employers setting targets, albeit from a very low base, from 5% in 2018 to 11% in 2022.

When the gender pay gap reporting regulations were first introduced, Close the Gap highlighted a fundamental weakness: they require employers to report their data, but they do not mandate them to take action. The UK Government asserted that organisations would be motivated to take action voluntarily by their pay gap data, despite the results of the Think, Act, Report initiative indicating otherwise. It is clear that this theory of change is flawed and is simply sustaining the gender pay gap and women’s inequality at work.

Extensive evidence from Close the Gap, along with international evidence on pay gap reporting regimes, shows that reporting alone does not create change. In 2023, we’re calling again for a strengthening of gender pay gap reporting regulations to require organisations to use their data to develop and publish an action plan, and to report on progress against it. If the regulations remain the same, it also means more of the same old gender inequality for women at work.