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New Working Paper on Scotland’s Gender Pay Gap Statistics Finds that Progress has Stalled on Realising Equality for Women at Work
Close the Gap has published a new working paper on gender pay gap statistics with a specific analysis of Scotland’s pay gap.
The paper uses data from the Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings(ASHE) tables, from the UK Office for National Statistics, to analyse pay differentials between women and men working in Scotland.
As detailed in table 1 below, the overall mean gender pay gap has seen no difference which remains stubbornly high at 14.9% in 2016, compared with 14.8% in 2015. This means that on average women continue to earn 85p for every £1 men earn.
Very little progress has been seen on the part-time pay gap with a very modest decrease of 1.3 percentage points to 32.2%, when comparing women’s part-time average earnings to men’s full-time earnings, illustrating the fact that part-time work is concentrated in low-paid, undervalued, stereotypical female jobs and sectors such as cleaning and care.
This very small decrease is partly due to the introduction by the UK Government of the National Living Wage which contributed to an increase of the average earnings of the lowest paid groups of workers to £7.22 for the average full-time female worker, and £7.20 for average part-time female worker. Women are still far more likely to be concentrated in low-paid, part-time work therefore likely to benefit most from the introduction of a new minimum wage bracket.
As table 6 from the report (and above) shows, the public sector overall (12.1%), full-time (7.3%) and part-time (26.8%) pay gaps are lower than the national averages, 15%, 11%, and 32%respectively, whilst the private sector pay gap is considerably higher for each group (23.6% for overall, 19.6% for full-time, and a staggering 40.6% part-time pay gap. The public sector pay gap also decreased very slightly by 0.9 percentage points which may have contributed to the overall reduction in the part-time pay gap, as women are more likely to work in the public sector, very often in part-time jobs.
For the first time the new ASHE release has allowed for pay gaps in the third sector to be calculated. The figures for the full-time (11.9%) and overall pay gap (15.6%) were close to the national averages however the part-time pay gap was considerably higher at 38.6% suggesting that there is a lack of quality part-time jobs in the third sector as there is across the rest of the labour market.
The working paper also provides information on the average difference in earnings in across different age groups, occupational groups, and an analysis of the Scottish gender pay gap over time.
The most recent data highlights the stubborn nature of the gender pay gap. The figures are useful as an indicator of the persistent and entrenched inequalities within the labour market, but with negligible change in recent years, it’s a clear signal that current Scottish policy responses to the pay gap are inadequate. Across Scotland, women and men are still segregated into different types of jobs, and a lack of quality part-time and flexible work sees women under-represented in higher-paid senior roles. Time will tell whether the new pay gap regulations will influence large employers to not only report their pay gaps, but to develop actions to address the barriers that women face. What is clear though is that Scotland needs a coherent strategy to tackle the complex and inter-related causes of women’s inequality at work if the pay gap is to be closed.
The full report can be accessed here.
New Working Paper on Scotland's gender pay gap
Close the Gap has recently published its most recent working paper on gender pay gap statistics with a specific analysis of Scotland’s gender pay gap.
The paper uses the Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE) tables to calculate the average difference in pay between women and men working in Scotland.
The overall mean gender pay gap has remained high at 14.8% for Scotland, meaning that women on average earn 85p for every £1 men earn.
The part-time pay gap has increased by over 1 percentage point to 33.5%. The part-time pay gap is calculated by comparing part-time women’s average earnings to men’s average full-time earnings, and is illustrative of the concentration of part-time work in undervalued low paid work such as cleaning, admin, caring and retail.
The working paper also provides information on the average difference in earnings in across different age groups, occupational groups, and an analysis of the Scottish gender pay gap over time.
August Newsround
Here we round up all the news about women in the labour market, and all things related. This month’s stories cover older women in the workplace, the university gender gap, the Think Business Think Equality launch and more.
The National
Scotland's invisible women: urgent action sought over gender gap in the workplace
App launched to help small businesses bridge the gender pay gap
The Guardian
Sexism in publishing: 'My novel wasn’t the problem, it was me, Catherine'
Mind the gender pay gap in Western Australia – women are paid $484 less
The gender pay gap is a scandal. David Cameron must act on his pledge to end it.
What does the university gender gap mean for the future of our society?
The Herald
Gender pay gap leaves women managers "working for free"
The Independent
The Telegraph
We should move quickly to eliminate the gender pay gap once and for all
International
How the pay gap between men and women starts small and gets so much bigger
How tech start-ups are closing the gender gap
JULY NEWSROUND
Close the Gap’s Newsround is back after a short break. Here we round up all the news about women in the labour market, and all things related. This month’s stories cover welfare reform, publishing gender pay gaps, rising maternity discrimination and more.
The Sunday Times
Change work culture to close the pay gap - Anna Ritchie Allan
The Guardian
Women aren't dropping out of the labour market just because they're pregnant
Sometimes I have to leave work early to pick up my kids. Deal with it.
David Cameron to force companies to disclose their gender pay gap
Maternity discrimination means 54,000 women lose their jobs every year.
Sainsburys faces equal pay battle with female shopfloor workers
It's not just sports, all women's initiatives lack corporate sponsorship
BBC
Female solicitors paid less than men
Women 'hit hardest by benefit cuts'
The National
Budget reaction: Continuing the programme which impoverishes women - Emma Ritch, Engender
Iain Duncan Smith's welfare department has only two women
CIPD
Why gender pay gap reporting divides employers
The Scotsman
China: Fines for pregnancy without permission
Creative Scotland meets Sturgeon's gender target
International
Gender gap in federal salaries? Let's not go there anymore, says new personnel chief
Move to gender pay gap reporting in the private sector is welcome but inadequate
David Cameron recently announced legislation that will require larger companies to publish their gender pay gap figure. Given that 45 years has passed since the equal pay act was introduced, this is to be welcomed. But the publishing of pay gaps alone will not realise David Cameron’s ambition to “end the gender pay gap within a generation”. What it is, though, is a small step towards addressing the disadvantage that women face at work every day.
Scotland’s gender pay gap, which is 12% for full-time workers and 32% for part-time workers, is underpinned by a range of factors, of which pay discrimination is but one. Women still do the bulk of unpaid caring, and inflexible working arrangements make it difficult for them to balance work with these family and caring responsibilities. After having children many women end up working below their skill level in the only part-time jobs that are available, which tend to be in undervalued, low-paid occupations like cleaning and retail. Cutting back their hours in this way has a long-term scarring effect on women’s incomes across their lifetimes, which affects not just pay, but also promotion prospects and ultimately their pension.
We still have quite rigid ideas about men’s and women’s capabilities and preferences, and these stereotypes contribute to women being clustered in lower grade jobs and in sectors with the poorest pay. Gender stereotyping begins at birth, with the rampant ‘pinkification’ of babywear and toys. All-pervasive, insidious messaging about girls’ and boys’ interests and abilities mean that by the time young people are choosing subjects at school, their own assumptions about gender and work are very fixed. This significantly contributes to the dearth of young women studying non-traditional subjects such as maths and physics. Of those who do, even fewer go on to work in well paid, non-traditional jobs such as engineering. Many of the women that do make it along the pipeline to the labour market later leave. Sometimes that’s because they find out they’re being paid less than their male colleagues - female graduates earn up to 28% less than their male counterparts, even if they studied the same degree subject. In other cases, they’ve been continually passed over for promotion, they’re not able to work flexibly once having children or they’ve felt the chill of a male-oriented workplace culture.
Most obviously, the gender pay gap is a problem for women because it is unjust. Individual women who experience discrimination based on their sex can seek redress from an employment tribunal. But that’s only if they can afford the fees of £1200, the introduction of which having precipitated a staggering 83% drop in equal pay claims and a 77% drop in sex discrimination claims.
There have been a number of high profile equal pay cases, most notably in local government where councils have scandalously spent millions of pounds of public money defending female employees’ equal pay claims. Birmingham City Council recently agreed to pay more than £1bn to settle the claims of thousands of women who have been waiting years for justice. In the private sector, both Asda and Sainsburys are now facing equal pay claims from female shopfloor workers.
But it’s not just women that are affected by the pay gap. Employers are missing out on the abundance of female talent as huge numbers of qualified and experienced women are working in jobs that are below their skill level. The business case for addressing the gender pay gap is well-rehearsed. Companies that promote gender equality are able to recruit from a wider pool of talent, enjoy a reduction in turnover and training costs, and experience increased productivity through improved employee motivation. Equalising women’s employment and productivity to the same levels as men’s could add £600bn to the UK economy.
The UK Government’s voluntary initiative Think, Act, Report, was widely seen as a failure when out of the 280 companies that signed up, only five published their pay gap. What this tells us is that voluntary initiatives don’t work. Companies may make positive noises about equality but that doesn’t necessarily translate into action to achieve it. Close the Gap’s research into employer action on equal pay showed that while 94% of those employers we surveyed had an equal pay policy, less than a third had undertaken an equal pay review, and only 3% had taken any action to address pay gaps.
And this is the crux of the issue. Publishing pay gaps is just small one step towards tackling women’s inequality at work. At the very least it will ensure that accountability in the private sector reflects accountability in the Scottish public sector, where public bodies already have to publish their pay gap. But employers need to look below the headline figure and identify why there are differences. The problem is wider than pay systems. Companies have look at the ways in which their workplace culture impacts on male and female employees differently, and then change their practices to ensure that that women are not disadvantaged. Until that’s done, it’s difficult to see how the pay gap will end in a generation.
Anna Ritchie Allan, Project Manager
This article originally appeared in the Sunday Times
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