Scotland's gender pay gap remains high at 11.5%

Scotland’s gender pay gap remains high at 11.5%

Close the Gap has calculated the difference in pay between women and men working in Scotland using the latest Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE) tables released from the Office of National Statistics.

Despite a decrease of 1.8% between women and men working full-time in Scotland since 2013, the gender pay gap remains stubbornly high at 11.5%.

Women working part-time still earn 32.4% less than men working full-time, as part-time work continues to be concentrated in low-pay, low-skill jobs.

2013		2014
Pay gap in Scotland	Mean	Median	Mean	Median
Comparing women and men’s full-time hourly rates of pay (excluding overtime)	13.3%	7.6%	11.5%	9%
Comparing women’s part-time and men’s full-time hourly rates of pay (excluding overtime)	33.7%	35.5%	32.4%	34.5%
Combined figure (all women/all men)	16.9%	16.9%	15.4%	17.5%

Source ONS (2014) Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings Table 3.6A http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/ashe/annual-survey-of-hours-and-earnings/2014-provisional-results/index.html Accessed Nov 2014.

The gender pay gap: at a glance

The mean average full-time gender pay gap figure is 11.5%

 

• There is still a massive pay gap for women working part-time compared to men working full-time of 32.4%.

• The mean is calculated by adding all employees’ hourly rates of pay together and dividing by the total number of employees. This includes those on the highest and lowest rates of pay. As those with the highest rates of pay tend to be men, and those who receive the lowest pay are more likely to be women, the mean captures a more complete picture of the gender pay gap.

• The median is calculated by finding the midpoint in all employees’ hourly rates of pay and discarding the lowest and highest rates of pay. The median is not skewed by very low hourly rates of pay or very high hourly rates of pay. However, this means that the median can obscure the gendered differences relating to pay.

• Jobs held by women were more likely to be paid less than the National Minimum Wage than jobs held by men (1.0% compared with 0.8%). This is consistent with the fact that a greater proportion of women work part-time than men, and part-time work predominates in low-paid jobs.