Now that the deadlines for reporting having passed, the following is a summary of the key findings from the gender pay gap data that have been extrapolate so far.
Gender Pay Gap Data
Some of the key findings that have come through so far from the gender pay gap data are as follows:-
- Roughly a quarter of the 10,428 organisations that reported on time, waited until the final 36 hours to publish their data. Around 300 organisations failed to report their data on time (far less than the approximately 1500 that failed to do so last year), although some of those organisations have since published their data late (277 at the time of writing).
- Overall, the gender pay gap remains more or less unchanged compared to last year. 78% of organisations pay men more than women (unchanged), 14% pay women more than men (unchanged), and 8% had no gender pay gap (unchanged). Across all of the organisations that reported, there was a 9.6% median pay gap in favour of men, a fall of 0.1% since last year. The mean pay gap in favour of men was 13.1%, a fall of 0.2% since last year.
- Men receive higher bonuses than women, with a median gender bonus gap of 19.6%, and a mean gender bonus gap of 35.4%.
- On average, the higher up the pay scale you go, then the percentage proportion of those jobs held by men gets higher and higher and vice versa. That is, it remains the case that men considerably outnumber women in terms of senior and management roles.
- As with last year, no sector of the economy pays women more than men, with even the education sector registering a 20% pay gap in favour of men (unchanged since last year). Last year, it was noted that 40 of the 100 organisations with the largest pay gaps were academy trusts or schools. This year, in terms of the 16 largest academy trusts, the gender pay gap data highlights that the gap has widened in 10 of the 16, with an overall median gender pay gap of 31% amongst the 16 academy trusts. At Delta Academies Trust and at the White Horse Federation, for example, for every £1 earned by men, women on average receive just 55 pence. Furthermore, in terms of bonuses, at Kemnal Academies Trust (TKAT), for every £1 men receive in bonuses, women receive just 14 pence.
- There continue to be calls for ethnicity pay gap reporting and disability pay gap reporting, in addition to gender pay gap reporting. Indeed, the Government recently consulted on the issue of ethnicity pay gap reporting, with the deadline for responses having closed on the 11th January 2019. The Government are currently analysing the responses received, prior to formally responding to the consultation.
- According to The Times, a review of the gender pay gap data by the Royal Statistical Society (RSS) found that 572 organisations had definitely made mistakes when reporting their data, whilst their were suspicions that a further 1000 organisations approximately had also made mistakes. One of the most common mistakes according to paygaps.com is failing to provide a link to the organisations gender pay gap report on the organisations own website. Furthermore, the RSS has made 10 recommendations for improving the system of gender pay gap reporting.
Reaction
Commenting on the gender pay gap data, Kate Andrews, writing in the Daily Telegraph, has pointed out that the "gender pay gap figures [should be approached] with caution". She argues that: "The figures are crude calculations which do not make like-for-like comparisons. Hourly breakdowns do not account for job, age, background, education or degree level, experience or skill-set. Thus is the FTSE 100 CEO compared to the junior analyst who joined the company straight out of university. The measures fail to even break the data down for full-time and part-time workers; a huge oversight when you consider that women are significantly more likely to work part-time than men. This one factor makes a substantial difference to final pay gap results..... it is easy to demonise and criticise companies with large gender pay gaps, while their context often falls by the wayside. Take EasyJet, whose median gap has increased from 45.5 per cent in the first year of reporting to 47.9 per cent today. It’s tempting to glance the figures and cry “discrimination”, but the full story casts a different light on the company. Female workers fill nearly 75 per cent of the roles in EasyJet’s largest internal jobs sector - the cabin crew. Meanwhile, only 5 per cent of EasyJet pilots are women (roughly the same as the worldwide average of female pilots). Men and women in these respective roles are paid the same, but with an average base salary of £24,000 per annum for cabin crew, compared to £98,000 for pilots, the root of the gender pay gap becomes blatantly obvious. For readers who think the underrepresentation of female pilots is a problem in itself, EasyJet is a company to praise. Their Amy Johnson Initiative – set up voluntarily, years before the company had to report its pay gap – has been working to recruit more female pilots, and is on track to meet their target of 20% new (female) entrant cadets by 2020. Lambasting EasyJet is to penalise a company doing its best to recruit more women into highly paid roles. This harms women in a more subtle way too – female staff at EasyJet are fed a narrative that their employer is acting unfairly or underhandedly. In reality, for ambitious women at EasyJet, it seems the sky is literally the limit."
However, in response to this, Niamh McIntyre, writing in the Guardian points out that: "It’s fair to point out the flaws in the [gender pay gap data and] statistics. The median gap is calculated by lining up all men’s and women’s wages from top to bottom, and comparing the number that falls in the middle for each gender. As with all averages, it smooths out nuances and doesn’t account for differences in specific job roles, age, or previous experience. But the figures are an important indicator of structural inequality. The data shows eight in 10 companies pay male employees more, and some companies pay the men twice as much as women on average. The median gap is a blunt tool, but a powerful one. To understand why the pay gap exists we need more data with more detail."
