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It’s been seven years since businesses first published their gender pay data (or more accurately, their ‘pay-gap’ data) – in legislation first passed in 2017, which would ensure firms would have what the Business Energy & Industrial Strategy Committee, called an “equality spotlight” shining on them.
Back then, the difference in median hourly pay was 18.4% in favour of men. In addition to this, 30% of employers had gaps in excess of 30%, while gaps of 40% were described by the committee as: “not uncommon.”
Since this time, many things have changed. The overall gender pay gap in the UK is still high, but lower at 13.1%. It’s proof says the government, that requirements for employers to “justify themselves when the figures do not look good,” have worked.
And yet, at the same time, one big problem hasn’t changed at all. Indeed some commentators suggest it’s got worse: the very real fact that the data really doesn’t actually tell the full story at all – and in many cases, can completely misrepresent an organisation efforts, by giving them a high pay gap when the truth is that they are making significant inroads into making pathways for women better.
Melissa Blissett, pay gaps analytics lead at Barnett Waddingham explains exactly why this might be so in some cases: “We now see lots technology firms hugely improving the one thing they were often criticised a lot for: bringing more women into STEM,” she says. “But while the good news is greater female representation many of these new entrants are still in entry-level – ie lower paid – roles. This influx of new, but currently lower paid staff, means these employers’ pay gaps have actually widened. On paper they’re doing exactly the right thing, but the data indicates the very opposite.”
Lies, damned lies, and statistics
For some years now bodies like the Royal Statistical Society (RSS), have argued gender pay gap reporting is “flawed in principle” and riddled with ambiguity. Says Nigel Marriott, RSS fellow who has given evidence to the Treasury Select Committee on the effectiveness of gender pay gap reporting: “Pay gap reporting can absolutely mislead. Data can paint organisations in an extraordinarily good light, as having either no gap or a gap in favour of women – but it’s actually because that organisation is majority-staffed by women to start with. This is particularly so in the teaching profession.”
WHY HEADLINE DATA DOESN'T ALWAYS TELL THE WHOLE STORY:
- BT saw its median hourly gender pay gap shift from 2.3% in favour of women to 9% in favour of men, between 2017 and 2023. It has said this is explained by having low levels of women at ‘all’ levels of the company. Only 28% of its positions were reported to be held by women.
- Lloyds Bank has reported that women hold more than half of the highest paid jobs but also two-thirds of the lowest paid jobs, meaning it has a pay gap still. In 2023 recent report it added that since its most recent data was collected, “two female staff in senior positions have left the organisation and been replaced with male staff. This means that there are more male staff in the highest paid quartile and our gender pay gap will increase in 2024.”
- Data from British Airways shows its gender pay gap increased the most out of all employers with 200,000 staff or more – from 10%-37% in the first six years of reporting. But it claims this is due to over-representation of women in cabin crew roles and the comparative lack of female pilots.
According to Marriott there are countless examples of data that is literally as clear as mud. “Nationally, in 2019 Novartis could claim a pay gap favouring women, but when split into its separate legal entities for London and Grimsby, both sites showed pay gaps favouring men [pay was higher in London where 60% of the workforce was women; Grimsby was a manufacturing plant with 80% men]. So which is the correct pay gap?“ he muses.
Marriot says around half of organisations have a stated pay gap purely because of “structural issues” unrelated to their efforts around diversity – and these are issues which simply won’t change. “Then you’ve got those who are have good gender balances – the main point of the reporting – but where women disproportionately hold the lower paid roles in that organisation. These jobs can often be chosen for lifestyle reasons – such as desire to work part-time, not because of lack of opportunity.”
