Diversity

Pay Gap Case Study #4 – What is the gender pay gap at Novartis UK?

September 15, 2020 By Nigel

Welcome to my next case study where I look at the 2019 pay gap figures of Novartis UK. They caught my eye when they posted on LinkedIn the following statement.

“… our 2019 gender pay report which highlights that on average, women earn more than men across all of our UK sites and divisions…“

When I looked at the two legal entities that were required to report gender pay gaps, I saw that both reported pay gaps favouring men instead. Something odd is going here and it’s a perfect case study to show why anyone who analyses pay gaps needs to pay more attention to a Bletchley Park codebreaker from world war 2 who introduced the world to Simpson’s Paradox.

Pay Gaps #17 – How to Spot an Incorrect Median Gender Pay Gap

August 11, 2020 By Nigel

I have a spotted an incorrect median gender pay gap published by a well known name in a certain industry. They shall remain nameless for now since I am trying to get them to accept their error and publish a new gender pay gap report on their website. I know they have made an error because their published data violates the laws of mathematics as I will explain in this blog. All it takes to spot such an error is a simple calculation you can do in your head and an understanding what the median measures.

Pay Gaps #16 – Eliminate your gender pay gap by playing Blackjack!

August 2, 2020 By Nigel

Imagine where you work, the median women earns 33% less than the median man where you work. Although your workplace is gender balanced with 50:50 men:women, the pay gap exists because 1 in 4 of managers and 3 in 4 of the lowest paid admin staff are women. How long will it take for the pay gap to disappear assuming that all future recruitment at all levels have 50:50 candidate pools with men and women equally likely to be appointed to the role?

Up to 25 years i.e. a generation

Pay Gap Trends #3 – Did the UK gender pay gap narrow in 2019?

June 14, 2020 By Nigel

On 24th March 2020, the UK government suspended enforcement of the gender pay gap reporting deadline of 5th April. As of today, just over 50% of employers have reported their 2019 gender pay gap figures. Despite this shortfall, I have used statistical imputation methods to calculate that the median gender pay gap narrowed in 2019 from 9.6 pence in the pound to 9.0-9.2 pence in the pound.

Pay Gap Trends #2 – My analysis of 7 sectors for Practical Law magazine

June 3, 2020 By Nigel

In April, I was asked to analyse the trends in UK gender pay gaps over the 3 years of mandatory reporting from 2017 to 2019 for Practical Law. They were interested in 7 customised sectors and the links to these can be found in this post.

Pay Gaps #15 – Where can I find gender pay gap data for 2019?

June 2, 2020 By Nigel

This post was updated on 3rd June 2020 with the latest data

Update 5/4/20 – On 24th March, the government suspended enforcement of the deadline for reporting 2019 gender pay gaps due to the coronavirus outbreak. As of now, Only 40% of employers have reported their 2019 data. Employers are still required to report 2019 data but will not be punished for being late in doing so.

The government requires all organisations employing 250 or more employees to submit gender pay gap data. All data is available to the public and can be found on the government’s gender pay gap website. I have downloaded this data and created a spreadsheet tool to present the data in a more user-friendly and visual format.

Pay Gaps #14 – Gender Pay Fingerprints are better than Gender Pay Gaps

February 19, 2020 By Nigel

Recently, a lot of people have been making incorrect claims about what a gender pay gap tells you. I have been pointing out these errors but in doing so, I am conscious I come across as a pedant or a negative voice. The problem is that the official gender pay gap measure (the difference between the median man and the median woman) is just a single number and that single number does not capture the full nuance of what is going on. I have decided it is time to introduce the Gender Pay Fingerprint to the world as an alternative and going forward, I will be encouraging people to use this instead.

Pay Gap Case Study #3- Will the BBC’s gender pay gap narrow after losing to Samira Ahmed?

February 13, 2020 By Nigel

The BBC presenter Samira Ahmed has won her claim for equal pay at the employment tribunal. She successfully claimed that Jeremy Vine was an appropriate comparator for her pay. She is not the only female presenter to make a claim with over 50 more claims under consideration at present. Assuming that these are all successful, will these have any effect on the BBC’s gender pay gap for 2019 of 7p in the pound?

Pay Gaps #13 – How could Ethnicity Pay Gap Reporting be introduced in the UK?

February 11, 2020 By Nigel

On 5th February 2020, Baroness Prosser laid a bill in the House of Lords which calls for the introduction of ethnicity pay gap reporting in addition to a number of other initiatives. Last year I explained why ethnicity pay gap reporting cannot follow the same process as gender pay gap reporting so now is the time to explore how ethnicity pay gap reporting could be carried out.

Pay Gaps #12 – Unequal Pay & Gender Pay Gaps are not the same thing!

November 8, 2019 By Nigel

The 14th November 2019 is being incorrectly marked as Equal Pay Day in the UK by the Fawcett Society. By having a campaign name that conflates equal pay issues with the gender pay gap, the Fawcett Society runs the risk of misleading men and women in the UK in their understanding of what these two concepts mean.

If you care about statistics being used correctly then please lobby the Fawcett Society to rename this as Gender Pay Gap day instead.

If you care about issues to do with Equal Pay, then please support the #MeTooPay campaign instead. This is a new campaign, led by Dame Moya Greene, who are explicit about the distinction and are saying, quite rightly, that with the 50th anniversary of the Equal Pay Act taking place next year, cases of unequal pay should not be happening in this day and age.