Has 6 years of mandatory gender pay gap reporting (GPGR) made a dent in the UK’s gender pay gap? According to a recent BBC article, not one bit at all. Unfortunately, too many people on social media have been taken in by this misleading article and I will be submitting a formal complaint to the BBC soon to get it amended. I rebutted this at the time with this LinkedIn post and I will now expand on that here to show what the true trend is and whether or not mandatory pay gap reporting has had an impact.
Pay Gap Case Study #7 – Does the Department for Work & Pensions have a Gender Pay Gap?
The Department for Work & Pensions (DWP) says for every £1 paid to the median man in March 2022, the median woman was also paid £1. In other words, their 2022 median gender pay gap using hourly pay was 0%. However, their Gender Swap Number per 1,000 employees for this date was +26 which immediately raises the question “Have the DWP made an error in their calculations like Cleveland Police did in 2017?” This was my first reaction which seems remarkable for an employer with 91,006 full pay relevant employees on a public sector pay scale and the largest pool of statisticians of any government department.
Pay Gaps #28 – Does the NHS Harm Gender Equality?
“We’re committed to Gender Equality!”
As we approach International Women’s Day next month, expect to see more and more employers saying something like this in their PR. It’s an easy statement to make but what does Gender Equality mean to them and you? To encourage employers to be clearer on what this means for them, I want to explore 6 possible definitions. Along the way, I show some definitions of gender equality in the UK are out of reach unless half a million women working for the NHS (National Health Service) are replaced by men.
[Read more…] about Pay Gaps #28 – Does the NHS Harm Gender Equality?
Pay Gap Case Study #6 – How Rishi Sunak became Prime Minister
Rishi Sunak is the UK’s first Prime Minister from a non-white ethnic minority. Did this happen by accident or were the Tories working towards this day over the last 20 years?
A recent article in the Sydney Morning Herald by an Australian journalist Latika Burke argues it was the latter. This is well worth reading because it goes into some depth about what the Conservatives did to get to this position. When I combine this article with what I have said before about closing pay and representation gaps, I consider the Conservative party to be a valuable case study for any employer who wishes to close their gaps.
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Pay Gaps #27 – Don’t mention the Disability Pay Gap!
“I mentioned it once but I think I got away with it!”
Basil Fawlty didn’t get away with it in Torquay and neither did this manager.
HR Manager – “Our disability pay gap is zero which surprises me”
Me – “How many disabled employees do you have?”
My response sums up my view on Disability Pay Gap Reporting (DPGR). The manager commented on their pay gap whilst I queried their employment gap. As a statistician who happens to be disabled, I consider the conventional disability pay gap statistic to be at best irrelevant and at worse a lie.
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Pay Gaps #26 – Why are female dominated public sector gender pay gaps so large?
… & why are gender pay gaps so small at male dominated private sector employers?
When I asked people recently who on average had the larger gender pay gap, the results were –
- 62% said female dominated (>80% employees are women) public sector (snapshot date 31st March) employers. There were 420 such employers in April 2021 who reported their UK gender pay gap.
- 38% said male dominated (>80% employees are men) private sector (snapshot date 5th April) employers. There were 1584 such employers in April 2021 who reported their UK gender pay gap.
The majority are correct. In April 2021, for every £1 paid to the average man, the average woman was paid 90p at the average male dominated private sector employer and 77p at the average female dominated public sector employer. For context, the average woman at the average employer in the finance sector (who are often in the news for having large pay gaps) is paid 75p.
[Read more…] about Pay Gaps #26 – Why are female dominated public sector gender pay gaps so large?
Pay Gap Trends #5 – Has pay gap reporting narrowed the gender pay gap?
Disinterested employers were 20% less likely than engaged employers to have narrowed their UK gender pay gap between 2017 & 2021 . I draw this conclusion from a statistical model using ~6,000 employers which removed the effect of confounders such as size, sector, furlough, gender ratio, etc. Once accounted for, I found 61% of those reporting their pay gap for 2019 had narrowed their pay gap by 2021 compared to 55% of those not reporting 2019 data.
[Read more…] about Pay Gap Trends #5 – Has pay gap reporting narrowed the gender pay gap?
Pay Gaps #25B – House of Lords’s debate on Ethnicity Pay Gaps – My thoughts
Is pay gap reporting about transparency or accountability? This was the main theme of the House of Lords debate on Ethnicity Pay Gap Reporting (EPGR) on 25th October 2021, unlike the Commons debate that preceded it in September. The 9 peers who spoke could be split between those who see EPGR as an exercise in employer transparency and those who see EPGR as an exercise in employer accountability and I consider this to be a fundamental question that has not yet been answered. In this article, I will discuss the implications of both answers to this question for any future EPGR legislation.
[Read more…] about Pay Gaps #25B – House of Lords’s debate on Ethnicity Pay Gaps – My thoughts
Pay Gaps #25A – House of Common’s debate on Ethnicity Pay Gaps – My thoughts
The UK Parliament debated Ethnicity Pay Gap Reporting (EPGR) on 20th September 2021 in Westminster Hall. Seven MPs spoke in the hour long debate and, as debates go, I thought it was actually quite good. There was cross party consensus on the merits of EPGR but I saw a divide between those who recognise EPGR is complex and requires trade offs and those who think the complexities of EPGR can be solved with government guidance.
[Read more…] about Pay Gaps #25A – House of Common’s debate on Ethnicity Pay Gaps – My thoughts
Pay Gaps #24 – Briefing Note for Parliament’s debate on Ethnicity Pay Gaps
The UK Parliament is about to debate whether or not ethnicity pay gap reporting (EPGR) by UK employers should be made mandatory. The debate will start at 4.30pm on Monday 20th September 2021 and is a result of an e-petition reaching the threshold to require a parliamentary debate. To assist MPs, journalists, campaigners and anyone else interested in this debate, I have written a briefing note which lists 9 key points that need to be addressed during the debate.
Update 20th September – The Parliament TV link is here and my live-tweet thread is here.
[Read more…] about Pay Gaps #24 – Briefing Note for Parliament’s debate on Ethnicity Pay Gaps
