Gender Pay Gap

Pay Gap Case Study #6 – How Rishi Sunak became Prime Minister

November 11, 2022 By Nigel

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.

Pay Gaps #26 – Why are female dominated public sector gender pay gaps so large?

May 26, 2022 By Nigel

… & 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.

Pay Gap Trends #5 – Has pay gap reporting narrowed the gender pay gap?

May 13, 2022 By Nigel

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.

Pay Gap Data #5 – Where can I find gender pay gap data for 2021?

May 1, 2022 By Nigel

This post was updated on 1st May 2022 with the latest data

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 Gap Data #4 – Where can I find gender pay gap data for 2020?

October 10, 2021 By Nigel

This post was updated on 10th October 2021 with the latest data

Pay Gap Trends #4 – Did the UK gender pay gap narrow in 2020?

September 5, 2021 By Nigel

This article was last updated using data submitted as of 4th September 2021.

In February 2021, the EHRC confirmed that all employers with a headcount of 250 employees or more would have to submit their gender pay gaps based on the 2020 snapshot date. Due to the lateness of this confirmation, they also stated that no enforcement action would be taken prior to the end of September 2021. As result, fewer employers than expected have reported 2020 data so far so I have used two methods of imputation to estimate that the median gender pay gap among these employers narrowed by 0.2 to 0.3 pence in the pound in 2020.

Pay Gaps #22 – My 7 + 5 recommendations for amending UK pay gap legislation

June 30, 2021 By Nigel

When gender pay gap reporting was introduced by the government for the 2017 snapshot date for all employers with a headcount of 250 or more, it was made clear they would evaluate how the legislation had worked after 5 years. We are now in the 5th year of pay gap reporting and I would like to submit to the government 7 recommendations to improve the way employers’ data is reported and 5 recommendations to improve the data used in the calculations and to reduce various distortions.

Pay Gap Case Study #5 – Why Ryanair’s pay gap report is my favourite

May 28, 2021 By Nigel

Ryanair has the largest (verified) gender pay gap of any employer in the UK, they didn’t bother to report their 2019 pay gap, they are leaving their 2020 pay gap reporting to the last minute, it’s pay gap narrative is only 1 page, they incorrectly use pie charts to represent the pay gap and they have a dodgy bar chart the Liberal Democrats would be proud of! But apart from all that, Ryanair’s gender pay gap report is a shining example that all other employers could learn from. Out of the hundred plus pay gap narratives I have read so far, Ryanair’s is my favourite.

Pay Gaps #21 – No employer has a gender & ethnicity pay gap! Let’s celebrate!

April 19, 2021 By Nigel

It’s April 2029 and the government is trumpeting the fact that no employer in the UK has a gender pay gap or ethnicity pay gap. All employers say that their median woman’s hourly pay is the same as the median man’s hourly pay and their median white employee’s hourly pay is the same as their median non-white employee’s hourly pay. Would you be joining in the celebrations?

Pay Gaps #20 – Abolish the Gender Pay Gap!

March 8, 2021 By Nigel

I call upon Parliament to abolish the Gender Pay Gap by requiring employers to report their Gender Swap Number instead. When presented alongside an employer’s Gender Pay Fingerprint, the Gender Swap Number tells everyone how much work the employer needs to do to eliminate their gender pay gap and allows for a fairer comparison between employers.