When is #EqualPayDay in the UK in 2024?
No-one knows is the correct answer. That’s because there are no national measurements of the extent of unequal pay in the UK e.g. a woman being paid less than a man for the doing the same job.
If you see anyone talking about “Equal Pay Day“, they are in fact talking about #GenderPayGapDay, the day on which the typical women “starts working for free” when compared with the typical man irrespective of what job they are doing. Of course, as everyone knows, gender pay gaps do not measure the extent of unequal pay in any shape or form.
For 2024, the ONS (Office of National Statistics) has published 30 different gender pay gap statistics. This means we could have 30 different gender pay gap days so how do we decide which one to use?
Where to find 30 gender pay gaps
ONS use their ASHE (Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings) to estimate pay by sex as of April 5th of each year. For more details on ASHE and links to the ONS website, please read my article “Are we there yet?”
These estimates are typically published at the end of October of each year in two different places –
- Gender Pay Gap in the UK – this is an annual report showing some of the 30 pay gap statistics broken down by a variety of categories. The most common pay gap quoted is based on median hourly pay excluding overtime. However, the main data download here only shows the pay gap, not the pay figures by sex used to calculate the pay gap.
- Pay & Hours Data by Sex – here you can download a zipped file of spreadsheets containing the data used to calculate the 30 pay gap statistics. In addition, these files also show the percentiles of the distributions of men and women’s pay which is data I have not yet made use of.
All charts and tables in the article are based on Pay & Hours Data link above.
How did the ONS arrive at 30 pay gap statistics?
The 30 statistics are the outcome of every combination of these three factors –
- 2 Calculations – Median or Mean pay
- 3 Populations – Full-time, Part-Time or All employees
- 5 Pay Periods – Annual/Weekly/Hourly Gross pay or Weekly/Hourly pay excluding overtime
Each combination is calculated separately for men and woman plus for all employees. The ONS calculate the gender pay gap as the difference between the pay of men and the pay of women expressed as a percentage of the man’s pay. I am not a fan of this format and I prefer to calculate the pay ratio by dividing the woman’s pay by the man’s pay. This ratio allows me to say for every £1 paid to the typical man, the typical woman is £x.yz.
10 Gender Pay Gap Days for ALL UK Employees in 2024
Here are the 10 sets of calculations for all employees in 2024. For information, ASHE does not include the self-employed and the figures shown are intended to represent the estimated 28 million people in paid employment in the UK. ONS estimate the ratio of men to women for this population is essentially 50:50.
The table shows first the five median pay estimates for men and women in blue followed by the five mean (or average) pay estimates for men and women in red. The pay ratio (W:M) and ONS gender pay gap (GPG) calculation is then shown followed by the date of Gender Pay Gap Day if those figures were used.
How is gender pay gap day calculated? 2024 was a leap year with 366 days so I first multiply 366 by the pay ratio W:M (women’s pay divided by man’s pay). This calculation is a variant on my pay ratio calculation whereby for every 366 days the man is paid, the woman is paid for Y days. I then add 1 day to get the date on which the typical woman “starts working for free“.
I will illustrate with the row highlighted in green in the table which uses median hourly pay excluding overtime. For every £1 paid to the median man, the median woman is paid 87p or 13% less. The equates to 366 x 15.87 / 18.26 = 318.1 days into 2024 which turns out to be 13th November. This is the date the median woman is “paid up to” which means the median woman “starts working for free” from the 14th November.
The reason I highlight that row is it’s the pay gap statistic most commonly quoted by the ONS and other commentators when considering pay gaps. That doesn’t make it the “official” or “right” statistic, it just happens to be the statistic that has become the default measure of pay gaps. Personally, I prefer to use median annual gross pay as the starting point of discussions about gender pay disparities since that pay gap (28% in 2024) is closer to capturing all the factors and choices people make.
10 Gender Pay Gap Days for FULL TIME Employees in 2024
Here are the 10 sets of calculations for UK full time employees in 2024. The ONS define a full time employee as anyone whose contracted hours are 30 or more per week. ONS estimate there are just over 20 million people in paid full time employment with approximately 11.5 million men and 8.5 million women.
The highlighted row is what the Fawcett Society chose to use for their official “Equal Pay Day” in 2024. This raises the question why did they choose this statistic and not one of the other 29? In a downloadable 15-page PDF report available from the link just given, they gave this justification on halfway down on page 3 –
“Fawcett uses the mean hourly gender pay gap for full-time workers (11.3% in 2024) to calculate the date of Equal Pay Day because this figure captures the full impact of men being more likely to be very high earners.“
In other words, they decided to use a figure that maximises what they perceive the typical man to be earning. Personally, I would use the exact same justification to not use the mean. All statisticians will tell you the mean is susceptible to extreme outliers (Premier League football club pay gaps illustrate this perfectly). Whilst it has its place in statistical analysis, if one is trying to portray the “typical” man/woman when the underlying distribution of pay is known to be highly asymmetrical or skewed, the median is generally preferred to the mean. Indeed the Fawcett Society accept this point two paragraphs on from the above quote when they refer to median after tax monthly pay “… because this best reflects the tangible, average amount in the pockets of the typical woman or man.”
10 Gender Pay Gap Days for PART TIME Employees in 2024
Here are the 10 sets of calculations for UK part time employees in 2024. The ONS define a part time employee as anyone whose contracted hours are under 30 per week. ONS estimate there are 7.5 million people in paid part time employment with approximately 2.0 million men and 5.5 million women.
If there was a counterpart to the Fawcett Society who wished to choose a statistic to best highlight the plight of men, the highlighted row of median gross weekly pay would be their best option. This shows the largest pay gap whereby for every £1 paid gross per week to the median man, the median woman is paid £1.13 or 13% more. Gender Pay Gap Day for this statistic is 17th February which now has the meaning that from the start of the year to the 16th February, the median part time man is “working for free” and only “starts to be paid” from the 17th February.
So When is Gender Pay Gap Day?
The answer should be obvious by now. If it is possible to have one gender pay gap day that shows a disadvantage for women in November and another gender pay gap day that shows a disadvantage for men in February, then perhaps the pay gap statistic is not telling you much in the first place. Regular readers of my blog will know that I constantly bang on the need to analyse representation gaps and not pay gaps. The ONS pay gap statistics were designed by statisticians for statisticians and were never designed for intelligent conversations about gender disparities. Perhaps we should have 30 gender pay gap days each year just to drive this point home?
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