Search Results for: gender pay

November 10, 2017

Warnings of widening gender pay gap as women are hit hardest by low pay

by Sara Bean • Comment, Flexible working, News, Wellbeing, Workplace

It is Equal Pay Day today (Friday 10^th November) – the day in the year which is marked in the calendar as the one where women start to work for free, and the campaigning charity the Fawcett Society has warned that the pay gap is actually widening for some groups of women and will now take 100 years to close, based on the current rate of change. Research by the Living Wage Foundation published to mark the day has also revealed women are hit hardest by low pay in the UK. Women make up nearly two thirds (62 percent) of workers currently struggling to make ends meet on less than the real Living Wage claims the Foundation, which amounts to 3.4 million women compared to 2.1 million men. Nearly 1/3 of all UK working women (26 percent) are still earning less than the Living Wage, compared to just 16 percent of all working men. And this trend has been the case since 2011, when KPMG and the Living Wage Foundation launched its annual Living Wage report.

September 5, 2017

Third of firms concerned unexplained gender pay figures could damage their reputation

by Sara Bean • Legal news, News, Workplace

While a third of companies have already completed their gender pay gap reports, many remain reluctant to publish the figures; and a majority (70 percent) want to include an explanatory narrative to help support their findings. According to the new survey by Mercer, although perceptions of the regulations have improved since being made final, companies find the regulations complex (41 percent), confusing (29 percent) and misleading (28 percent). The result is, while a third of companies completed their analysis at the end of May, most (44 percent) plan on leaving it to later in the year (Oct 2017-Jan 2018) to report; and 28 percent don’t know when they will report. When looking for root causes of the pay gaps, 54 percent of respondents have conducted some sort of analysis (e.g. equal pay audits and bonus programme analysis) in the last three years. Looking ahead there is a dramatic change in the attention being given by organisations to actions beyond pay, and some leading organisations are addressing this issue already.

August 21, 2017

Flexible working is the solution to limited career choices for women and closing the gender pay gap

by Neil Franklin • Flexible working, News

Flexibility in the workplace is the key to offering women the freedom to choose a career path after childbirth, new research by the University of Kent claims. The study suggests that it is ‘the ability to take advantage of the opportunity for flexible working that is most useful in preventing women from dropping out of the labour market after having their first child. The research, led by Dr Heejung Chung, of the University’s School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research, found that women who were able to use flexible working were only half as likely to reduce their hours after the birth of their child. This effect was especially the case for women who used flexible working prior to the birth of their child as well as after, the researchers found. The researchers observed that more than half of women in their study sample reduced their working hours after the birth of their child, while less than a quarter of women who were able to use flexible working reduced their hours.

June 8, 2017

Long term problems predicted for EU businesses if gender pay gap persists ⁰

by Sara Bean • Legal news, News, Workplace

As we reported earlier this week, more needs to be done to ensure that female representation in the boardroom increases; and now a new report paints a negative future for European businesses if the pay gap isn’t adequately addressed. Mercer has warned that a failure to address the EU’s substantial gender pension gap (40 percent), could cause long-term problems for businesses and governments alike; as through its analysis, the consultancy has found that the pension gap varies widely from one member state to another, however half have gaps of 30 percent or more. In its white paper The Gender Pension Gap – From Awareness to Action Mercer outlines the key drivers behind the pension gender gap, how it will impact companies and how they can start to address it within their workforce. Women continue to be significantly under-represented at all levels of the work force; in the EU their participation rate is 10 percent lower than men. The European Commission’s recent proposal for a directive on work-life balance for parents and carers, including the introduction of carers’ leave for dependent relatives, aims at addressing this under-representation.

May 8, 2017

Just five out of 9,000 UK employers have published gender pay gap details so far ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • News, Workplace

Only five out of the 9,000 eligible companies have so far reported details of their gender pay differentials on the website set up as a plank of the Government’s discourse on equality. Although the Government has confirmed that the policy does not reflect pay for comparable jobs, but wider issues, there has always been a degree of scepticism within the business community about the need for reporting. The rules oblige all private and public sector organisations with more than 250 employees to publish annual figures for both their mean and median gender income levels based on gender. They must also publish the number of men and women in each salary quartile. Reporting must be completed by April of next year, but there hasn’t been a rush to comply since the rules came into force on April 6.

April 14, 2017

Gender pay gap legislation may be aiming at the wrong target, claims report ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • News, Workplace

Britain’s new gender pay gap legislation is addressing the wrong issue and so will fail to do what it sets out to do, according to a new report from executive search firm Korn Ferry Hay Group. The firm claims that its analysis of over 570,000 people on its UK database shows that the gender pay gap is “virtually non-existent” when men and women do the same job at the same level in the UK, but that the differences become pronounced in senior and executive arenas. The study backs up data from the Office for National Statistics which recently began publishing details of pay differentials by age and sex and the results are eye opening. The most startling finding was that women in their 20s and early 30s earn slightly more than men of the same age and in the same job. However, as people get older, the pay gap goes into reverse, with men marginally out earning women at the age of 35, with the pay gap then widening rapidly into early middle age. As we reported earlier this week, the major issues arise both at a senior level of organisations and when women start families and begin paying a ‘motherhood penalty’ in terms of their pay and careers.

April 12, 2017

Research shows how the gender pay gap can be directly related to motherhood ⁰

by Sara Bean • Comment, Flexible working, News, Workplace

A new piece of academic research provides more evidence that the underlying reason for the gender pay gap is the discrepancy between the way women with children are treated compared to men, and other women without children. According to new research from Université Paris-Saclay, mothers are paid 3 percent less for every child they have compared to their female colleagues who do not have children, while fathers suffer no such penalty at all. The figures were compiled from a 16-year study of data from organisations in the French private sector between 1995 and 2011 by Lionel Wilner, Director of Graduate Studies at engineering and statistics school ENSAE, a founding member of Université Paris-Saclay. He separated the effect of childbirth from other firm-specific wage determinants, and accounted for full-time and part-time work, to find that the difference between mothers and non-mothers is approximated a 3 percent lower hourly wage. The effect was found to be more pronounced after the birth of the first child. More →

April 5, 2017

How to prepare your business for the new Gender Pay Gap regulations ⁰

by Sara Bean • Features, Legal news, Workplace

From April 2017, employers with over 250 employees will be required to reveal specific information about the difference in net pay and bonuses between male and female employees explain the legal experts from Berg. The Office for National Statistics revealed that, in the financial industry, male managers and directors are earning on average 32.4% more than women in the same role. Whilst the statistic will vary from industry to industry, it’s important to highlight the divide and work together to accomplish equality in the workplace. The Equality Act 2010 (Gender Pay Gap Information) Regulations 2017 comes into force on 6th April 2017, and will require businesses to be transparent about the gender equality in their workplaces. It is hoped that this important move will encourage any business with less than positive statistics to make the move towards creating an equal workplace. For businesses that will need to report on their net pay, it’s a big task that needs to be executed properly. In fact, a survey by NGA Human Resources found that 20% of respondents won’t be ready to disclose the information by the deadline. With that in mind, here’s a look into what the regulations require you to do, and how these changes could impact your business.

April 4, 2017

Majority of employers still not ready for mandatory gender pay gap reporting ⁰

by Sara Bean • Legal news, News, Workplace

UK employers are unprepared for gender pay gap reporting legislation, with more than a third (32 percent) failing to review salaries across genders to safeguard against pay discrimination. This is despite the fact that the Equality Act 2010 (Gender Pay Gap Information) Regulations 2017 come into force later this week (6th April) which will require UK companies with more than 250 staff to keep records of gender pay and bonuses. Totaljobs’ survey of 4,700 employees and 145 employers found that 82 percent of companies are not reviewing their gender equality/equal pay policy and 58 percent don’t have salary information available across roles and genders. Little more than half (53.1 percent) of employers feel “very confident” that salaries are equal across the genders. While employers will be required to keep salary records, the research showed men are currently more likely to receive a bonus than women and typically receive more. In the past year, 43 percent of men received a bonus of £2,059, on average, versus 38 percent of women, who, on average, received £1,128.

March 23, 2017

Employers blame gender pay gap on career breaks and part-time work ⁰

by Sara Bean • Legal news, News, Workplace

Over a quarter (29 percent) of senior managers within UK enterprises do not see the gender pay gap as an issue for businesses and many believe the gap is partly due to women’s personal career decisions, a new survey claims. Research by NGA Human Resources (NGA HR) found that despite the UK gender pay gap sitting at 13.9 percent, only 17 percent of decision makers surveyed believe that regulations on gender splits will reduce the divide. Nearly half (49 percent) of senior leaders in businesses blame the disparity on the fact that women are more likely to take career breaks or work part-time (42 percent) as the main factors for pay disparities. Other reasons given for the gender pay gap are the lack of representation of women in the overall workforce (20 percent) and fewer women in senior management positions (27 percent).

February 22, 2017

MPs criticise the Government’s response to gender pay gap recommendations ⁰

by Sara Bean • Flexible working, Legal news, News, Workplace

If the Government will fail to achieve its goal of eliminating the gender pay gap in a generation if it continues to ignore the evidence which it is being given, a cross-party committee of MPs has said. The Women and Equalities Committee is disappointed with the Government’s response to a series of recommendations it put forward last March, which it says shows that the Government is not effectively tackling the structural causes of the gender pay gap. While the Government’s recognises the business case for reducing the gender pay gap and acknowledges structural factors contributing to the pay gap, including women doing jobs for which they are overqualified, concentration in part-time work, and being penalised for taking time out of work to raise children; it rejects most of the Committee’s seventeen evidence-based recommendations for addressing these issues. Instead it highlights gender pay gap reporting, as “key to accelerating progress,” and maintains that current policies on Shared Parental Leave, flexible working, and supporting women back into work are adequate.

February 10, 2017

Gender pay gap for Millennials is closing, but for the wrong reasons ⁰

by Sara Bean • Flexible working, News, Workplace

Millennial men are earning less than Generation Y did in their earlier careers reflecting a shift towards young men doing low paid work traditionally carried out by women. In his Grigor McClelland lecture on 21st century inequality to Manchester Business School yesterday, Resolution Foundation Director Torsten Bell drew on upcoming research for the Foundation’s Intergenerational Commission on the labour market prospects for younger generations, which highlights the stark gender differences on inter-generational progress on pay. According to the data, Millennial men have earned less than Generation X men in every year between the ages of 22 and 30, resulting in a cumulative pay deficit during their 20s of £12,500. In contrast millennial women have experienced neither generational pay progress or decline. This has narrowed the gender pay gap for millennials, but for the wrong reasons, a shift towards lower-skilled jobs, often part-time, which have stunted the pay progress of young men.