Four in 10 companies have reported that their gender pay gap has grown larger since the last time they published it, the BBC reports.
The broadcaster looked at the company’s median pay gap – which is the difference in pay between the middle-ranking woman and the middle-ranking man. Of the 10% of firms that have published their updated gaps so far, 74% report a pay gap which favours men, 14% have a pay gap favouring women, and 12% report no pay gap.
Big firms whose gap has grown wider since last year include Kwik Fit, Npower and Virgin Atlantic.
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However, overall the picture seems brighter – of the 1,146 companies who have reported so far, the median gender pay gap reported is 8.4% – a slight improvement from 9.7% last year.
“This study shows that whilst great strides have been made in gender equality in the workplace, there’s still a significant amount left for us to overcome,” Sarah Kaiser, Employee Experience, Diversity & Inclusion Lead, EMEIA at Fujitsu, said.
“Amid the #MeToo and #TimesUp campaigns, mandatory gender pay reporting and a push for more women in senior positions, this is particularly evident in the 2019 workplace.”
She suggested that one major factor preventing gender equality is the pipeline problem. “If organisations are to address the low number of women in more senior-level positions the first step is to increase the pipeline of talent by driving recruitment of women at a graduate and apprentice level,” Kaiser explained.
“But it doesn’t stop there. It’s easy enough to put in place initiatives where half of a company’s graduates employed are women, but this shouldn’t be seen as a box-ticking exercise. Women need to be properly retained and included with an organisation, and the introduction of women’s networks, for instance, can be vital in ensuring women receive the proper support and advice they need.”
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Martha McKinley, a Solicitor at the national law firm Stephensons, added that the pay imbalance between male and female workers is a deep-seated problem. “The fact that the median pay gap seems to be widening in some companies is a disappointment, but it reflects the challenge that lies ahead in tackling the issue,” she said.
“The introduction of this type of reporting, however, makes the issue more transparent and forces employers to sit up, take notice and hopefully take action. It will be interesting to see how the land lies after the April 4th reporting deadline.”
The difference between equal pay and the gender pay gap
The Equality Act 2010 gives women the right to be paid the same as men who are doing the same job. For example, a supermarket couldn’t pay one cashier more than another based on their sex.
However, the gender pay gap is the difference between the average hourly pay of all men compared to the average pay of all women in an organisation. So, if all the managers at the supermarket were men, but all the cashiers were women, you could expect to see a sizable gap despite the firm adhering to equal pay laws.
