• It is important to remember that gender pay gap differentiates from equal pay as gender pay gap is the difference between the average earnings between all males and females within a business whereas, equal pay is the difference between what a male and female earn for doing equal work.

    By April 2018 all businesses affected by the gender pay gap reporting requirements must release their gender pay gap percentages.

    Examples of some companies and their gender pay gap:

    Many companies have already released their figures and the gender pay gap varies between them all. For example, ‘Easy Jet airlines’ have a very large gender pay gap percentage where men are earning 51.7% more than women calculated based on a mean hourly rate. However, on the other end of the scale is a company called ‘Yellow Dot’ which is in the child care profession whose hourly rate is 35.4 % higher for women. They state that this is due to it being a female dominated field so they have very few male employees. The ‘British Museum’ has a percentage gender pay gap of 0% and the Armed forces also have a very small gap of 0.09% where women earn less than men.

    Trends in pay gaps in certain professions:

    A trend has been seen in the retail profession which have very high percentage pay gaps. This is seen with the retail shop ‘Phase Eight’ which has a percentage gender pay gap of 64.8%. This is one of the highest so far and they have argued that it is due to women being predominately on the shop floors but men being in the higher paying office roles. An area which is seeing a lot of media criticism in relation to equal pay and the gender pay gap is the sporting world, and in particular, football. The Sporting Intelligence annual salary survey found that the combined pay of those playing in the top seven women’s football leagues equals that of a single male footballer, Neymar.

    Consequences of large gender pay gaps:

    It is clear that having a gender pay gap can cause issues such as women being unhappy at work. The BBC have recently received significant criticism around their pay scheme. Carrie Gracie was a journalist and Chinese editor for the BBC and recently quit her job after finding out that the male employees were being paid a much higher salary than her. The BBC then offered her a £45,000 pay rise which she refused as she did not want to be involved in unlawful pay discrimination.

    What is being done about gender pay gaps:

    It is very clear from the businesses which have already posted their gender pay gap statistics that men earn higher salaries than women in most industries. It is the Governments objective to decrease these gaps but also women from around the world wish to reduce and remove the gap. Women have named a day “Equal Pay Day” which is the day in the year where women effectively do not earn the same as men; this is to help raise awareness.

    If as a business you need any assistance in complying with gender pay gap reporting requirements, please speak to a member of the Employment Team.

    This content is correct at time of publication

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