PAY DISCRIMINATION
Women working in the private sector are being left behind in the struggle for equal pay
The Equal Opportunities Commission has issued a fresh call on government to address the pay gap between men and women in private sector jobs, which recent ONS figures prove is significantly higher than the pay gap for public sector workers.
While progress has been made in reducing the full-time pay gap, the part-time pay gap remains stuck at around 40%.
The 2005 annual earnings survey, issued by the Office of National Statistics, shows that the full-time gender pay gap is 17.2% -- a reduction of just 12.2% since the Equal Pay Act came into force 30 years ago. The pay gap between women working part-time and men working full-time is 38.5% and has barely changed in 30 years.
| Mean hourly earnings (excluding the effects of overtime hours and earnings) | |
| Public sector | |
| Male, full-time employees | £15.20 |
| Female, full-time employees | £13.18 |
| Female, part-time employees | £10.11 |
| Full-time pay gap | 13.3% |
| Part-time pay gap | 33.5% |
| Private sector | |
| Male, full-time employees | £13.75 |
| Female, full-time employees | £10.65 |
| Female, part-time employees | £7.60 |
| Full-time pay gap | 22.5% |
| Part-time pay gap | 44.7% |
| All employees | |
| Male, full-time employees | £14.08 |
| Female, full-time employees | £11.67 |
| Female, part-time employees | £8.68 |
| Full-time pay gap | 17.1% |
| Part-time pay gap | 38.4% |
The full-time time pay gap is the gap between the hourly earnings of women and men working full-time as a percentage of men's full-time earnings, and the part-time pay gap is the gap between the hourly earnings of part-time women and full-time men as a percentage of men's full-time earnings.
Source: Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings 2005 (revised December 2005), Office for National Statistics.
EOC says action is needed in the private sector
Jenny Watson, chair of the Equal Opportunities Commission, said:
"Women working in the private sector are being left behind in the struggle for equal pay. The pay gap between men and women working full-time in the private sector is nearly 10 percentage points bigger than it is for public sector workers. And things are even worse for women working part-time in the private sector, who are paid an average of 45% less, hour for hour, than full-time men. In early 2007 there will be a new legal obligation on public sector employers to eliminate discrimination between men and women in their workforce, so the risk is that in years to come the private sector pay penalty will increase still more.
As the government responds to the Women and Work Commission's report next year, it will need to decide what action it will ask private sector employers to take. This should include moving beyond the requirements of Britain's current legislation, and taking responsibility for tackling issues such as the segregation of women into low-paid areas of work, and the current lack of flexible and part-time working at senior levels, as well as pay discrimination."
| Equal Pay Act |
| The Equal Pay Act received the Royal Assent on 29 May 1970, but its commencement was delayed for five years in order to give employers time to put their houses in order by voluntarily removing discrimination from their pay scales before being compelled to do so by law. The whole of the Act became operative on 29 December 1975.
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| What is the gender pay gap? |
| The full-time gender pay gap compares the hourly average earnings of women working full-time and men working full-time. The part-time gender pay gap compares the hourly average earnings of women working part-time and men working full-time. |
| How is it calculated? |
| The EOC have calculated the gender pay gap from the mean average hourly earnings, excluding overtime. The ONS has adopted the median figures as its preferred measure for the pay gap so that it is "less influenced by extreme values". The median figures put the 2005 pay gap at 13.2%. However, the EOC believes that these "extreme values" are vital in explaining the pay gap, as top-earning jobs are heavily skewed towards men, while the lowest paid jobs are skewed towards women. These figures need to be accounted for in the gender pay gap, says the EOC. |
| Women and Work Commission |
| The Women and Work Commission, the government taskforce set up to look at the pay gap between men and women, is due to report in January 2006. |
A final word
"The latest pay gap figures are grim. Thirty years on from the Equal Pay Act coming into force, the law has reached the limits of its usefulness. Unless radical new action is taken, another generation of women can expect to suffer the injustice of unequal pay.
Current legislation places the burden on individuals to fight for equal pay through the Tribunal courts, which is costly for both employees and employers, and it's not working. We know that two-thirds of employers have no plans to check their pay systems to see if they deliver equal pay. It is time for government to ask employers to take more proactive steps to address this persistent problem, through the introduction of a requirement on the private sector to promote sex equality and eliminate sex discrimination." -- Jenny Watson, Chair of the EOC.
Want to know more?
The statistics draw on the New Earnings Survey (NES) from the period 1970 to 2003 and from the Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE) from 2004 onwards. For further information on the statistics go to www.statistics.gov.uk
Visit the Equal Opportunities Commission web site at www.eoc.org.uk
Posted 6 January 2006