To think the way the press is reporting gender pay gap figures is completely misleading

[hmmm345]

The headline is that companies such as EasyJet and Phase Eight are paying women "on average" at least 15 percent less than men. But the way it is reported suggest that is for the same roles. No they are paying people according to the different roles they do, it's just that, on average, across most organisations women occupy lower paid roles than men.

In easyJet's case that is because many of their highest paid pilots are males.. there are female pilots but there are less for a number of reasons.. women perhaps haven't been encouraged into the insight historically, women feel the role is incomparable with having children etc.. all areas that need addressing and that's the purpose of the regulations .. to make employers think about this and look at what they can do to address it

In Phase Eight's case it's because their shops are staffed predominately by females.. unsurprising really as it's a female fashion chain, and the males are employed in head office where salaries are higher.

There needs to be much more understanding of this legislation by journalists and even MPs commenting on it! One MP has said it's immoral!

Im many cases women are not encouraged into highly paid roles from a young age such as engineering, that needs addressing by schools. In other cases women are initially very ambitious but after having children come back part time and stay on the "mummy track" and either choose not to or cannot because of their employers close mindedness, advance their careers and earn as much as their male colleagues.

The shift in thinking in the last 20 or so Years has been great for women.. many employers now embrace flexible working, shared parental leave and are committed to helping their women executives advance in their careers and seeing more female representation at board level. But it will take time to see results!

I should add that I'm an employment lawyer so I understand the legislation but I think that it needs to have been better explained by the government or called something different to stop this effect which doesn't really help businesses who genuinely want to make a change for the better ..

The reporting I've heard has been on radio 4 and has not been misleading at all - it has been made obvious that the pay difference is not due to men and women being paid differently for the same job, but that men tend to be disproportionally represented in the higher tiers of many organisations.

The reasons for this are complex, but it is still very wrong and I am glad it is getting press attention.

I can understand why there would be a reason that the majority of airline pilots are male, as it is only in recent years that more women are entering the profession. So the position with EasyJet is understandable, and no doubt will change over time.

Totally unacceptable (in my view) is the shortage of women in the higher-paid roles at Phase 8.

Completely agree op. The bbc did mention the difference between equal and gender pay but it was tucked in under all the other stuff which most people will focus on.

Until society as a whole makes some real changes then this piece of legislation is pretty hopeless as it will take massive changes in many areas over years to have significant impact in this area.

That said, it’s a starting point and change needs to start somewhere.

There's no actual biological reason though, only social reasons. If I were in the PR department of those companies I'd be wanting to publicise information about our fantastic training programmes or childcare benefits or equal opportunities measures to show that we are doing the best we can.

DH remarks that there are ways to level the gap without actually changing anything, e.g. by outsourcing low-paid jobs to agencies. Hey presto you've closed the pay gap ... except that you haven't because all your cleaners are still female and on the breadline but no longer employed directly.

I think the release of figures is fantastic and has shown that the pay gap myth is nothing more than a myth.

Of course there are those who can't quite understand the imbalance but they aren't worth engaging.

Women are already paid the same for the same job and this has been the case for years. Equality of opportunity exists. Equality of outcome doesn't and whether it should is an interesting area for discussion (unless you're a feminist, of course).

The Gender Pay Gap highlights that ON AVERAGE men are paid more than women. Why? Because they occupy more of the highest paid jobs. Why? Because women give birth. It's that simple. Women still take on the majority of childcare and therefore need/want to work part time. Or simply aren't able to drop everything at 5pm and stay on at work for two hours. So their careers plateau or go backwards. That's not ok. And that's the point.

And, actually, if you saw the BBC figures there were some really atrocious differences - like male news anchors being paid considerably more than female news anchors for exactly the same job. The Gender Pay Gap is certainly not a 'myth'.

Equal pay for equal work. That's it.

In my professional experience in a place where we knew each others salaries - no gender pay gap. Plenty of promotions for the wrong reasons but no gender discrimination there either. Arsehole managers come in both flavours.

step so what is your solution to that?

Well there's a difference between genuine pay inequality (wrong) and lower pay because more of the female employees take long career breaks, go part time, wish to restrict their hours for nursery/school drop off and pick up.

It's a (different sort of) problem if women are railroaded unwillingly into being the default parent. But the majority of mothers seem to WANT these things. Let's not forget that.

The lower positions and corresponding pay go with that choice.

I started a thread a while back asking if men would still be willing to have children if earning and childcare/wifework had to be split equally between the partners. Not only did posters think that would indeed put quite lot of men off, there were a lot of posters who said they would HATE that because they wanted to be the main carer who was "there for" the children.

Me and my H split maternity leave between us. Most of the other mothers I told said something along the lines of "I would never do that - my husband is not getting MY maternity leave!"

People do need to own their choices.

The solution to the gender pay gap will take at least a generation to come through.

The root causes are many and complex, it’s not as simple as saying that Phase 8 should have more senior managers.

Assuming that Phase 8, as with many organisations are not discriminatory in practice, it is most likely that there is not enough female talent and middle management to progress through to senior management.

One of the reasons this may be the case is this is typically the level women leave the workforce to concentrate on caring for young children.

This depletes the numbers who can potentially move up, therefore leaving a higher representation of males.

And it becomes further complex when examining why women leave the workplace at this point. It can be argued that we have equality of opportunity but societal norms and pressure also play a big part, bearing in mind that these will have been in play all the woman’s life.

And this is only one part of the problem.

Women are already paid the same for the same job and this has been the case for years.
That has been the law for a very long time, but I can assure you that it is very often not the case. I have challenged two past employers where there were men in the same role as me and found out they were being paid more. In each case, they apologised, raised my salary and gave me the difference backdated. They were large employers, one extremely large, and that was going on across the board.

tabby But it is perfectly valid to pay employees a different rate as long as it isnt discriminatory.

Well said shenanigans

I worked hard to get to a fairly senior level before having children but left to have ds for a year and came back part time. I am sure I am paid the same as my male colleagues at the same level on a pro rated basis BUT they have benefitted from getting a relationship with my clients whilst I was on mat leave for a year and they are more able to stay later at the office if things need doing / go networking with clients in the evening etc

This all helps them progress up the ladder.. I do feel that my employer is quite good at trying but it's the way of the world that if I choose to work less hours to spend time with my children that I should not necessarily be in a position to advance as quickly as my male colleagues who are there full time building relationships with clients

I know plenty of female solicitors who have gone back full time and got a nanny and done ok but I didn't want to miss out on seeing My ds and also wanted to make friends with other mums at the school gates as much as poss etc. I love my job and career but I do feel that I've made a choice. My dh wouldnt have taken up shared parental leave or part time working I don't think but even if he did I don't think I would have wanted him to

So I don't think I can have my cake and eat it!

I think there is equality of opportunity but as in my case I choose to work part time which hinders my career progression and I accept that..

So, what you are all saying is that women have to make a choice between their careers or spending more time with their children? You can have one but not both? And that's the message we want our own daughters to get? 'You can have children, sweetheart, but please accept that should you want to spend more than weekends with them when they are growing up, you shouldn't expect to be promoted.' Regardless if you are better at your job. Regardless if you are - pro rata - making more money for the company. Women who need to work part time or stick to their ACTUAL contracted working hours, shouldn't be promoted. Period. Is that what we're saying? I really, really hope not.

In my opinion, in the UK we need to seriously reconsider the value of people in the workforce based on how productive they are at work. Promotion shouldn't be based on this ridiculous presenteeism and a race to the bottom in terms of how many hours you can kill yourself to do in a week.

FWIW, there is one female Director at my work. She has a Nanny and a chef. Go figure.

I do think it's a concern that even in industries/businesses where a large % of staff are women, the top jobs are filled by men - e.g. Phase Eight, as someone mentioned above, the majority of staff are women, why aren't they encouraged/able to progress to the top jobs?

I work in schools and, particularly in primary, it's not usual for the only men on the staff to be the caretaker and the head.

OTOH, we know a lot of it is because caring responsibilities still tend to fall to women. IME (of my own and close friend's circumstances, so a small sample) that's usually because that's the way the women want it. I'd have found it very hard to "let" DH be the primary carer when DC were small. I wanted to be there and I wanted things done my way. Dh would, I'm sure, have done a perfectly good job, but it would have been different to the way I wanted things done.

In the organisation I work for generally being part time is not an issue when it comes to promotion and being female is far from a hindrance!

But as a couple (assuming you have a partner) then a decision usually has to be made who will drop hours, be available for pick ups etc. And as other posters have said, women generally want to be the one to do that. I am obviously speaking in general terms. So yes, sometimes you can't "have it all". Something has to give.

Yes 2 workers doing the same job might not be on the same wage for perfectly valid reasons.

Should someone who has done the job for 10+years be on the same salary as someone fresh out of school? (aka banding type salaries).

Should someone doing the same job but different hours (aka less social) get the same pay as the person doing the much better hours was my last case a woman was doing a 10am-4pm shift said that she said she was being discriminated that her male counterpart that was doing 11pm - 5am shift was being paid more and the company could show the extra payment £1.90 an hour) was simply due to not being able to attract people for that shift otherwise.

So she failed the sex discrimination tribunal and it cost the employer a lot to defend it (might of been cheaper to pay her off but they wanted to keep there reputation).

I am sure there are companies where you can have both stepawayfromgoogle but they are few and far between at the moment.

As a poster up thread said it will take at least a generation to change this. This legislation is a step in the right direction but there is a long way still to go..

It will take the MDs of the future now coming up the ranks to help change this..

One problem is that the feminisation of some professions seems to go hand-in-hand with a decrease in comparative pay and status. An obvious one is teaching, but I suspect some areas of medicine are heading that way too.

StepAwayFromGoogle

Change 'women' for 'people' and you're spot on. This sin't about women vs men or women vs the system simply acknowledging that you (of either sex) can't have everything and that you can make the choice to trade working hours for parenting hours. I don't have a problem telling my children this. It's basic common sense.

These conversations often focus on the comparative pay in senior positions, but the issue of very low pay for a lot of women in minimum wage jobs is probably a bigger social issue.

I think the glass cliff phenomenon may be a bigger issue for senior women than pay.

@hmmm345 - I completely agree with the fact that it will take another generation to change it (but also, how many generations do you NEED to sort this out?!).

My point was that we shouldn't be saying that it's a reasonable choice and women should accept it. We should be trying to highlight why the differences are there. I always wonder what the men at the heads of these organisations think - are they happy that this is the only choice available to their daughters, wives, sisters, mothers?

Who on earth is saying it's the only choice that females can make?