I don't believe that women earn 75% less than men at a certain airline.

[Gromance02]

I just don't. Unless they are talking about completely different roles. Eg, pilots (generally men) compared to air stewards (generally women). I'm not defending the airline but I don't think they deserve this utterly misleading headline.

Obviously if a female pilot with exactly the same length of career with the same number of sabbatical/maternity/paternity leave as a man is on less than her male counterpart, that is wrong.

I think you misunderstand structural inequality.

They are comparing different roles. I guess the question is why is there such a bigger gap compared to other airlines.

Ryanair could go a long way to solving it by

a) encouraging more women to become pilots
b) Encouraging more men to become cabin staff

It probably is for different roles (paying differently for exactly the same role is already illegal I think..). The issue is usually that the higher paid jobs are filled mostly by men (e.g. director), and the low paid ones mostly by women (e.g. cleaner). This is iften called 'the gender pay gap'. So each individual person isn't being deliberately discriminated against in their pay, but overall the set of women get a lot less per head than the set of men in that organisation.

They do compare different roles.

This whole campaign has backfired imo.

If they are comparing different roles, it is an utterly pointless statistic. Like giving a hospital's statistic saying porters are paid less than doctors! As for the difference to other airlines, their ratio of low paid staff (stewards) to better paid staff (pilots/engineers) may be very different.

kalapattar It is not Ryanair's responsibility to give out career advice to children.

Like giving a hospital's statistic saying porters are paid less than doctors

You could ask why more women are in jobs that are lower paid and more men are in jobs that are higher paid

A very large amount of the difference in pay for men and women can be accounted for in different jobs that men and women generally do.

It absolutely will be the case that most pilots are male and most cabin crew and probably the ground staff such as back office and check in staff are female. Pilots get paid a lot and cabin crew get not very much. Therefore a huge pay gap between the sexes.

Hopefully female pilots with the same amount of experience will be paid the same as the men.

For this sort of thing to be changed, we need to encourage more women and girls into higher paid careers, including being pilots.

I've read that there is no longer a pay gap between the sexes for younger people and it becomes apparent when women take time off or step back when they have children.

We therefore need men to take more shared parental leave and equal responsibility for the household and childrearing so it isn't always women who take the 'part time worker and prime carer/cook and bottle washer role' but for this to work, we also need employers to move away from the 'full time all or nothing' method of work. More decent quality part time work.

This could work in the airline industry, especially short haul budget where staff are rostered for several 'out and back' trips a week/month. Instead of working full time, they could do 60/70/80% FTE as necessary.

It is not Ryanair's responsibility to give out career advice to children

So organisations should shrug their shoulders and say "Not our problem, women choose these roles and these roles are lower paid"

Yes, there may be reasons why they have a bigger gap than other airlines, but it would be interesting to see why that is. They have an all male board for instance - is that really indicative of a company that is trying to be equal?

I agree with you on the general point though. Just using a bald statistic like that doesn't tell you much, and is likely to be misleading.

For this sort of thing to be changed, we need to encourage more women and girls into higher paid careers, including being pilots

And also encourage men into lower paid careers and to balance work with family life.

It isn't Ryanair's fault if the pool of people applying for jobs as pilots is mostly men. As a pp said, the campaign has backfired. Throwing out meaningless statistics does nothing for the cause.

This whole excercise pointless because they are compare different roles. The City has the same issue but they comparing secretaries with the CIO.

My friend (female) is a pilot. She found it difficult to get a job with an airline, kept getting knocked back, and men hired instead. It's v difficult to qualify, it's not a matter of competency. I imagine it's more to do with her being a petit 5' woman of child bearing age, and that not fitting the idea of what a pilot should be.

It's about the root causes. Why do fewer women qualify? Why do they find it harder to get a job in some industries despite qualifications?

Huge numbers of females study STEM subjects at A level and beyond, but it's still very much a man's world in industry.

It isn't Ryanair's fault if the pool of people applying for jobs as pilots is mostly men

Do you think they could be doing anything to encourage more women?

Funding training programmes?
Family friendly hours - so the shifts can be worked on to encourage family friendliness as much as possible

Or do they have nothing to do here?

Family friendly hours - so the shifts can be worked on to encourage family friendliness as much as possible Is this a joke? Business needs are business needs. If someone can't work the shifts, then don't apply for the role. Imagine someone saying 'I want to be a pilot but can't do overnights due to childcare'!!! Erm....probably not the career for you then.

It's not pointless at all. Of course a hospital's statistics are going to show that doctors are paid more than porters. The gender pay gap shows systemic tendency to recruit males into high paying roles and females into low paying roles. Such systemic bias means that even equal pay for work of equal value doesn't create equality because women aren't given the opportunity to do the high-value work as readily as men.

Family friendly hours - so the shifts can be worked on to encourage family friendliness as much as possible

Don't the pilots (mostly male) and the cabin crew (mostly female) work pretty much the same hours/shifts?

There was a woman's clothing company that reported a massive median gap.

But most of their staff are female. And most of their staff work on the shop floor in roles that are not well paid.

Only a few men work in the company and they tend to be in finance roles.

The only way they can alter that gap given the large number of staff is to employ more men on the shop floor.

There isn't an effective way to measure the pay gap. Hence why the media use headlines such as those in the news today.

For careers with a pay scale, lets say police officers because I've read that this morning, there isn't a pay gap for police officers with exactly the same service and rank. Their salary is not negotiable on employment, they increase based on length of service and specific promotions yet there are figures showing pay gaps in police forces. I noticed Staffordshire Police was alone in saying their 'Headquarters' has a pay gap. But the police force was massively dominated by male officers up until the last 10 years or so. They earn more because they have been in post longer. Women are now catching up in numbers so this will even out. All other forces showed a pay gap as a whole organisation so included those on non negotiable annual increment salaries in police officer roles. Its misleading.

I also believe that men in general are more likely to work overtime so be paid more.

The gender pay gap shows systemic tendency to recruit males into high paying roles and females into low paying roles

Is it recruit or is it that males tend to apply for roles that pay more and women tend to apply for roles that pay less? (in general)

Or is it both?

Very good point Barbaraofseville!

The data is really interesting when you compare similar companies in the same industry.

For example, 2 x American Software companies based in the UK, both have headquarters on the same bus route.

Company A has a gender pay gap of 20%. Company B has a gender pay gap of 10%.

Company A blames this on the lack of women studying STEM subjects, but if you compare the proportions of male/female in the different quartiles for both companies, they are very similar.

So this leaves you with the conclusion that the gender pay gap is not related to a lack of supply of people, but how those people are renumerated.