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.

Kalaplatter That's exactly the situation with a company within the group my DH works for. Two of the companies have a gender pay gap around 11%, the other sells lingerie and has a pay gap of 75% because the vast majority, if not all of the shop floor staff are female. Those roles are probably paid at very similar rates to other retail staff within the group but it gets skewed because so many are female.

you don’t understand the difference between the gender pay gap and equal pay.

If Ryanair is paying women substantially less than other airlines because those other airlines have a significantly greater proportion of women in the higher-paid roles (like pilot) than Ryanair then that is useful to know. Ryanair can’t wring its hands and say that there simply aren’t enough women who want to be pilots if BA have got loads more than them.

The gender pay gap figure of any organisation on its own is meaningless as it only really highlights that men dominate in senior roles and women in lower paid (if in the assumption a gap is reported).

It doesn’t reflect whether the organisation is actually discriminatory or whether they have actively trying to address this.

Most organisations will not be actively discriminatory but acting on the basis that women have the same equality of opportunity with men but are not taking those opportunities.

The gender pay gap reporting has started to open eyes to the fact that this is not necessarily true and therefore will make organisations think differently and come up with actions to address this.

However, they and we alike need to be realistic in that this will take time, for example the likes of Ryanair can’t just magic up lots of female pilots, similarly organisations can’t just magic up suitably qualified board members.

We need to take into account the “leaky pipe” effect whereby a lot of women, who over time would be suitably qualified either drop out of work or their careers stagnate, this usually coinciding with children and look at ways to resolve this.

However as I’ve said on many similar topics, this is no quick and easy fix and is not only organisations responsibility to resolve but society needs to look at itself and it’s attitude to women.

the women earned less that 50% of what men in the same pay grade did.

Isn't everyone at a certain pay grade paid the same? Apologies if I'm not understanding how pay grades work, I've never been in a career that had them.

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

The UK average is for 3% of pilots to be women. At BA it's 6%. So you do have to ask why Ryanair at 1.4% are not managing to attract / recruit their fair share of the women pilots.

Theres a glass ceiling. The report clearly shows that.

Women are blamed for choosing the glass ceiling in a way that disadvantaged men are not. Society is doing nothing to address the structural inequalities that women and less well off face.

People choose to believe if they are better off its because they are better than those who are not.

So you do have to ask why Ryanair at 1.4% are not managing to attract / recruit their fair share of the women pilots

You need to ask

Would you want to work for O'Leary?

It's not just about men being in more highly skilled roles, it's about roles with similar levels of training/education being paid differently. So traditionally female caring roles will be less well paid than traditionally male manual roles. They are different jobs but require similar levels of education and training.

The problem is most men want to work full time, are happy to take roles that involve travel and irregular hours.

Most women don't - especially once they have children.

Even if shared parental leave was across the board, most women with children still don't want the long unsocial hours required to get to most of the high paid jobs.

There are very few women with children doing what I do because it usually involves monday-friday staying in a hotel as a minimum and often weeks at a time abroad. They just don't want to do it and wouldn't even if DH could take over the child care.

Gromance assuming you’re female no wonder we still have a long way to go to achieve equality when you’re happy to keep making excuses for this kind of thing. You’re not alone mind you, I’ve heard it so much from other women “maybe the men are better at their jobs!” “Maybe the women don’t want to be pilots/CEOs/managing partners of law firms” etc.

@kalapatar making piloting more 'family friendly' isn't going to make any difference here. In case you hadn't noticed stewardessing isn't particularly family friendly. There really isn't anything that the airline can do. It's not like the stewardesses would move into piloting if it was just more female friendly. They don't have the education for it. That's like suggesting nurses would become cardiatric surgeons I'd they were just encouraged more. Utterly absurd. They are completely different roles. Whether an individual is going to have a highly paid jon like a pilot or a low paid job like a steward is usually determined when they are still in school and rests in the kinds of grades they get as opposed to their sex. If you want more female pilots then the people you should be looking to for a solution are educators not airlines.

I suggest to kids I know who aren't going to university a range of apprenticeships I know of in engineering and the young women DON'T WANT to know and have often looked at me like I have two heads. They are mostly doing middling pay prospect jobs in people facing or creative careers. It is their choice.

And it's true that at the later stages a lot of the engineering fields earn good money when you factor in shift allowance and overtime - which is not young family friendly. Pay also shoots up when you contract abroad.

I think the way the jobs are being compared is ridiculous. As long as it's equal pay for the same job that's what equality means. There's plenty of men doing low paid jobs such as cleaning and so on. And if women keep thinking their job is to prop up their partner so the partner can earn mega bucks this doesn't help either.

As others have pointed out, the purpose of this task was to highlight differences in men and women's roles as well as pay. Why is it in some job sectors that women tend to be doing lesser paid jobs? Why are typically "men's jobs" paid more?

As a women who works in construction (the sector with the biggest gender pay gap) I can see that there is a real split of men and womens jobs. I am the only woman in my team (land) and there is only one man in another team (sales). Is it that these teams are paid differences in pay? Why could it be that some teams are paid more than others? Is it because there is an engrained idea that a "mans job" should be paid more? Arguably you could say some are more technical in the "mens jobs" but then the "womens jobs" have to face public, customers and many complaints (certainly sounds more stressful for me than my current technical job!)

There was a recent case with Tescos where the shop floor staff (mainly women) argued that they should be getting paid the same as the warehouse staff (mainly men). They argued that they both had a fundamental role in ensuring the shop would open and be ready for customers. Why is it that these "mens" roles were originally a higher price than a "womens" role?

Furthermore, in the construction industry directors tend to be men - so how can we encourage more women to take up these roles?

As they said on the BBC this morning, a lot of the differences come because women have maternity leave and are more likely to work part time - BUT why should part time staff be getting paid a lower hourly rate? They are doing the same role! Also, it isn't just a woman's choice to make a baby but also a man's choice too! So when a couple decide to have a baby, why is it that only the woman faces work place discrimination? The government is going someway to ensure that men start taking up paternity leave (which should help balance gender discrimination in the work place) but whilst there is a pay gap, it makes sense finically for a women to take up the leave rather than the man!

The gender pay gap is a massive wiser social issue but by individual company's highlighting their own inbalances they can start to question themselves and whether "mens jobs" really are worth more than "womens jobs" and why is there "mens" and "womens" jobs in the first place within their company - how can they change this in their place?

Viviennemary Wed 04-Apr-18 10:45:03
I think the way the jobs are being compared is ridiculous. As long as it's equal pay for the same job that's what equality means.

No, the report shows structural inequality - the glass ceiling.

If Ryanair really wanted to just reduce the headline figure, they should just hire men into lower paid jobs.

That's very cynical - but considering most of the roles at Ryanair are going to be lower paid, it would reduce the headline medan gap.

I wouldn't put it past O'Leary.

@bakedbeans it's actually been found that women do tend to shy away from those kinds of jobs. Even in the most gender equal societies a pay gap exists because women don't choose to do these jobs. Who can blame them. They aren't really very pleasant roles. I would imagine that a lot of men would similarly choose lesser paid work if it weren't for the intense social pressure they face to become high earners. Women are sufficiently liberated to make a conscious decision to prioritise other aspect of their lives over earning a high salary. I really don't think that is something that needs to be rectified.

I've read that there's been a decline in relative pay for secretarial roles over the last 100 years as it moved from being a male role to a female one.

Amongst physical roles, those taken by women have been undervalued. Dustmen, for example, have been relatively highly paid (not sure whether they're quite as well paid now, but certainly above minimum wage); care work, involved lifting and a lot of unpleasant cleaning up, pays minimum wage not including traveling time.

There is a role for employers to cast their net as wide as possible and not to focus advertising on just half the population. And to look at the role - how many of the requirements are real requirements of the role? Do all jobs fall neatly into 37-hour-a-week chunks, for example?

As long as it's equal pay for the same job that's what equality means. The definition is equal pay for work of equal value. And we're a long way from that.

Most companies are explaining the differences in the same way. It's not that genders are paid differently, it's that men are all senior positions and women are all admin and cleaners

UpstartCrow yeah I agree with you on that! When you look at how small the percentages of women in management and director-roles etc

When I was in construction...not a back office role...on site...in engineering, I was paid 70% of what a man in the same role, less qualified than me was paid. Also didn't get the bonuses. So I left...after giving them a decade and a half of my life...

TERFragetteCity shocking! I find that Construction Industry really is such a male atmosphere too

I'm currently fed up with the constant sexist comments/actions from my colleagues. Work load is a piece of piss (hence why I have time to write on here) but the environment is horrid - especially their views towards maternity leave (left my previous job as I was bullied for having maternity leave and pushed into a demotion) and now in my new role I am finding the same BS so I think I will have to look elsewhere if I have another baby. Which is going to be tough as I am the bread winner. DP unable to take paternity leave last time as they said he didn't give them sufficient notice (he bloody well did! but it was their word Versus his word so nothing could be done!)

Traditional male roles that require the same level of skills, tend to be paid more than traditional female roles.