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.

You are easily able to excuse this because of cherry picking 'male' industries ( and don't forget these highly paid pilots are , in themselves, disgruntled about their pay so Ryanair ahs a shabby record all round) ). But other sectors do also have gender pay gaps : education being one of the most shocking, I'd say.

Piggywaspushed you are right there, it is the 4th sector!

What does that mean twittle

Ah, just seen the table!

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

Totally agree with barbaraof part time work is highly undervalued in this country.

I would support well paid paternal leave (at 90% of salary) for 4 weeks. This could be taken at the end of the mother’s mat leave.

I believe you Sarah but how on earth did the company explain it? And was it not breaking the current law?

In education, the teaching workforce is heavily female-dominated yet headteaching is male-dominated. You might be try to argue that women don’t want to be heads, but you’d also then need to explain why female headteachers are paid, on average, less than male headteachers, especially in the primary sector. That suggests sex-based discrimination.

Currently there is shared and equal paternity leave - it can be split equally between both parents. It just doesn't get taken up by many men because they are the bread winner typically and because it would be massively hard for them to approach/push their employer to let them have it - as I said previously, my DP wasn't allowed to take it by his employer, they made out that he didn't given them the correct notice (which he had, bloody made sure of it!)

Interesting article here from couple weeks back - www.theguardian.com/money/2018/mar/20/mps-call-for-12-weeks-of-paternity-leave-to-address-gender-pay-gap

OP
Look at the value placed on women's work compared to men's:-

www.heraldscotland.com/news/15846624.Council_set_to_back_down_over___500m_equal_pay_claims/

www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-42968342

www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/midlands-news/birmingham-city-council-workers-targeted-13392753

www.personneltoday.com/hr/asda-equal-pay-case-eat-allows-mass-claim-proceed/

Then ask yourself why only 3% of the top earners and the majority of the lowest paid earners at Ryanair are female.

Part time nowadays often equals "work when we say" which is not family or even childcare compatible.

The only way this is going is more full time childcare with minimal career breaks. But at least the men will get paternity leave..whoop de woo.

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 see what you’re saying but I don’t really agree. How many times have we seen posts on here with similarly educated partners with decent careers before kids, then after kids the woman steps down to become a TA or Work the tills in Tesco and due to this the man is enabled to become a high flyer. That doesn’t sound very “liberating” to me.

Interestingly I do wonder if part of the problem lays with the inherent gender discrimination of the older generation? Majority of director roles are taken up by older men so perhaps there is some level of unconscious protectionism going on?

Talking older relatives on both my and my DPs side, there is still the idea of how men should be paid more as they have to be the bread winner and how women should only be having, at most, part time jobs. My FiL is horrified at how I have a full time job as a mother of a baby and he thinks its disgusting at how I have taken a "mans job from him"! I have pointed out that I earn more than DP and he of course said that if women weren't working then men would be paid more and all be employed. Not really sure on his logic, but maybe this is part of the issue going on in the work place? Once we start getting younger and more women into positions of power then the view of "mens" and "womens" jobs will change?

Oh and I just love how the shit pay is now being touted as a reason for men not taking shared parental leave. What, the same shit pay women have had for years as SMP? So it’s OK for us to have shit pay but suddenly when men are expected to be in receipt of it it’s a problem?

BakedBeans47 I agree there, I am not feeling liberated as there is pressure on me to step down (even though I earn more than my DP!) and look after the kids!

BakedBeans47 exactly What you said!!!!!!

I am pointing out that current work / pay direction will not be leading to part time roles for parents but for all parents to work full time. The one bit that will be forthcoming from employers will be fathers rights and shared parental leave. This is nice but not adequate compensation to family life. It's a sop.

Are you on a huge unoriginal wind up there OP?

My daughter is cabin crew for Ryanair, she takes home approx €1000 per month, depending on her flying time. Her roommate boyfriend is also Ryanair cabin crew, both met on training course and started together at same time, same age. He takes home approx €1,700 pm. She's done all the comparisons and hasn't come up with a valid reason why. Take from that what you will.

sadiesnakes that is awful! Problem is, I bet she probably has a bit of fear taking that to HR (as much as Govt claims there are protection in work place to bring up grievances it doesn't work like that in reality, seen it too many times)

Gender pay gap reporting has the potential to be really useful within industries and sectors because there are clear comparisons of how different organisations in the same field treat women.

I am in a good position career-wise so am lucky enough to be able to choose who I’m willing to work for. A company with a smaller gender pay gap is likely to find it easier to attract female (and potentially some male) talent than one in the same sector with a large pay gap. That then becomes an incentive for organisations to close the gap.

In education there’s a serious shortage of headteachers. If women could be encouraged to apply for headships in the same proportion as men, this issue would be solved instantly.

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.

The average BA pilot is based in the UK.
The average Ryanair pilot is based not in the UK.

That's probably the biggest difference, and I'm astonished the pilot above couldn't get a job, there's a huge shortage!

She has called crew control and requested extra hours, to no avail. Her boyfriend is always offered longer more lucrative flights.. Ryanair only pays you the time you take off until the plane lands. She often gets the 1/2 hour flights, whilst he often gets the longer haul ones to Lanzarote etc. Their wage is also based on sales onboard, and she sells as much as anyone else she works with. She's fairly level headed and would recognize easily if it was just a case he was better at the job, but it's not the case at all, in all honesty imo, she would be far more efficient and capable.

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

Of course they could

Just need the training...and the desire to do it obviously