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.

It is interesting that the countries that appear highly on the PISA education stats have huge gender pay gaps. Makes one wonder why the girls in those countries bother really. A book I read did discuss at some length how women in Japan and S Korea are very much expected to stay at home and extend the education of their children and provide everything they need for learning. I am more shocked by Canada and Finland.

kalapattar "I've not seen much conversation in the media about all the bigger questions - why do some industries pay more than others, why do some roles in a company pay more than others. why are there more men in certain roles, more women in other roles, what are the barriers, what are the possible work solutions, industry solutions etc."

Exactly this. Was soooo disappointed with the superficial coverage/ discussion of the issue on the Today programme for instance, which I thought would have the gumption to go a little deeper. My blood has been boiling for most of the day at the endless comments about how most women want the flexibility of less hours, they don't want to be endlessly present in the office, etc. No doubt it is true for many and is their genuine choice. But I suspect that for a lot of women, they don;t have the luxury of just hanging around 'being visible' at work, because their OH won't pick the kids up etc. The woman blinks first because it's socially accepted and validated for her to do so. All these guys 'putting in longer hours, accepting the responsibility of senior jobs with more hours away from home/ foreign trips, blah blah blah' - they have the choice to do it because someone (invariably a woman) is facilitating it!!

With regard to comments a few pages ago about school girls doing STEM subjects not oversubscribed humanities. I think the key point is that girls who have the interest in/talent for STEM subjects should not be put off them in favour of humanities (as many clearly are) not that there should be a wholesale push to get all girls away from humanities.

For those who are not good at science, humanities do not have to mean there is no chance of a working in a high paying industry. Plenty of people go from subjects such as history into law and finance.

Great post susie. Especially this

The crazy thing is, a working mum with a job that works for them is one of the most reliable employees an employer can have. Employers just need to wise up to that and make the most of it.

This shows some of the mathematical issues - a thing called Simpson's Paradox.

employmentblog.practicallaw.com/gender-pay-gap-reporting-beware-simpsons-paradox/

500 men and 500 women in an organisation.
Each person in a team is paid the same for their role.
But the median pay for men is £20 per hour and for women it's £10 per hour.
Clearly the distribution of the people in the teams makes a difference.

There are so many questions - and the Today programme this morning was so superficial about it - John Humphries was just arguing about the whole thing and asking the Goverment person what they were going to do.

@noblegiraffe

You keep saying that headmistresses are paid less than headmasters. You're yet to actually back it up though.

Going to?

I think the data is far too complex to draw a conclusion in a news article, let alone a headline.

For example where I work there are fewer men employed than women and the majority of employees at each pay grade are women, however my organisation have published a pay gap in favour of men because the lower grades have a much larger ratio of women to men compared to the higher grades (although again, there is still a majority of women at these grades).

A report was published by my organisation which evidenced this, but the local news didn't really report on the detail and focused only on the pay gap.

I think there are valid criticisms about glass ceilings in certain sectors, and wage stagnation in roles either traditionally thought of as female or those where the workforce is shifting over time, however the nuance or focus of the debate is lost when the government etc. respond only to headlines and I think that sadly this is all too common in politics, where quick wins and appearing to do the right thing are favoured over difficult and long-term decision making fuelled in part by reactions of the media.

eddie this is about the gender paygap , not about high pay. I think sciences are 5th worst on the gender pay gap list.

Don't know whey noble would make things up bingo but here is one of many sources

www.teachers.org.uk/edufacts/gender-pay-gap

That paygap in teaching is estimated too be the same as it was 20 years ago!

I work in a company where the gender pay gap is not too bad (around 10%). I can tell you many stories about me and other women I have spoken to where men have been paid more for the same job and/or nurtured/promoted ahead of more competent women. Publication of these stats has opened up the debate and made it possible for me to finally even out a pay disparity in my team that was caused by the sexism of my predecessor, it feels it’s also now possible to point out equal pay issues and be listened to and for that I am very thankful.

I must admit that I was hoping for a source comparing like-for-like.

Your source clearly explains that differences in headship salary and gender is due to more men in better paid secondary school positions.

Also interesting that the best proof you had speaks about the gender pay gap in favour of women in secondary school teacher positions.

Being a pilot really genuinely isn't all that. I looks like it takes about the same amount of time to qualify as it does to get a standard degree....which by the way also costs a lot of money.

So being a pilot is a graduate level job, but that's it. I would imagine many cabin crew also have degrees...

Its pure male privilege all over to think that pilots are so special they deserve to earn 2-10 times the hourly rate of cabin crew.

The whole idea that operating machinery deserves more reward than service jobs is fundamentally derived from male privilege.

I think it's also about what skills we value. The stuff that men have traditionally been seen to be good at (and where they often still dominate job wise) is paid higher. Technical skills over people skills for example. It's so ingrained in how we see things that it's almost impossible for us to be objective.
I wonder what the pay difference is between cabin crew and pilot for instance. I imagine it's huge. We no doubt all think a pilot should be paid more but by how much? Skills required by cabin crew are "soft" (traditionally female), therefore low paid. If nursing was a male dominated profession it'd certainly be better paid.
OP it really isn't as simple as you think and although these figures may be crude I hope they will help us address the deeper issues.

There are so many issues. One is that on average men are more confident (I think they feel more deserving) about demanding pay. DP was recently offered a pay restructure which would work in his favour but not for the first month when the previous structure would favour him because of a big contract. He had no hesitation in being firm about not changing his pay structure immediately so he could get the benefit of the big contract. Of course it'd be wrong to say that no woman would do that but equally I think a man is far more likely to.
I work in teaching and in my particular role there are three women and two men. I'm pretty sure that the men are paid more. It's for different reasons but boils down to history (man more likely to have been in senior roles in the past) and humility (man not giving up what he'd been paid in the past for a more senior role, woman more likely to). One example only, but one of many I suspect.

If I had to choose between flying a plane and being crew and they both paid the same I would absolutely choose flying the plane. It is way way less demanding.

Is it harder to fly the plane? I seriously doubt it. Its a piece of machinery almost entirely run by computers. Keeping your cool in the face of entitled passengers kicking off would be massively harder to achieve imo.

The biggest disparity in pay between the two is the profile with experience. You just keep getting paid more as a pilot but stagnate as crew. I wonder if that has anything at all to do with the fact that men gain experience and value as they age, while women somehow loose it....

Morphene absolutely! I so wish there was a "like" button on Mumsnet.

But bingo, the gender paygap isn't about comparing like for like : and the source cites other reasons than just about being secondary heads. PRP being one, for example. It does also say that -even in like for like roles- men are paid more than women (eg secondary headships).

The bald facts state that education has the 3rd biggest gender pay gap and that women are not making it into the higher paid leadership roles. And, believe me, they are applying.

I thought this was a better example than comparing pilots and cabin crew, since the report states these are people with the same level of qualifications

Perhaps do your own research, too; there is plenty out there- all of which expresses concern about the paygap in a female dominated profession..

Anyway bingo you asked specifically about 'headmistresses'.

Women are applying for senior roles. Why aren’t the getting them is the question?

Also I want to see the BME stats.

Can you find the bit where it says the gender pay gap is in favour of women in secondary school classrooms? Perhaps I should just copy and paste:
The gender pay gap is lower among classroom teachers, with women classroom teachers in all state funded schools earning £900 less on average per year (although they earn slightly more on average in primary schools than their male counterparts).7
The pay gap is, however, far wider for teachers in leadership positions. On average, women head teachers in all state funded schools earn £5,700 less than their male counterparts. While this is mainly due to the higher proportion of (better paid) secondary heads who are men, there is nevertheless a gender pay gap of £2,800 for heads of LA nursery and primary schools and £2,900 for heads of LA secondary schools8.
The gender pay gap among leadership teachers also varies according to age group. On average, women head teachers in all state funded schools aged under 40 earn £5,400 less than their male counterparts, those in their 40s earn £7,700 less, those in their 50s earn £11,300 less and those aged 60 or over earn £13,500 less.9
The NUT has warned that the introduction of PRP for teachers will exacerbate gender pay differentials.

unfinished : there is an interesting BAME project in education at the moment which is focusing in particular on women in senior roles. I am going out soon but think I can dig out some pretty woeful stats for education.

Also I want to see the BME stats

Yes - that didn't get much airtime at all when the BBC facts were published and there was a massive gap.

The BBC are reporting really badly on this with the "men are paid more than women, on average" - when it should be "men tend to be in roles that pay more than women, on average"

But it's opened a conversation

Women are applying for senior roles. Why aren’t the getting them is the question

It's a good time to be a woman applying for senior roles and also a good time for men to be applying for roles that are lower paid.

But naming and shaming companies can have the possible unintended consequences if a company has a lot of female staff in lower paid roles.

The gender pay gap among leadership teachers also varies according to age group. On average, women head teachers in all state funded schools aged under 40 earn £5,400 less than their male counterparts, those in their 40s earn £7,700 less, those in their 50s earn £11,300 less and those aged 60 or over earn £13,500 less

Simpson's Paradox

Take an average - then look within the group at the subgroups and the figures change.

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

While technically true, and while the gender pay gap in general - so long as legal requirements are being met - is also not employer's responsibility, as corporations it is very much in our own best interest.

The field in which I work is a veritable sausage fest; the super-division in which I myself am employed as a middle manager consists of only 7% women at present with only 6 of us being in managerial roles out of >1000 employees. We fight tooth and nail to improve this stat - and while I'd like to think this is because our senior business strategy makers are incredibly socially aware it's actually because we can't afford not to from a business point of view.

We operate in a very comoetitive environment and we simply can't afford to leave some 50% of all potential talent untapped. If we do, we lower the overall quality of our employees because we'll have to hire less talented but obtainable men instead of more talented but elusive women. What we actually want is to hire the very best people of either sex (or racial background, or socioeconomic status ... you get the drift).

However, studies show that minorities start to feel represented in a group only when they make up about 30% of the total group. Until we get there, our women, in this case, are going to feel underrepresented and marginalised - and that's bad for attrition as well as for us getting the very best we can out of our people.

And therefore we invest heavily in our women reaching critical mass. This can and does include encouraging children, i.e. tomorrow's potential employees, to enter the field in the first place. It also includes screening a lot more candidates for any given job in order to ensure that we can and do consider female applicants without lowering our standards and hiring any woman brave enough to apply.

It costs a lot. But as per our calculations, the opportunity cost incurred by not doing it is a lot higher still. Diversity, for us, simply has an extremely good business case.

And that, in a nutshell, is why self-interested corporations absolutely should care about the gender pay gap and the gendered nature of specific roles in their workforce.

@onlyconnect

Skills required by cabin crew are "soft" (traditionally female), therefore low paid. If nursing was a male dominated profession it'd certainly be better paid.

There's a problem with each of your sentences. It's that you're making opinion sound like fact.

"therefore" is a guess and one I'd disagree with. "certainly" in the second sentence is of course bullshit as you have no way of knowing what would happen in this hypothetical scenario.

@morphene

is it harder to fly the plane? I seriously doubt it.

I wish there was a 'like' button too. You're hilarious.

My brother (long haul commercial pilot for several decades) spends a week every 12 training. Do you really think that his job is easier than being an air hostess? Really?

@Piggywaspushed

Shit! You got me there. I should have said "primary" classrooms. Did you not see the obvious and simple error I made when you were copying and pasting?