Sex Pay Gap - A solution?

[FemForceOne]

The sex pay has been around forever and for obvious reasons men do not want it to go. In addition to keeping the money for the selves they use the sex pay gap as a mechanism for female oppression.

So, if a law was passed that made men pay a higher rate of tax than women then several benefits would follow. This would immediately eradicate the sex pay gap. Men would have less power over women. Also the extra money raised could be spent on women's only charities and could be seen as reparations that are long overdue.

Of course it doesn't.

The OP is only concerned with white able-bodied British middle class women.

If there's a gender pay gap (though I prefer the term gender earnings gap, because it's mostly down to choices in working hours and career engagement these days) then, by definition, there's already a gender tax gap, with men paying more tax than women. In 2016-17, men paid £127B while women paid £47.6B of income tax.

Source:
www.gov.uk/government/statistics/income-and-tax-by-gender-region-and-country-2010-to-2011

(the URL may say 2010-to-2011 but, rather than altering the URL for each year, it seems the person responsible for the site has just added data for each financial year).

Just wanted to add, that this same disparity will, by definition, apply to differences in earnings between any arbitrary demographic but, as far as I'm aware, the government doesn't release data on tax contributions by race.

It is currently illegal to pay a woman, who has the exact same roles and responsibilities as a man, less than her male counterpart.

I know this but this doesn't get rid of the sex pay gap

And yet you know nothing about why the pay gap exists....

By and large men and women do get paid for similar roles. that isn't the reason the gap exists. Maybe find out for yourself why the gap exists.

Changing individual taxation does not not change employer behaviour btw...

Also the extra money raised could be spent on women's only charities and could be seen as reparations that are long overdue.

I know this but this doesn't get rid of the sex pay gap. I'm replacing one injustice with another only this time women get a long overdue benefit

What benefit would I see? I don't use women's charities. I'd be worse off as my DP would be bringing in less money.

So maybe:
If you earn over x amount you pay an additional x% tax.
If you are white an extra x%.
Male an additional x%.
Reduction of x% if you are female.
Reduction of x% if not white.
Reduction of x% if not British.

Ooh and maybe if you identified as a black disabled lesbian you'd pay no tax at all. Suddently I like this idea...

Its GENDER pay gap.

Because it's based on gender not sex.

If a person identifies as a woman and let's their work place know that, they would be classed as 'woman' in a companies report, even if their biological sex is Male.

It's based in gender not sex

Where I work the higher level positions are almost 50/50 male/female.
I don’t know If women are paid less than men but if they are it’s because they excepted the job for that pay.
In my department there is a huge pay gap between the people that have been in the job for longer than new starters but that’s due to terms and conditions the new starters excepted and the fact the Oder people got tuped from another company and their t&c are better.

I did work for a company which appointed a woman CEO and her decisions almost broke a blue chip company.

You read about tv presenters where the man earns more than a female but again she agreed to do the job for that salary. Who wouldn’t take on someone willing to work for less?

Women should value themselves mor and not except lower wages

Every time I see sex pay gap here somehow it makes my brain think op is angry that male prostitutes get paid more than female prostitutes🙈 ifykwim
Op is obviously trolling, but this is fun😂

Disclaimer: I have no idea if male or female prostitutes get paid more.

"The gender pay gap is based on gender.

If you want to change the definition then you need to start the research all over again."

This is true. It's based on self declared gender not sex.

Of course most companies conflate these / don't hold gender info so use sex as gender so it doesn't matter now but going forward it might.

Women, where they are paid less, are paid less because of their sex (straightforward discrimination / impact of maternity leave which is way more than it should be so more discrimination) not because of whether they feel all girly inside or not.

I think the pay gap should be based on sex as this is why it exists.

NOTE: All the people saying hahaha sex pay gap sounds like shagging, this is the reason we are in the mess we are in. Because sex was too gigglesome, we have ended up in a situation where the two are conflated and the extreme result is men in women's wards and prisons etc so it's not actually trivial.

I like that with the recent pay gap reporting, the papers etc all said "this is different to unequal pay which has been illegal since X and so doesn't happen"

Since when did something being illegal mean it doesn't happen?!

It's also much easier to see it where jobs are graded and banded and paid the same (eg lots of public sector stuff) vs private sector where that doesn't happen and there is much more inequality and it used not to be allowed to even discuss wages (subtext being, lots of people won;t be happy!).

My line of work it's all experienced / professional types, so few lower paid roles, no back office or that sort of thing, pay gap is an eye watering 40% + for the major companies.

OH just remembered I went to a conference recently that pointed out

Differential in pay has large knock on effects

Pensions is the obvious one, but also any in work benefits (in my sector these are common, death in service and that sort of thing) will be lower for women on average than men. So there is a raft of stuff that is impacted by women earning less across the board.

The pensions thing is a real worry for the future (and for now tbh). But it all adds up to inequality between the sexes.

Agreed menuplant, the stats for my company make pretty grim reading but really reflect what we see happening on the ground. It's very easy to blame women taking a step back/not wanting promotion/working part time but it's really not the case for us.

"Its GENDER pay gap.

Because it's based on gender not sex.

If a person identifies as a woman and let's their work place know that, they would be classed as 'woman' in a companies report, even if their biological sex is Male.

It's based in gender not sex"

I know that's how it works but that is completely nonsensical.

It should be based on sex.

OPs idea is terrible and would lead to men resenting women even more than they do already, which is lots (generalisation). In my work, with the aforementioned 40% gap, the men are very angry (in a quiet middle class way) about what they see as minorities and women being given loads of stuff and they are being overlooked. Recent meeting there was a question for management > aren't straight white men the oppressed ones now? I looked around, room was full of straight white men, and as I mentioned, 40% + pay gap!

:picard:

StatisticallyChallenged, I have found that when pay gap is raised, people's knee jerk is to reach for a reason why it is "fair".

I had a woman tell me recently that it was perfectly reasonable that a woman who had 2 years out maternity in a 25 year career should get paid 30% less than a man who had the full 25 years rather than 23 experience!

While we're up against this, things won't change.

My family is a classic gender pay gap family and the difference is entirely justified. I’ve had two maternity leaves and a period of part-time working. In that time, I’ve stalled but my husband has been promoted progressed. I imagine that pattern is repeated in lots of households across the country.

I also reached a point where I couldn’t progress my career unless I went full time. The men at my level had wives at home doing the childcare and they were free to do the interesting stuff and long hours. As much as it irks me, it’s right that they had better chances of higher pay as they were present and just able to do more.

What you describe is the result of patriarchal systems of work.

Would you say that your work is less good than male peers.

Would you agree with my colleague who said that 30% less is justified where in a 25 year career the man has worked 25 years and the woman had 2 years out 10 years ago? That's where your thinking ends up.

Why do women who are part time doing a great job deserve less pay (pro rata) than men doing the same? Less even than men that they are better than, just for doing less hours?

Presenteeism is on the rise again apparently. It all links in.

It should be based on sex.

I agree. But currently it's not. So therefore the report is the gender pay gap report.

It would also be useful to see in future if trans women also see a dip in earnings. However, we would need to see the breakdown of them working part time etc to compare.

I had a woman tell me recently that it was perfectly reasonable that a woman who had 2 years out maternity in a 25 year career should get paid 30% less than a man who had the full 25 years rather than 23 experience

That does sound like an extremely large gap if all other factors are equal. Is she working in a highly technical environment and is that 23 full time years vs 25 full time years? I work in a combined research/analytical laboratory and the contributions of the part time workers, while extremely valuable, just don't produce the same personal developmental opportunities as those who are here full time. It takes, very roughly, 2-3 months to get a full time worker completely up to speed in a particular department (to the point where they can work fully independently) while a part time worker could take anywhere up to a year (the best I've ever seen was 6 months from one very gifted individual).

While more women work part time, not every scenario of part time vs full time is women vs men respectively.

Who said anythign about part time?

Our conversation was not about part time.

She saw it as reasonable.

I was very surprised, but that's my experience when talking pay gaps, people immediately reach for reasons why it must be fair, and of course if that is your approach you can always find something that is different and use this as justification.

It's a weird human nature thing, people want to believe things are fair.

In fact like your post where immedaitely there are assumptions abotu part time.

One of my SILs earns more than the PM, and a lot more than her husband, -one of my brothers'. She has had 2 maternity leaves. She studied while pregnant and with a newborn to get her well paid role. Why should she earn less than her male peers for having some time out? She actually doesn't.

Putthatlampshadeonyourhead

Currently you won't be able to do that analysis as they dont' record trans just self declared gender

They could record sex and trans status / gender but they dont'

the stats are OK at mo as I suspect most companies are really using sex and also few people id as other

way things are going though it will make a difference

eg non binary is actually what most people are, they are excluded from gender pay stats as don't fit gender binary? that makes no sense

and teh reason it was all set up was to do with women being disriinated against ie sex not gender

ScreamScream I don't htink peple would say she should be paid less, on this thread at least,

But simulataneously they would say if she was, it would be fair.

Who said anythign about part time?

You also mentioned part time with regards to another earnings gap:

Why do women who are part time doing a great job deserve less pay (pro rata) than men doing the same?

I just wanted to clarify where the 30% figure came from, which seems a little high outside of specific circumstances.