Gender pay gap calculations don't make sense?

[sunshinecloudyday]

I'm really looking for opinions and for anyone to enlighten me to why I cannot understand why the gender pay gap is calculated this way (see image).

It doesn't take into account men and women doing different jobs or working different hours, which I think it should.

Why aren't men and women doing exactly the same jobs for the same hours compared?

It said on the news that the gender pay gap at Ryan Air was around 72% males higher than females. But if more males are pilots and more females are flight attendants I can reasonably expect there to be a difference. It isn't Ryan airs fault they chose different jobs, so the companies shouldn't be punished? Instead shouldn't we focus on why men and women choose different jobs and work patterns and aim to even this out at the root of the problem?

It doesn't take into account different working patterns, e.g. if one employee is full time and the other works 2 days a week I would expect the full timer to be more likely to get a bonus?

If more women choose to work part time due to childcare surely that is their choice and they will understand their career may take a temporary hit. Men also have the option to take paternity leave or work part time also but again I don't see why the company should be punished for this or why the calculations are not adjusted to show this?

I feel like maybe I'm missing something?! Please enlighten me - I want to fully understand the situation before I talk to others about this....

And in the 5 minutes it took me to type that I can see the same points have already been made!

It really saddens me that girls don't consider STEM and senior roles, getting stuck at the bottom.

And it really pisses me off that women are assumed to take up childcare duties. Myself I want children but I don't want to give up my FT job, but I know my partner doesn't either. I know in the end it'll probably be me taking time off... but what's the answer?!

Part time is relevant - yes the figures are hourly, but part time workers are often overlooked for major projects etc and seems as not ambitious and do not progress up the ladder - its perceived as impossible for a senior management position to be done part time which is balls - see attached examples of people challenging the norm
timewise.co.uk/power-part-timers-category-winners/

Why do you assume it would be you though Op? That's part of the problem & what this is meant to make people think about - why are women in the lower skilled end of jobs in most companies & men at the top, leading to the gender pay gap.

I think there is still a lot of unequal pay for the same job in small ways that are due to female conditioning.

There was some study that showed that women will only apply for a job if they meet 80-90% of the JD but men will apply with around 40-50%. I think that men's experience is valued more and they are more likely to be confident in salary negotiations so they will start on a higher point of the salary than women.

And then the baby penalty kicks in and it's no wonder that we give up.

I don't think it's fair to say 'we give up - some women may give up / take a massive step back but I certainly didn't do that & know a lot of others who haven't done so either.

iheartmichellemallon I agree. I didn't give up I made a conscious decision I would be happier working part time and seeing more of my children. I think it does women a disservice to look at it from the position that women are forced into the lower paid positions.

The distribution of a company makes a massive difference to the figures. If a company has equal numbers of men and women as directors, but employs massively more women than men, it's impossible for there to be no gender pay gap.

Mother best thing about the big four numbers is they all initially left Partners out of the equation!

The distribution of a company makes a massive difference to the figures. If a company has equal numbers of men and women as directors, but employs massively more women than men, it's impossible for there to be no gender pay gap

There's a female clothes company where most staff are female. Over 95% of the staff who work in the shops are female - and the few men that work in the company do finance jobs. They have a massive gap - but the numbers make it very hard to close the median gap.

There are so many issues to look at and so many questions - but I fear that the media analysis has been really superficial and people have just said 'well, it's a jobs thing and men tend to do jobs that pay more' so they've dismissed the analysis.

I’ve been searching this data and my employer hasn’t posted figures. I work for a Scottish local authority and none of the Scottish councils seem to have published their data. Can anyone tell me whether they are exempt? I can see a number of English authorities have.

That's Phase Eight, a company the Guardian used as an example of how terrible things are. They have a board of directors that is 50:50 but employ over 1700 women and only 44 men. It's nigh on impossible to close the median and mean gap with that, but their figures per quartile are even. So a company that is a major employer of women, has women as directors and pays evenly at each quartile is still made to look bad.

One of the answers to Phase 8's problems to reducing the median gap would be to employ 46 men in low paid jobs on the shop floor. That would be very cynical but it would dramatically alter the median pay gap and the headline figure that gets reported.

That wouldn't be enough though. They would have to employ over 1000 men in low paid jobs to even it out.

I didn't give up I made a conscious decision I would be happier working part time and seeing more of my children

And that’s great. For YOU. but for a great many women that decision wasn’t taken in a vacuum. Socieal pressure, workplace expectations on the man and the woman all lead SOME people to make choices that aren’t really choices.

Im a (female) main earner in a house with a SAHD. He has all kinds of pressure/ comments/ difficulties as the main parent that I as a female just would not have had. It works not ways.

And yep, I’ve been stalled at career grade in the past, exactly as a pp describes while more mediocre men get promoted above me.

That wouldn't be enough though. They would have to employ over 1000 men in low paid jobs to even it out.

The median is just the middle salary so if there were 46 low paid and 44 highly paid, then the median salary would be one of the 46

Yes you're right, it would even out the median but not the average, which is the most widely reported "gap" which is being used to criticise companies.

The figures are going to be a lot more valuable when we can start comparing different companies within the same sector.

eg you might well be able to explain Ryanair's pay gap in isolation but if you compare it with other airlines who have the same challenges and recruit from the same pool of qualified employees maybe you get to see which companies create an unpleasant working environment for women.

You may well assert that "often women don't want the senior roles that have family-unfriendly hours" - but not all women are mothers, or want to be, and not all mothers are the primary caregiver for their children, and even if a woman is a mother and the primary carer she can still be brilliant at a senior high-paid role because she is likely to be capable of organising and paying for appropriate childcare. If a company is choosing not to promote women on the assumption that they don't want the extra responsibility then that is structural sexism even if the company is 100% successful at giving equal pay for work of equal value. The comparison between companies will highlight where the companies that aren't making an effort to be fair.

@TooExtraImmatureCheddar Scottish & Welsh Public sector are exempt. However they may be similar regulation that they have to follow. I have been asking my employer to publish their pay gap and do an equal pay audit since October with no luck. I will keep going and I'm going to write to my AM and MP to ask about it.

Partners are not employees so they are not required to be included. Law firms have the same issue. Some have chosen to include figures for partners but they don't have to.

"One of the answers to Phase 8's problems to reducing the median gap would be to employ 46 men in low paid jobs on the shop floor"

Yy to this - I work for a large org and we are reporting on 5 entities. The 2 with the lowest gender pay gaps have large numbers of lower paid men working on shop floor in factory/warehouse.

"Mother best thing about the big four numbers is they all initially left Partners out of the equation!"

Doesn't surprise me. I don't know what the end result was but there was a lot of discussion about whether inbound ex-pats (with massive compensation packages and predominantly men would be included)

For me the statistics are relatively meaningless in isolation & completely pointless unless companies are actively engaged in taking actions to change the situation, which cynically I'm not convinced many truly are, but the fact it is being talked about in the press & elsewhere is a start. It will be interesting to see the development - probably not in 2019 reporting as it is based on today's info and given how late most published I doubt they've been actively seeking out measures in advance to bridge the gap, but in 2020 onwards.