Unsuprising News Of The Day: UK Amongst Worst Offenders For Gender Pay Gap

That's bad for us, and bad for the economy...

PayGap

by Debrief Staff |
Published on

In today's totally unsurprisingly and unexpected news, there are figures out showing that the UK is still ranked below many other major economies in terms of our gender pay gap. A survey of 27 OECD member nations has revealed that we rank at number 18. That’s 18th out of 27 - basically, the bottom of the class.

The report measured the gender pay gap, women’s participation rate, unemployment rates, and the proportion of women in full-time, rather than part-time employment. And whilst the UK has made some progress getting more women into the workplace, the pace of change has been slow compared to other countries. For example, the gender pay gap in the UK in 2012 was at 18%, down from 26% in 2000. In contrast, Ireland’s pay gap is down to 4%, down from 20% in 2000. The average across the 27 countries is 16%. Depressing yes - but this news will come as no surprise to anyone who’s ever discovered that their male colleague who does the exact same job earns just that little bit more money, for no discernable reason whatsoever.

Perhaps even more worrying is the news that UK is also lagging far behind in terms of the number of women in full-time employment, ranking at 25th out of 27 countries. Gaenor Bagley, head of people and executive board member at PwC, thinks could prove to be a serious issue for the economy. ‘The low level of females in full-time employment is holding back both the UK’s economic recovery and women’s career progression. The decision to go part-time is often made for short-term reasons, but unfortunately for women it often seems to have a wider, long-term negative impact.’

This survey comes off the back of a separate European Commission report which calculated the gender pay gap across the EU - revealing that the UK is amongst one of the worst offenders at 19%. The solution? Move to a Nordic country (they rank consistently highly - not surprising given that they have the least sexist governments in the world). Or get used to asking very loudly for that pay rise…

Follow Rebecca on Twitter @rebecca_hol.

This article originally appeared on The Debrief.

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