Gender Pay Gap – Where are we now and how did we get here?

The most recent figures show that in the UK there is 19% difference between the salaries earned by men and women.

The government has now announced that it will be legislating to require companies with more than 250 employees to publish details in relation to this gender pay gap.Consultation in relation to this has now closed and regulations expected to be made in the first half of 2016.

Although this is good news as to evidence the problem should highlight the issue of the gender pay gap, the real question I still ask is how did we get here and what other measures should be looked at in order to change the gender pay gap. The reason I ask this question is that although revealing pay data should clarify the issue, it will not always solve the true reasons for differences in pay, albeit I am sure that it will lead to more complaints being raised by individuals aggrieved by the data revealed.

The issue of gender pay inequality appears to open up when woman become mothers and make the decision to take time off work to look after children.  At this stage, they are either taken out of the labour market or are more likely to work part time hours.

I have asked a selection of my friends, peers and contacts who are female to explain why they made the choices that they did in relation to their careers.  Of my friends, peers and contacts, I would estimate that just over half have returned to work and where they do return to work the vast majority have chosen to work part time or different hours to those worked prior to having a child.  I have also seen an increasing number of mothers who have initially returned to work decide to re-evaluate and decide to take a career break as the demands of their working lives and family are not workable.

One senior marketing professional told me that she took a year’s maternity leave and when she returned to work, she changed role and took on a part time position working four days a week.  She told me that she would have ideally liked the option of having the flexibility to do a day or so from home to help with making sure she was back in time for the child care handover.  She explained to me that commuting into London means it’s quite a challenge to be back in time to collect her child.  When asked whether she considers that having a child affected her pay she said “Definitely, having gone down to a 4 day week, promotion / pay increase feel a long way off”.

An in house lawyer told me that she initially returned to a three day week after maternity leave and has now increased this to four days a week.  She also told me that she would be very interested in more work from home if this were possible.  She said that her ideal position in terms of hours of work/flexibility/location would be “one or two days from home with flexible hours on those days (to enable school run)”.  Although it is not clear, she told me that she considers she may be on a higher salary now if she had not have had children.

A Scientist in the food industry told me that she returned to work after a year’s maternity leave and is now working 8am until 4pm as opposed to 9am until 5pm each day which means she can do the nursery pickup for her son and still spend a couple of quality hours with him everyday where he is her sole focus.  She says that she tends to eat lunch at her desk to ensure she can leave on time although some days she does run late.  She told me that there is a high number of working parents at her company and the culture and her role support this flexibility.  She also said that she can arrange to work from home when she needs to for childcare reasons.  She said “…in a very different culture I would have been more interested in part time.”  However, in the role she is in, she does not consider there has been any impact on her pay.

From the above case studies, the issues that I pick out are that as well as financial considerations, the culture and flexibility of an employer makes a real difference to whether it is possible for parents to remain at work.  The more accommodating and flexible an employer is, the more likely it will be to be able to retain talented staff who become parents.

The government is making steps towards promoting flexible working and also making it more acceptable and financially viable for all parents to be able to take the parental leave after the birth of a child.  Even recently, it was widely reported that the government is seeking to extend shared parental leave to include working grandparents with this due to come into force by 2018.

If you have any questions on the HR or employment law issues raised in this article, please contact Claire Sleep on 01223 431094 or email claire.sleep@ashtonslegal.co.uk. Alternatively, please complete one of our online enquiry forms.