The new Government, according to Minister for Equalities, Lynne Featherstone, is committed to a bold and ambitious approach to tackling gender inequality, including promoting equal pay.
According to the Office for National Statistics, the median full-time gender pay gap for full-time employees last year was 12.2 per cent. But what are the real reasons behind unequal pay?
If the reason for the gender pay gap was sex discrimination on the part of employers, you would expect employers to discriminate consistently. They don’t. In fact, 16 and 17 year-old females actually earn an average 12.6 per cent more than males of that age group and the gap reaches its peak for those in their forties before declining again. This could suggest employers just discriminate against women with children. Surely it is much more about the choices available to and made by women?
According to a 2002 DTI research report, employer discrimination is responsible for at most 29% of the pay gap. So, if the only cause of the gender pay gap was discrimination, we would expect to see a gap of around 3.5 per cent, not 12.2 per cent.
What this means is that, in its bold and ambitious approach to equal pay, the Government needs to ensure that its response is proportionate to the problem.
Amongst other provisions, the forthcoming Equality Act includes new provisions aimed at reducing the gender pay gap, including pay secrecy clauses and gender pay gap reporting and the Liberal Democrats have proposed mandatory equal pay audits for every company that employs more than 100 people.
Many employers argue that mandatory equal pay audits are a disproportionate response to the problem. Equal pay audits would cost industry millions to implement and, based on the findings above, would solve very little. What it would do is create a bonanza for lawyers.
Employers take the view that the real solutions to the problem are much harder to achieve. Employers can play their part – and most are doing so – by developing innovative working practices and offering flexible working where it is workable.
But the real issues for society - and government - are about ending gender stereotyping in childhood, promoting careers in science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM subjects) to women and increasing the availability of low-cost, high-quality child care. Only by tackling these will we improve the choices available to women and provide better support for the choices made by women.