British companies forced to reveal gender pay gaps
Data mandated by law shows nearly 8 in 10 U.K. firms pay men more than women
Claire Foy, who stars on Netflix’s hit series The Crown, isn’t the only British woman paid less than her male counterpart. New figures released in Britain show that nearly eight in 10 companies and public-sector organizations in the United Kingdom pay men more than women.
Under legislation introduced last year, all companies in Britain with more than 250 employees had until midnight Wednesday to publish their gender pay gap data. Britain is one of the first countries in the world to introduce mandatory gender pay gap reporting. The long-standing issue of pay parity in Britain and elsewhere was highlighted, once again, when producers on The Crown revealed that Foy, who portrays Queen Elizabeth II on the series, earned less than her co-star Matt Smith, who has a supporting role as Prince Philip. Writing in the Telegraph earlier this week, British Prime Minister Theresa May said that she was committed to “tackling the burning injustices which mar our society. One such is the gender pay gap.” Britain joins countries such as Australia in requiring organizations to release data on gender pay, but neither country goes as far as places such as Iceland, where the onus is on employers to prove they are paying men and women equally. Campaigners in Britain say that this kind of transparency — the data is available for anyone to peruse — will help shame employers into making changes. Under the new rules, businesses will have to update their figures annually, which advocates hope will encourage them to take steps to close the gap.
About 10,000 companies filed their data to the British government’s Equality Office by Wednesday’s midnight deadline. About 1,500 failed to meet the deadline, according to the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), the watchdog that will take action if firms don’t comply within a month. Those companies could face fines. “Reporting gender pay gaps is not optional; it is a legal requirement, as well as being the right thing to do,” said Rebecca Hilsenrath, chief executive of the EHRC. “We will soon be starting enforcement against all employers that haven’t published.”
HSBC, Europe’s largest bank, reported the largest difference in male and female staff salaries among large organizations in Britain, according to a Reuters analysis of the published data using the mean as the measure. HSBC on average paid men 59 per cent more than women, the biggest difference among companies with more than 5,000 employees in Britain. The next largest gender pay gaps were at Virgin Atlantic, where men received 58 per cent more on average than women, followed by a unit of Barclays, where female staff earned 48 per cent less than male colleagues.
HSBC said it was confident in its approach to pay and made appropriate adjustments if it identified differences between men and women in similar roles that could not be explained by performance or experience.
Virgin Atlantic said the gap reflected the relatively low number of female pilots in the aviation industry, while Barclays said it had more work to do so women could progress in their careers at the company, Reuters said. Other companies with large gender pay gaps included Millwall Holdings, the parent company of the professional soccer club Millwall FC, which reported a gap of 80 per cent, and Boux Avenue, a chain of lingerie stores, which had a gap of 75.7 per cent. The budget airline Ryanair had a pay gap of 71.8 per cent. According to data published in 2017, the average gender pay gap in Britain stands at 18.4 per cent. In response to the data, some lawmakers have been tweeting with the hashtag #paymetoo, a campaign encouraging employees to talk to co-workers about what they earn and to raise these issues in the workplace.
Amber Rudd, Britain’s home secretary who is also the minister for women and equalities, encouraged businesses to take further steps to reduce the gap.
“Closing the gender pay gap also makes economic sense. Research shows that improving women’s participation in the labour market could add 150 billion pounds to the economy by 2025. That’s a number we cannot afford to ignore,” she said. Sam Smethers, chief executive of the Fawcett Society, a women’s rights organization, called the reporting “a game changer.”
“It forces employers to look at themselves and understand their organizations and it prompts employees to ask some hard questions,” she said in a statement. “But even better than that, finally women are realizing that they have a right to talk about pay and they cannot be silenced.”
Finally women are realizing that they have a right to talk about pay and they cannot be silenced.