All UK jobs should offer flexible hours to close pay gap: Watchdog

All British employers should offer flexible hours to both sexes to make life fairer for working parents, the country’s equality watchdog said yesterday, as part of a push to close gender, ethnicity and disability pay gaps.

Job shares and working from home are key to boost women’s salaries, the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) said, as British women earn 18 percent less than men for the same job.

“We need to overhaul our culture and make flexible working the norm - looking beyond women as the primary caregivers and having tough conversations about the biases that are rife in our workforce and society,” Caroline Waters, EHRC’s deputy chairwoman, said in a statement.

Men and women should be encouraged to share childcare duties and fathers should be offered well-paid “use it or lose it” paternity leave to relieve the pressure on mothers to stall their careers to take care of their children, EHRC said. The report comes a month after Britain’s public broadcaster, the BBC, revealed that its top male star was paid five times more than its bestpaid female presenter, prompting public criticism.

In April, large firms in Britain were required by law to report pay discrepancies between male and female employees. The pay gap for ethnic minorities is 5.7 percent and 13.6 percent for the disabled, EHRC said. “The pay gaps issue sits right at the heart of our society and is a symbol of the work we still need to do to achieve equality for all,”Waters said.

“While there has been some progress, it has been painfully slow. We need radical change now otherwise we’ll be having the same conversation for decades to come.” Women’s rights group the Fawcett Society agreed that flexible working should be the default for all employers to tackle the pay gap. “Taking these steps will be good for employees but also good for business,” said Jemima Olchawski, head of policy at the Fawcett Society. “Without it we risk excluding talented people from our workforce and underperforming as an economy.”Women from almost every minority ethnic group earn less than white British men, the charity found in March.

Closing Britain’s gender pay gap could add 150 billion pounds ($193 billion) to the country’s annual gross domestic product by 2025, according to consulting firm McKinsey Global Institute. — Reuters