Women’s part-time pay penalty
MOTHERS suffer a long-term “pay penalty” if they work part-time, a major new study has warned.
A new analysis shows that women continue to miss out on earnings growth.
The research by the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation found:
By the time a first child is aged 20, mothers earn about 30% less per hour, on average, than similarly educated fathers;
Female graduates still earn about 22% less per hour than male graduates;
Women earn less on average than men “despite the fact that they are better educated on average”;
Even before they have children, women earn about 10% less than men.
A key reason for the enduring pay gap is thought to be that women who work part-time often miss out on the pay progression that normally comes with increased experience.
Monica Costa Dias of the IFS said: “It is remarkable that periods spent in part-time work lead to virtually no wage progression at all. It should be a priority for governments and others to understand the reasons for this.
“Addressing it would have the potential to narrow the gender wage gap significantly.”
The IFS found that a graduate who works full-time for seven years before having a child would on average “see her hourly wage rise by a further 6%” over and above general wage inflation if she continues for another year. However, if she switches to part-time work she “would see none of that wage progression”.
Robert Joyce, also of the IFS, said: “There has been a substantial fall in the gap between the earnings of lower-educated men and women over the last 25 years. However, there has been no fall at all in the gap for graduates.
“Traditionally, it has been lowereducated women whose wages were especially low relative to similarly educated men. It is now the highesteducated women whose wages are the furthest behind their male counterparts – and this is particularly related to the fact that they lose out so badly from working parttime.”
Cerys Furlong, chief executive of Chwarae Teg, which helps women across Wales move forward in the economy, warned of a link to poverty.
She said: “There is still a lot of work to be done to address inequalities in our economy. The gender pay gap still stands at almost 15% overall in Wales, but is as high as 30% in some sectors and in some parts of the nation.
“Women are most likely to be in part-time employment – in Wales 80% of part-time workers are women. And 44% of lone parents – of whom we know the majority are women – are living in poverty.
“We need to see a cultural shift so that women are paid fairly for the work that they do, and are able to access flexible working or to progress in their careers while working part-time. There also needs to be more support around childcare, with a shift towards shared parental leave. ”
A Welsh Government spokesman said childcare was “one of the biggest challenges for working mothers.
He said: “It is unacceptable that gender pay inequality still exists. The causes of the gender pay gap are complex but we are committed to addressing those causes where we can...
“Our childcare offer provides working parents of three and four year-olds with 30 hours a week of free early education and childcare for up to 48 weeks of the year. The Parents, Childcare and Employment (PaCE) [project] helps out-of-work parents access training or work opportunities – more than 90% of the participants are women.
“We have also invested £10m of EU and Welsh Government funds in the Agile Nation 2 project, which will support 2,200 women and work with 500 employers across Wales to promote female career advancement and help reduce the gender pay gap.”
Sian Gwenllian, Plaid Cymru’s Women and Equalities spokeswoman, said: “A Plaid Cymru government would deliver free high-quality childcare to all children from the age of three.
“We will support parents who work and give children the best start in life and provide parents with greater flexibility over work.
“However, efforts must also be made to encourage and enable both parents to play a more active role in childcare responsibilities. Our childcare package will provide working families with greater choice and flexibility so that women don’t take disproportionate responsibility for the care of their children, which will help in making the gender pay gap in Wales a thing of the past”.