Government plans to force large firms to disclose data on their gender pay gap. Comment by Shainaz Firfiray, of Warwick Business School, is an Assistant Professor of Organisation and Human Resource Management and researches work-life balance.
Dr Shainaz Firfiray said: “While the Government’s plan to require large firms to publish the average pay of male and female employees is a welcome move, disclosure of pay is unlikely to prove effective in closing the gender pay gap in the absence of specific procedures that tackle gender pay inequalities. “The existing performance-oriented cultures within most contemporary workplaces further undermine the ability of females with more domestic responsibilities to compete on a level-playing field while attaining a healthy work-life balance. Thus, it is imperative that firms place more emphasis on improving the status of females in the workplace through the promotion of more flexible forms of working that enable them to balance the responsibilities of work and family lives and enable them to reach their true potential.
“While higher educational attainment has provided access to better paid jobs for some women, it has not resulted in a reduction in the gender pay gap as much as one might have expected. “In fact, a recent ILO study suggests that while the gender pay gap at lower earnings levels has started to narrow, it has increased in higher-level positions implying that the inclusion of more women in professional and higher paid jobs has not translated into more equal treatment in terms of pay. “Typically, the gender pay gap has been attributed to factors including the undervaluation of women’s work, social norms that reinforce perceptions about female economic dependence, women’s lower investment in human capital, and women's preference for lower commitment jobs that will allow them to combine work and family responsibilities.”
Further comment from Sarah Burke, employment specialist solicitor at Thomas Eggar LLP. “Consultation will need to take place to discuss exactly how this will happen in practice and no decisions have yet been made on how companies should report data. This does at first glance suggest a positive move towards further ensuring equality amongst staff in the workplace. However, the devil is (as always) in the detail and so we will need to see exactly what obligations larger businesses will have in disclosing information about pay to properly assess the impact of this plan. Too general or vague information (such as average pay data for male and female staff employed by the business as a whole) may not actually move us much further and such information is unlikely to help in establishing whether staff are being paid the same amounts for the same work.
“While the Government’s proposals to push ahead with this plan are a step in the right direction, we should also continue to look at what else can be done to ensure equality amongst the workforce. For instance continuing to encourage more female senior appointments and the sharing of family related leave (under the new shared parental leave rules) may have a much better practical impact rather than simply tying businesses up in red tape in relation to general data reports.”
