NEWS: THE GENDER PAY GAP DEBATE
Women in the UK workplace, and overseas, have faced pay discrimination because of their gender for many years. In January this year, the Office of National Statistics (ONS) released an article analysing the gender pay gap in the UK to offer insights to those interested. It is stated in this report that men dominate the pay gap in all occupations, as a response to the UK Government asking companies with over 250 employees to provide a report of the gender pay gap within their organisations, and causing a stir amongst the female workforce.
Earlier this year, Vice Media, were sued by former Los Angeles based employee, Elizabeth Rose, for pay discrimination amongst herself and other female employees in the company. The Guardian Online explain that Rose was asked to employ a man, that was paid $25,000 more than her, and he was quickly promoted into her future career position, becoming her supervisor. Vice described him to Rose as having a greater “personality fit.” ONS suggested that personality and character differences between men and women are a main factor as to the gender wage gap difference, for example stating, “women with children are more likely than men with children to take time out of the labour market, a possible explanation of the divergence in pay is that men accumulate more experience than women over their working life.”
A recent article on the promotion gap written by Rosamund Urwin in The Sunday Time’s magazine, Style, suggests that even though there are now more women to graduate then men. It takes six further years for women to gain a promotion. As a reaction to this, to gain greater representation of women on FTSE 100 boards, a corporate campaign, named the 30% Club, was launched by Brenda Trenowden. The campaign was launched in 2010, aiming to enable women to gain 30% of the chairs on the boards of FTSE 100 companies. When the campaign started just over 10% of chairs were taken by women, now this figure is just under 29%. Urwin suggests that women are promoted on performance and men are promoted based on potential. In the article by the ONS, the figures suggest that women working in the Chief Executive and Senior Officer roles are earning almost three and a half times the amount than those in the lower roles of a business, but men are earning four times more, respectively.
On a similar note, Vogue, of Condé Nast, has recently been slated for the use of unpaid interns across month long placements. Sarah Butler, from The Guardian Online, reported on this topic previously this year and stated that according to the HM Revenue and Customs, the Vogue placements had some of the characteristics of a ‘worker’ and these ‘workers’, under employment legislation, should be salaried on the national minimum wage. The article goes onto give statements from Vogue’s editor, Edward Enninful, that state the placements offer valuable experience and opportunities to the interns and “do not have a legal obligation to pay the minimum wage.” Instead, Vogue reimburse their interns £80 a week for travel, although in London, where the headquarters are based, this doesn’t cover living costs.
The UK is yet to see a shift in the gender pay gap and research shows that this may not happen as quickly as hoped due to there being many factors, such as, characteristics, age and occupation, that effect the space between men and women’s pay.
Words: Marie-Claire Mills