Why is Britain failing when it comes to the gender pay gap?

Rules forcing private companies who employ more than 250 people to release their gender pay gap figures were suspended by the government due to Covid-19 upheaval (Rex)

The UK may be the sixth richest country in the world but it substantially lags behind other nations when it comes to tackling the gender pay gap, research suggests.

Researchers at King’s College London and Fawcett Society, a leading gender equality charity, last week found the UK takes a uniquely “light-touch approach” to addressing the gender pay gap in the private sector and trails behind other nations.

Today, Stella Creasy, the Labour MP for Walthamstow, introduced a bill to parliament that would allow women in the workplace to request data from their employer if they suspect a male colleague is taking home different wages for doing the same work.

But the question remains: why is the UK not managing to keep up with other countries when confronting the gender pay gap?

Sam Smethers, chief executive of the Fawcett Society, which drafted Ms Creasy’s 10-minute rule bill, which has cross-party support and passed its first reading in the Commons unopposed, told The Independent the government simply does not take the issue sufficiently seriously.

She said: “We have never really been serious about the enforcement of equal pay and gender pay gap reporting. There is no meaningful enforcement. It is very difficult to close the gender pay gap without that teeth behind the requirements. Discrimination is part of it. Also, women are in low-paid jobs and men are in higher-paid work.

“Everyone is tired of the absence of progress. We don’t expect there to be any significant progress in the next data which comes out. That is unacceptable. It is intensely frustrating for women. We are not using women’s skills and talents to the full. There is a feeling of weariness. We are still talking about the same problem, with the same picture years on.”

Rules forcing private companies who employ more than 250 people to release their gender pay gap figures were suspended by the government due to the Covid-19 upheaval. A report, conducted by Business in the Community back in May, found half of companies did not report their gender pay gap this year, with the number of firms releasing such information having halved since 2019.

Ms Creasy told The Independent: “Of all the requirements businesses have to provide, the gender pay gap is the thing which has been waived. What message does that send about whether you think this is a priority? It’s clearly not a priority otherwise the government wouldn’t have taken their foot off the pedal.”

The recent King’s College London and Fawcett Society study, which examines gender pay gap reporting laws in 10 countries, found the UK takes a more feeble approach at holding employers to account over what they actually do to find a solution to wage bias.

It has never been compulsory for private-sector employers in the UK to produce an action plan to address pay bias. This is different from France where legislation means if private-sector workplaces do not get an adequate score across a set of gender pay gap barometers, an action plan must be drawn up with trade unions or employee reps.

Sian Elliot, women’s equality policy officer at the TUC, told The Independent: “We lack flexibility in the UK labour market. Working mums can’t get the childcare they need. That is where we differ from other countries – we have a real lack of affordable childcare, which is chronically underfunded by the government, but the coronavirus crisis has made this worse and the government has failed to act on warnings from the childcare sector.

"We also have huge occupational segregation. Women are far more likely to work in lower-paid, precarious jobs, including those with zero-hour contracts, in sectors like health and social care, hospitality and retail. All sectors which have been acutely hit by the coronavirus crisis.

“In our economy, women’s work is undervalued, underpaid and unrecognised and we have seen that throughout this crisis.”

Anna Ritchie Allan, executive director of Close the Gap, told The Independent equal pay legislation has failed to provide pay equality for women.

“It relies on women being able to take action after discrimination has occurred, rather than providing a solution to a systemic problem that affects women across the labour market,” she added.

“The weaknesses in the law are compounded by undue employer complacency. Most employers think they’re already providing equal pay but the vast majority have never done an equal pay review, which is the only way to check whether you’re paying women and men fairly. You have to look for pay discrimination in order to uncover it.”

Rules obliging companies and other organisations who employ over 250 people to release their respective gender pay gap figures were rolled out in 2017.

Niki Kandirikirira, of Equality Now, told The Independent: “The UK is not only faltering, the gap is actually widening. This is deeply concerning. “Women in the workplace have been badly impacted by the economic fallout from the pandemic. 

"Women are losing paid work and doing more unpaid work, and there is a particular concern that mothers are being pushed out of the workforce because a lack of affordable childcare options means they are more like to work fewer hours, be furloughed, or face redundancy.”