Coronavirus will set women’s progress back decades – but lack of pay data makes it hard to get full picture

‘The way companies respond to the Covid-19 pandemic could result in a step backwards in achieving equal pay within the workforce’, advocacy group Equality Now tells Maya Oppenheim

More than a quarter of companies are paying female workers up to 20 per cent less than their male counterparts (Getty/iStock)

The fact half of companies did not report their gender pay gap this year and the number of businesses sharing such information has halved since last year makes it difficult to accurately assess women’s current position in the workplace.

Academics have warned the coronavirus crisis will roll back gender equality by decades – due to women being more likely than men to lose their jobs in the forthcoming recession as higher numbers work in “locked-down sectors” – but it is hard to analyse the extent of the damage without having an up-to-date picture of women’s position at the start of the health emergency.

In March, the government halted public sector bodies and private companies requirement to report their gender pay gaps by 4 April in the wake of the Covid-19 outbreak. Many companies chose not to release their gender pay gap data despite having these figures for around a year in advance of the deadline.

Jacqui Hunt, of Equality Now, told The Independent: “We know businesses are stretched but information about the gender pay gap reveals the stark reality of how much individual companies value their female staff, or not as the case may be. It is critical to hold employers to account and it is extremely concerning that at a time when the economic fallout from Covid-19 is hitting women hardest across the UK, businesses are opting not to provide data on how much they pay their staff.

“Annual pay gap reporting highlights problems that need to be addressed. The way companies respond to the Covid-19 pandemic could result in a step backwards in achieving equal pay within the workforce and without the relevant data, it will be harder to hold employers to account.”

Companies and organisations which employ over 250 people must share their gender pay gap figures with the public since new rules were implemented back in 2017.

Last year’s reporting showed the gender pay gap has widened in favour of men at nearly half of the biggest firms and public sector bodies in the UK since the year before – with almost eight in 10 companies still paying men more than women and more than a quarter paying female workers up to 20 per cent less.

There was found to be no substantial change in the gender pay gap from the year before with the gap marginally lessening from 9.7 per cent to 9.6 per cent.

Charlotte Woodworth, of Business in the Community, a charity which carried out the most recent research, said: “If we don’t have a clear picture of women’s status at work entering the crisis, we won’t be able to take the right steps going forward.”