High street chains giving men far bigger bonuses than women, new study finds

‘Where bosses are able to award bonuses, there is clearly more bias towards men. These figures may indicate discriminatory practices,’ says expert

The report, which was carried out by The Equality Trust, found scant progress had been made on improving gender pay gaps

High street chains are giving male employees far heftier bonuses than their female workers, a troubling new report has found.

A bonus is a payment given to employees in addition to their base salary - with many such lumps of money handed out during the Christmas period.

The report, which was carried out by The Equality Trust, found scant progress had been made on improving gender pay gaps.

The study discovered an increase of 179 per cent of the average gender bonus gap among companies which chose to reveal their figures. 

Some 82 firms reported a gender bonus gap of 100 per cent, which means men are either being paid double the amount in bonuses as women or female employees are getting no bonuses at all. More than a third of companies with a gender bonus gap of 100 per cent were found to be in the public sector.

Researchers at the charity, which campaigns against economic and social inequality, warned it would take 142 years to close the gender pay gap in large companies at the present rate of progress.

Rules obliging private companies who employ more than 250 people to release their gender pay gap figures were suspended by the government earlier in the year due to coronavirus turmoil. 

Campaigners warned there has been inadequate progress on curbing the gender pay gap during the three years since these new rules were rolled out.

Researchers examined gender pay and bonus gap reporting for all firms who revealed their data in the first two years of the gender pay gap regulations and all who reported by 23 July this year.

High street firms such as Sweaty Betty, Virgin Atlantic Ltd, Karen Millen Fashions Limited, and Monsoon, which had high gender pay gaps last year, decided not to reveal their data this year.

Campaigners noted only just over half of companies voluntarily reported their gender pay gap this year and called for reporting rules to be “urgently” reinstated.

Rush Hair Ltd was found to have the highest gender pay gap of 69 per cent, followed by Yours Clothing and Boux Avenue with 59 per cent, and HSBC Bank PLC with 55 per cent.

Dr Wanda Wyporska, executive director of The Equality Trust, told The Independent: “Where bosses are able to award bonuses, there is clearly more bias towards men. These figures may indicate discriminatory practices”.

She added: “Fifty years after the Equal Pay Act, women are still being undervalued, underpaid and to add insult to injury, there is little if any progress on the gender pay and bonus gaps. And it’s disappointing to see how many of those companies selling predominantly to women, are keen to take women’s money, but not so eager to pay it to their women staff.

“We are calling on the government to reinstate gender pay and bonus gap reporting and on companies to introduce full pay transparency.”

The Fawcett Society, the UK’s leading gender equality charity, has said Equal Pay Day will fall on 20 November in Britain this year. Researchers previously used the full-time mean average gender pay gap which is 11.5 per cent this year — a fall from 13.1 per cent back in 2019 — to calculate this.

Stella Creasy, the Labour MP for Walthamstow, recently told The Independent the government has “taken their foot off the pedal” on tackling the gender pay gap.

Ms Creasy, who introduced a bill last month that would allow women to ask their employer for data about a male colleague if they suspect they are taking home different wages for doing equivalent work, warned there was a lack of “political will” within government to address the issue.