International women’s day: the pay gap between men and women for your job
Summary of story from Guardian, 8.2.11.
41 years after the Equal Pay Act came into force, many women in the UK still earn a lot less than men performing the same jobs.
The data comes from the Office for National Statistics annual survey of hours and earnings – ASHE, which examines one per cent of HM Revenue & Customs pay as you earn (PAYE) records and is the bible of what we earn and who we are. The figures are broken down by gender, age, geographic location and type of job.
The data shows that the median annual salary for all full-time employees in 2010 was £25,900, which is up 0.3 per cent on the year before. But men earn vastly more than women: £28,091, compared to £22,490 – a difference of 19.9 per cent.
Even overtime has an effect – 24.1 per cent of men working full-time take home overtime pay, compared to only 12 per cent of women in the same position.
But even if you remove that impact, plus the effect of women earning maternity pay and the fact that more women work part-time than men, the difference is still striking: men earned 10.2 per cent more in hourly full-time pay last year, £13.01 compared to £11.68.
To see an analysis by the Guardian, which lists the hundreds of jobs where men still earn substantially more than women, click here.