The Gender Pay Gap (Part 2)

Photo by Sammie Vasquez on Unsplash

Yet more bad news this morning on the equal pay front (or should that be unequal pay?). This comes on the back of figures published earlier this week by the UK Government’s Equalities Office which revealed that the gender pay gap was particularly wide at many British universities (see my previous blog entitled The gender pay gap published on 30 March 2019).

The BBC reports that, according to its analysis of official figures, less than half of the largest UK employers have made positive efforts to narrow the gender pay gap in their organisations.

Clearly, many employers are not taking their legal responsibilities seriously enough in relation to the equal pay provisions of the Equality Act 2010 and EU Law (e.g. Article 157 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union).

A link to the BBC report can be found below:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-47822291

The BBC has also produced some animated content about the gender pay gap:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-a524dd3a-c09c-4f09-bc03-c5006d75ef96

Alan Jones writing in The Independent about the issue quoted SNP MSP, Jenny Gilruth who stated:

“Although Scotland has already taken great strides towards combating inequality between men and women, we still need to go further to achieve a truly equal society. The gender pay gap is smaller in Scotland than it is in the UK, but our economy could benefit by a further £15bn if we had the powers to fully eradicate that gap between male and female workers.

The evidence is clear: better opportunities for women to participate fully in our economy means improved performance overall. We have the opportunity to achieve more in Scotland when it comes to equality than the painfully slow progress Westminster has delivered.”

A link to the article in The Independent can be found below:

‘This is your second warning …mind the gender pay gap’

https://edition.independent.co.uk/editions/uk.co.independent.issue.050419/data/8855626/index.html

Copyright Seán J Crossan, 5 April 2019