Companies are still paying men more

Three quarters of businesses are still have a gender pay gap

Although the gender pay gap is virtually extinct for freelance and self-employed workers, British businesses are still struggling to catch up, according to new government statistics.

74% of businesses with more than 250 employees were found to have a pay gap favouring men, with medium and larger businesses found to pay men around 8% more than women at the same company. Along with banks, many of the largest gender pay gaps have been found within airline companies – with pay differences as high as 47% between men and women – as most pilots hired are men while cabin crew are female-led, according to the BBC.

In their lifetime, women are still expected to earn a massive £400,000 less than male workers because of the gender pay gap, a situation which occurs not when men and women are paid different amounts for the same job, but instead is created when businesses tend to hire more men or women for higher paid positions, such as C-suite and executive roles. Just over one in 10 firms were revealed to have little-to-no pay gap between genders, with a large majority paying more total wages to their male staff.

15% of firms have a pay disparity favouring women, including Europcar, alcoholic drinks giant Diageo and Three Rivers Council, which pays its female staff an average of 42% more than its men. All larger companies are expected to publish their gender pay data by April 4 this year, yet just 12% currently have.

“They may be hoping that by waiting until the deadline and submitting at the same time as others that their results will get lost in the crowd,” Director General of the CBI told the BBC’s Today Programme. “It is about fairness but it is also fundamentally about productivity in our economy. I think firms are embracing this.”

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