Computer Weekly and Computing rehash old material on women in IT and the terrible nature of unfair treatment at work each Monday. Although I have not been the victim of unfair treatment at work, I’m sure that there has been. It’s tedious and repetitive to read about it every week, making it not a newsworthy story. Things become less shocking when we are exposed too often to them.
It was therefore fascinating to see real numbers about this problem in the UK.
The Institute of Directors has revealed that British female directors are paid up to 26% less than their male counterparts in a new survey. The gender pay gap in the boardroom has risen from 19% to 22% over the past year, according to the survey. This gap is greater than the gap across all workers, which is 17%.
It was even more in the voluntary and services sectors, where it was as high as 26%. The average salary for women working in this sector was around PS56,933, while it was for men at PS70,657. The average salary of a female director in the service sector was PS57,000, while her male counterparts earned more than PS70,000.
One area where the gap is closing is the financial services sector. The IoD found a 9% pay gap between male and female employees. This is a decrease of 14% in the last two years and 35% for 2005. Kingsley Napley law firm states that commentators have attributed this change to an investment made in “diversity projects.” It could be anything. I would rather work in a company that values me and hires me for my skills than because of being a woman.
The Office for National Statistics found that the gender wage gap has decreased by 0.3% over the past twelve months. The gap in pay has decreased from 17.5% to 17.2%. Perhaps things are improving.
Or maybe not. Research by the Higher Education Statistics Agency shows that graduates have a gender pay gap since the beginning of their careers. Graduates who earn PS1,000 per annum are more successful than their female counterparts.
Isn’t it about highlighting the fact you lose some of the picture when you reduce the number of women and men? Yes, we want equal wages and equal work. This is obvious. It’s a horrible story. These stories are in Computing and Computer Weekly. Nobody is talking about concrete steps they are taking in order to fix it. This would be true news.