Equal pay: the gender gap in the workplace in the United Kingdom

Résumé du document

According to ACAS, women working full time in the public sector earn 13.5% less than their male counterparts. Even more strikingly, women working part-time earn 35.5% less than their male counterparts working full-time. Thus, despite the Equal Pay Act 1970 (EPA hereafter), the existence of a gender gap in the work place remains an everyday reality. The principle of equal remuneration for equal work between men and women was officially expressed for the first time in the 1951 General Conference of the International Labor Organization. In the European Union, this principle was enshrined in article 119 (now article 141) of the treaty of Rome of 1957.

Extraits

[...] Firstly, the EPA provides only for individual remedies. Therefore, there is absolutely no incentive to managers to raise pay across entire wage structure. Even if Kate Whittaker[2] argues that effects on staff morale of bias in gender is in the end more costly than employers imagine, it is still left to them to decide upon this matter. A second obstacle is for the individuals discriminated against to find a comparator in the opposite sex. This can prove especially difficult in cases of occupational segregation. [...]

[...] (2005), “Battle of the sexes”, Payroll manager's Review KENYON R. (2003), “Comment: Time for an Equal Pay Amnesty”, Law Society Gazette Websites Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service (2007) [online] last accessed the 25th of April 2007 at: http://www.acas.org.uk Equal Opportunities Commission (2007) [online] last accessed the 25th of April at: http://www.eoc.org.uk Women and Equality Unit (2007) [online] last accessed the 25th of April 2007 at: http:// www.womenandequalityunit.gov.uk The National Institute of Economic and Social Research (2007), The Gender Pay Gap [online] last accessed the 25th of April 2007 at http://www.niesr.ac.uk/pubs/searchdetail.php?PublicationID=380 Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service (2007), Gender Equality Scheme [online] at: http://www.acas.org.uk/index.aspx?articleid=1249 WHITTAKER K. [...]

[...] Equal pay: the gender gap in the workplace in the United Kingdom According to ACAS[1], women working full time in the public sector earn less than their male counterparts. Even more strikingly, women working part-time earn less than their male counterparts working full- time. Thus, despite the Equal Pay Act 1970 (EPA hereafter), the existence of a gender gap in the work place remains an everyday reality. This essay will first define the legislative framework on equal pay before identifying the limitations of the 1970 act and then ponder on potential solutions to the gender earning gap in the workplace. [...]

[...] This renders the law relatively confusing. So what are the remedies to this pay gap? The Gender Pay Gap[3], a report from the National Institute of Economics and Social Research published in 2001, identified differences in work experience, part-time working, travel patterns (women seek work closer to home), and occupational segregation as being the chief causes for the pay disparity between men and women. Therefore, direct remedies to respond to this situation could be to adapt child care facilities to the real needs of working women, to re- evaluate jobs with a high concentration of women, and to increase their awareness of their rights through campaigns. [...]