LONDON: A sixth of companies pay women less than men for doing the same work, according to the Equal Opportunities Commission.
EOC, which carried out a survey of 870 companies, said all these companies had reviewed their pay structures to check if they were paying equally, but found that 16 per cent paid female employees less than their male colleagues.
The gap tended to be more among larger employers, said EOC Friday, adding a third of those who employed more than 500 people said they had found some inequality in pay. The true proportion could be higher as these organisations were among the more enlightened employers, having voluntarily undertaken pay reviews, said EOC.
EOC's chairperson Jenny Watson called for a review of laws that governed the issue. She said, the pay gap will never close until employers check whether they have a problem. "And today's research shows that still too few employers do this," she said in a statement.
She said the biggest problem is in the private sector. There is least action in this segment and the pay gap is nearly 10 percentage points higher than in the public sector.
She said the survey revealed that women working full-time earned on average 17 per cent less per hour than men, a gap that remained almost constant over 30 years.
Women missed out on senior jobs and took longer to get promoted, while inequality existed at entry level, with women coming in on lower starting salaries in more than a fifth of cases, Watson said.
The EOC urged all companies to undertake a "equality check" to see whether they had a gender pay gap.
The survey results are relevant as the government is set to announce the findings of a study by the Women and Work Commission, which has been mandated by prime minister Tony Blair to make recommendations on narrowing the gender pay gap.
EOC felt the government may miss on its 2008 deadline to tackle discriminatory pay against women as many employers are dragging their feet in conducting internal reviews of the pay gaps. It said only 34 per cent of large employers have conducted the reviews, while the government's target is 45 per cent by 2008.
Meanwhile, the Confederation of British Industry, which had carried out internal research, says the picture is slightly different. Susan Henderson, CBI's head of human resources policy, said its studies reveal that 40 per cent of large employers had so far undertaken reviews and found little evidence of widespread discrimination. She said, "Of course there are some issues but it is not as great as the EOC suggests."
She said that firms are responsive to the issue and are talking about flexible working, encouraging women back to work after having children and getting young girls to consider different careers.
Posted
on : Sat, 28 Jan 2006 14:05 GMT | General News
By : Anne Philips
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