By Ashleigh Webber, Personnel Today
The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) found that since the mid-1990s women of working age have gone from being 5 percentage points less likely, to 5 percentage points more likely to have a university degree than men.
The 40% earnings gap identified its report is around 13 percentage points, or 25%, lower than it was in the mid-1990s.
However, women are still less likely to be in paid work than men (83.5% of women and 93% of men), and work fewer hours per week than men if they are employed (34 hours a week on average, compared with 42).
Women in paid work earn 19% less per hour on average than men (£13.20 compared with £16.30).In 1995 this figure was 24% and in 2005 it was 20.5%.
The research was based on data from 2019.
Monica Costa-Dias, deputy research director at IFS, said: “Huge gender gaps remain across employment, working hours and wages. After accounting for the rapid improvement in women’s education, there has been almost no progress on gender gaps in paid work over the past quarter-century.
“Working-age women in the UK are now more educated than their male counterparts and it seems unlikely that we can rely on women becoming more and more educated to close the existing gaps.”
The Women and men at work report, part of the IFS Deaton Review of Inequalities, also finds that:
- The hourly wage gap between men and women is now bigger for those with degrees or A-level-equivalent qualifications than for those with lower qualifications. In fact, the minimum wage has helped reduce pay inequality in lower-paid roles
- Of working-age adults with GCSEs or less, 26.5% of women do not work for pay compared with 9.5% of men
- Working-age women do more than 50 hours a month more unpaid work (including both childcare and housework) than men
- Gaps in employment and hours increase substantially upon becoming a parent, with women switching to more “family friendly” but lower paying occupations, or part time work
- Women have more career breaks and spend more years working part-time, which contributes to them having lower hourly earnings further down the line.
“However, the gender gap in total earnings in the UK is almost twice as large as in some other countries which suggests the gender earnings gap is heavily influenced by the policy environment and cultural and social norms. For example, women are likely to take on more childcare even when they are the highest earner in the household, and a number of other countries also have more generous parental leave policies than the UK.”
Mark Franks, director of welfare at the Nuffield Foundation, which funded the research, said: “Differences in labour market participation, hours worked and hourly pay act together to lead to large and persistent inequalities in labour market outcomes between men and women in the UK. Some of these differences will originate from choices made by individuals and families relating to career and childcare decisions.
“However, the gender gap in total earnings in the UK is almost twice as large as in some other countries which suggests the gender earnings gap is heavily influenced by the policy environment and cultural and social norms. For example, women are likely to take on more childcare even when they are the highest earner in the household, and a number of other countries also have more generous parental leave policies than the UK.”
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