The gender pay gap is the pay within an organisation that shows the difference between men and women’s average earnings within the workforce. This often correlates with equal pay where there may be a slight increase in pay for men than women who have the same job.
With many retail work, there is justice for equal pay, often the living wage is given to all employers who work part time on a contract. With people in management, it all depends on how you show yourself and you have the option of asking for a certain pay. Most companies are willing to go for your figure as they often already have a ‘ballpark’ number in mind and would want to match your offer.
Gov.uk shares the gender pay gap details from many employees who have over 250 members working for them to share their reports. For example, Ernst & Young, an Administrative and support service company, shared that for every £1 that men earned, women earned only 86p in comparison with their median hourly wage being 13.8% lower than men’s. Tesco stores, a national supermarket, on the other hand, had women earning 92p for every £1 men earned, with an hourly wage median as 8.5% lower than men’s. Similarly, Guardians News and Media Limited shared the same results having a median of 8.4% lower than men’s. Interestingly, C. & J. International, better known as Clarks Shoes, has a better bridge between the gap for men and women, having an earning of 95p for every £1 men make and have women occupy 58.5% of the highest paid jobs compared to men’s 41.5% and 76.5% of the lowest paid jobs. It seems like with many companies, there isn’t any sort of definitive equal pay within the work force, most having similar effects of the figures shown above with many women earning less on the pound.
Often enough, the case that we see is that women don’t want to ask for a higher pay. Maybe it’s because they are being courteous and not wanting to seem quite demanding or maybe it’s because they aren’t aware of their own self-worth and that’s where they find that men that work the same job they do have a slight increase in pay.
Jennifer Lawrence, Academy award winning actress, was said to be paid considerable less than her male co-stars after a document by Sony was leaked by accident, she said, ‘'We are making changes, the gap is very slowly closing. But there's still work to be done,’. She also wrote a piece for Lenny, an online magazine created by Lena Dunham, actress and activist, talking about gender pay.
The gap and bridge between equal pay and gender pay is still quite vast with many women being underpaid for the same jobs that men do. Stylist magazine said, ‘women are still likely to earn nearly 40% less – that’s £16,000 - than men from more advantaged backgrounds.’ It’s time that all women, whether you are part of the BAME community or not, need to stand together to demand the equal rights we deserve. Our hard work deserves recognition and if the pay isn’t representing that, then I’m not sure, we want your ‘thanks’ for the work we put it in, if we get nothing out of it.