Equal pay in Britain's workplaces: 6 myths busted

Today, November 10, is Equal Pay Day. The idea behind it is to draw attention to the fact that women effectively work for free from now until the end of the year.

The mean pay gap (for full and part time workers) is currently 14.1 per cent. In 2016, it was 14.1 per cent, too. And in 2015. At this rate, it will take upwards of 60 years to close - meaning that women starting in the world of work today, will never see pay equality.

There could be change underfoot, however, as next March sees the deadline for companies with more than 250 employees to publish their pay gap. Many hope it will be the first major step in bringing male and female salaries into line, in Britain.

But to truly start tackling the issue of equal pay, it's important to know all the facts - and there are still some myths that persist. Here, we bust some of the most significant...

1) The pay gap starts when women hit their 30s

Wrong. There is, in fact, a gap of around five per cent among workers in their 20s, according to the Resolution Foundation. And that's not the worst of it - pay inequality can also start with children. A website that lets parents set up online accounts to pay pocket money found boys receive 15 per cent more than girls for doing the exact same chores.

Meanwhile, a Press Association study says that teenage girls have seen their salaries fall by 26.4 per cent between 2006-2013 while for boys, there has only been a one per cent drop.

How to crack the gender pay gap - in four steps

2) It only happens in offices

Many assume that the gender pay gap only occurs in male-dominated corporate workplaces. Pah.

Hollywood stars have spoken out about huge discrepancies between male and female salaries, while in the football World Cup, the US women won and took home a $2 million prize pot. The US men’s team? They went out in the first round but still earned $8 million.

In golf, the winner of the Open will win ￡1.15m in comparison to the ￡298,000 the women’s equivalent gets.

3) Women only earn less when they have children

This just isn’t true. We've already seen that the pay gap exists for children and teenagers - but bias is also a factor.

A 2004 study concluded that up to 38 per cent of the gender pay gap in the UK was attributable solely to being a woman. Meanwhile, 70 per cent of bosses think women should declare they’re pregnant when applying for jobs and the one in four think it's fair to ask interviewees if they plan to have children.

One study showed bosses looking at identical job applications - half with male names and the other half female. Result? The men were deemed more 'competent' and were offered higher starting salaries, as well as more career mentoring. 

Gender wage gap

4) Men earn more because they work longer hours

In the UK, women in full time work are paid 9.1 per cent less than men. This is not calculated on annual salaries - it is done per hour, which means it simply is not true that men earn more by working harder. If the pay gap was calculated using annual salaries, there would be a 31 per cent difference in the EU.

This argument is often applied in sport, with some claiming female tennis players shouldn't earn the same as men as they player shorter matches, a view once put forward by Novak Djokovic - who later apologised. 

5) Women earn less because of maternity leave

Shared parental leave was only introduced in the UK in 2015, which means before then, women had no choice but to shoulder the brunt of maternity leave.

If they choose to go back to work, women are forced to pay an average of ￡900-￡1,200 a month for childcare - so it can be cost-effective to stay at home.

On top of that, the EHRC (Equality and Human Rights Commission) has found that around 54,000 mothers a year could be being forced to leave their job early as a result of being fired, made redundant or treated so poorly they choose to leave after they become pregnant or give birth.

6) The pay gap only exists at a lower level

The average man in an executive role earned a basic salary of ￡40,325 over the 12 months to August 2012, compared to ￡30,265 for a female in the same type of role. Women are also less likely to receive a bonus at work – and when they do it is likely to be smaller than one received by a man. In 2012, the average bonus for a male executive was ￡7,496 compared to ￡3,726 for a woman.

Of course, that’s if they can get there in the first place. In 2015, women only made up 9.6 per cent of executive directors in the FTSE 100.

And the BBC has revealed that it has a 10 per cent pay gap, with the publication of its highest earning talent causing a row. The research, published in July, showed women accounted for just a third of the BBC’s highest earners, with only one woman in the top nine.