Splitting the difference over the UK gender pay gap - Building Gender Balanced Business

• Add the gender pay gap to the innumerable troubles for Gordon Brown’s Labour government. Not only is the gap not disappearing, but exactly how great it is in dispute.

• Equalities Minister Harriet Harman stands accused in the media of exaggerating the gap through misleading data — a report from the Government Equalities Office in November 2008 put the gap at 28% instead of a 12.8% figure used by the Office for National Statistics.

• Sir Michael Scholar, chair of the UK Statistics Authority, has complained that the use of the larger figure “may undermine public trust in official statistics” and “risks giving a misleading quantification of the gender pay gap”.

• Both agencies say official statisticians are reviewing how best to present the wage gap.

• The difference apparently comes from part-time workers. The higher number comes from comparing part-time and full-time workers according to their total earnings. The smaller figure comes from a pure per hour calculation of full-time workers.

• In fact, part-time women do slightly better than part-time men on a per hour basis. But of course women make up three-quarters of part-time workers, who by definition make less than full-time workers.

• The Equalities Office told the BBC, “The 23% gender pay gap figure used by the Government Equalities Office includes both full and part-time employees. With women representing over three-quarters of the UK’s part-time workforce, we believe this figure gives the fullest picture of the country’s gender pay gap.”

The BBC blog