Gender, pay and 'misleading' stats
Equalities Minister Harriet Harman has been accused of over-stating the plight of women in the workplace: using misleading statistics to make it look as though female workers are having a tougher time than they really are.
After the debacle over the use of knife crime statistics last year, one would have thought that ministers might have learned their lesson.
But I am reliably informed that when the National Statistician Karen Dunnell went to the Government Equalities Office last November and told them that their way of calculating gender pay differences might be confusing and potentially damaging, the GEO ignored her and published anyway.
So instead of the Office for National Statistics (ONS) pay-gap figure of 12.8% (hardly something to crow about), the department put out a press release in April this year which stated that women are paid, on average, 23% less per hour than men.
Now a letter has been sent to Harriet Harman by Sir Michael Scholar, the chair of the UK Statistics Authority (the official watchdog on the use of government stats), saying that her use of the 23% figure "may undermine public trust in official statistics" and "risks giving a misleading quantification of the gender pay gap".
The GEO's version of events is rather different to that of my source. They claim that they "ran the 23% past the ONS and they approved the calculation".
They may have ticked the maths, I pressed, but did they approve the use of the figure? "As far as I am aware," said a spokesperson, "no-one from the ONS has ever suggested we should not use the figure." However, the official promised to check.
What the GEO and ONS agree is that the UK's official statisticians are currently reviewing how they can best present the gender pay gap - a review which is ongoing.
Both the ONS and the GEO number come from the same data source, but the equalities department and Britain's top statisticians interpreted them very differently.
The 2008 Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE) attempts to provide the detail needed to get a true picture of how men and women fare in the workplace. For me, this is a key table:
Comparing men and women who work full-time, the gender pay gap is 12.8%, the ONS preferred measure.
Looking at part-time workers, women actually do better than men: their hourly rate is 3.4% higher than their male counterparts.
But when you add the two together, because part-timers get paid less than full-timers and because there are nearly four times as many part-time female workers as there are male, the gap appears to jump to 22.6%, which the GEO rounds up to 23%.
The GEO justifies its approach to me in a short statement:
"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."
Nowhere in the press release, though, is the point made that those part-time workers are actually outstripping men who work part-time.
There is clearly some quiet fury at the ONS that Harriet Harman should have apparently rebuffed the country's foremost statistician. My source tells me: "The most important point is that the GEO has no statisticians inside it." The question, then, is: who did approve the 23% figure? One of Ms Harman's officials promised to find out for me, but did say that the decision was made "across government".
If one accepts my ONS source's version of events, this was not a professional difference of opinion between two statistical experts. Harriet Harman's officials preferred their in-house interpretation of the data to the independent and professional one because, one might assume, it made the case for their controversial Equalities Bill look a little stronger.
Attached to the letter from Sir Michael Scholar are the notes from the Monitoring and Assessment team at the authority which investigated the case. This suggests that it is not just the GEO which may occasionally get political with the numbers.
The Equalities and Human Rights Commission refers to a gender pay gap of 35.6% for women working part-time. It comes to this conclusion by comparing the mean hourly earnings of female part-time workers with those of male full-time workers.
As the Statistics Authority document so delicately puts it:
"While we see value in providing a range of measures to present the differences between the earnings of women compared with men, a gender pay gap that compares the hourly earnings of women part-time employees with men full-time employees needs particularly careful explanation and justification if it is not to mislead."That there is an issue about the pay gap between men and women is not disputed. But there must be a danger, as Sir Michael Scholar says in his letter, that throwing around unofficial and misleading numbers is "likely to confuse the general public" and to "undermine public trust". It also makes it more difficult for people to understand what is really happening in the workplace.
I'm 
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Lies, dammed Lies and Statistics. AS per normal being used to support a viewpoint
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It's meaningless nonsense anway.
Surely the only way to compare is to compare people working in similar roles, and to compare access to those roles.
Any blind comparison of the sort we have here is meaningless in the face of the different life choices and career choices made by men and women.
In other news accredited civil engineers earn more than shop staff. Oh the humanity!
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Would we expect anything else from Harperson ? She relies on a climate of inequality to exist, so it is inevitable she will want to maintain the impression of equality.
When I worked in a department of 20 we had one female engineer and one secretary/admin lady. The latter was the lowest paid on account of being in the lowest graded job. The former wasn't our lowest paid engineer but wasn't the highest on account of experience and skill base. While our pay levels would support an inequality hypothesis, this would be entirely wrong as gender was not an issue and there was no mechanism available to differentiate pay on the grounds of sex.
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They have just given us 'FLIPPING' now it seems they want to remind us, they gave us 'SPIN' also. They might just have time to give us another, before they give us 'GOODBYE'
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I think it is a bit impertinent to imply that Ms Harman was being deliberately deceitful or self-serving when she published the figure of 23%; a more charitable explanation would be simple ignorance. It is always a problem when politicians don't understand the professional advice they receive, but it is a positive danger to democracy when they are not clever enough to realise it.
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No, she choose the figure because it was higher and represented her point of view better, and because she thought she knew better than someone who was qualified.
Assuming innocence when the guilt is obvious is a dangerous thing to do.
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@richardwhiuk
I think you missed my subtle sarcasm! I agree with you that the likely reason is the one you suggest. My point was that she's either been deceitful, or she's plain ignorant - quite possibly dangerously so.
Would it be too much to hope that some intrepid interviewer when quizzing her on this might not come straight out and say: "Well, Ms Harman, what's your explanation? Were you being deliberately deceitful, or are you just too stupid to understand what the professionals are telling you?". The point is I hope obvious: whatever explanation you choose, she doesn't deserve to be representing us.
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Thanks for a very clear exposition.
Somehow this doesn't surprise me - Harman has something of a reputation as a person who bends facts and this is just another instance of that.
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The strange thing is that the government and opposition, in fact any politician seem incapable of using stats at all. In an age where we collect data on everything I would have thought that a basic training in handling stats would be essential. They have training courses before you start any job - except for running the country. Perhaps we should insist that there is an assessed basic MPs' skills course (which would include stats) before they can even stand for election. Others may care to add to the curriculum.
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how can they justify these statistics with the amount of illegal and migrant workers in this country.
the government should do something to reduce the use of migrant workers etc.
it apears the government massages the figures to suit its own ends and expect reporters to report and praise them on their hard work.
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> 9. At 6:50pm on 12 Jun 2009, Boilerbill wrote:
> The strange thing is that the government and
> opposition, in fact any politician seem
> incapable of using stats at all.
They don't use them as you might expect. They start with a conclusion and then cast around for numbers to back their case. Hence Harman lying to push her women-first agenda.
Even the 12.8 and -3.4 numbers are suspect.
If we look at the Wimbledon tennis tournament, where "pay" (prize money) is fully public, there was much celebration a few years ago when women achieved "equal" pay. However, female tennis players average 2.5 sets per game, while men average 4. So men deliver more than 60% of the product for 50% of the pay, while women deliver less than 40% of the product for the same 50% of the pay. In any sane analysis the women are overpaid and the men underpaid - yet this is called "equality". If similar corrupted definitions apply to the ONS figures (by comparing skilled male workers with unskilled female ones for example) then its quite likely that the true pay gap points the other way.
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These statistics are always comparing apples with oranges, first for simplicity and secondly for political objectives. It would be interesting for a detailed examination of like with like: men vs women in the same job, the same number of hours, the same qualifications, the same number of years experience, the same appraisal results (as people are rewarded for more effort), the same number of years off for "career breaks", etc. Then we might actually find out something usueful. I suspect the answer will be quite predictable: people who are by all measures equal and made the same life decisions, are paid the same regardless of sex.
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Thank you, Mark
Once again you are a voice of common sense and present an issue that no politician dares to argue with, despite the stats announced being obviously flawed
Obviously stats are always open to interpretation (or manipulation) but these should have been presented in their simplest form - which shows that men earn less than women part-time, but far more women work part-time and men who work full-time earn far more than the part-time males - interesting stats on their own, but they have just been used to further Harman's agenda
The idea of comparing female part-time with male full-time was just ridiculous, fraudulent even, I noticed this at the time - anybody with a sane mind should see that was misleading and told us nothing
Could you post this table in a major news story? It's apolitical if it's just a statement of the stats
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Says it all about the man hater Harriet Harman. She will do anything to cause as much greif to men as possible and the Labour party are of course looking for something to take our eyes off their money grabbing MP's.
If the majority of women work part time and are paid more for that than men then this should be also published by Harman's department, but no, they continue with the disemination of missinformation as always.
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It would be even more interesting to see pay differences broken down by number of years in full time work.
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#11 Martin W_1
The problem with national data is that it hides anomalies. The larger the sample the more anomalies are going to be hidden. The idea of such large samples is to give us a global picture. The problem is that policy affects individuals and individual groups so global figures; whilst easy to understand, do not form a basis for developing meaningful policy.
Statisticians are usually rather pedantic people and their reports, containing many reservations, do not make interesting headlines. My point was that MPs should be taught that they should not just cut to the bottom line, but to read the report and find its limitations. Perhaps journalist should try to make the data clearer as well as delighting in the spat created by misuse of data.
I agree with you that cynical misreading of data analysis is rife amongst most politicians. I am sure many read reports only to seek support for their personal agenda. Harriet Harman is not unique in this respect. So while I agree with those who condemn her, I also hope that they do not believe statistics that come from other political sources without looking at them closely too.
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Gotnet is right and this 'row' is a political one about the requirement in the Equalities Bill for firms to conduct equal pay audits.
The current legislation requires staff in AN ORGANISATION to be paid effectively on the same pay scale for the same job or for a job of equal value (in practice determined by job evaluation). Whole economy figures for all jobs are useless because they are affected by many other factors. Private employers are resisting the requirement to audit and publish details about equal pay in their organisation. Public employers already are required to do this.
I repectfully suggest Mike gets a briefing from The Equalities and Human Rights Commission (which took over the EOC) about this. People who are interested in the issue and indeed on how to do Equal Pay Audits will find plenty on Google using this search term
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if I might be permitted to say what the key factors are that, unless they are taken into account, make the figures meaningless . Here they are:
# the position of women in the workforce occupations and job levels
# the valuing of jobs some skills are overlooked and some have a low value placed on them
# e relationship between the structure of paid work and womens job choices and progression, especially relating to family responsibilities.
Factor one is concerned with equal opportunity and factor three is concerned with gender choices about work and jobs, given the position of women in the labour market. Factor two depends of organisations applying their equal pay policies properly.
I am grateful for the New Zealand Department of Labour for defining the factors so clearly
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These statistics always annoy, me as they do not accurately represent the facts. They are and have been manipulated to prove a point of view. To be accurate you need to compare salary ranges within specific occupations, not averages across all occupations. Additionally can anyone tell me the occupations where males get paid more than females for doing the same job?
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This is not a new story - the issue of the gender pay gap lamp-post stats being used for political ends has come up time and time again. Indeed the parallels between this story and one in 2005, involving the same organisations, are staggering...
http://www.personneltoday.com/articles/2005/11/10/32496/gender-pay-gap-shrinks-by-less-than-1.html
Aside from the fact that such practices are an inevitable artifact of our democratic system and the level of understanding of the average voter, which was really the problem that led to the symptoms which were the initial focus of this debate, there has been some interesting debate on the issue of gender pay equality.
The clearest light shone on the debate thus has been offered by cping500 in the latter post (although i would say that most major stats and labour bureaus have drawn the same conclusions, including the ONS). The group as Yeltolad identifies "occupations where males get paid more than females for doing the same job" is not the priority issue; the % of the gender pay gap is generally cited to be less than 1%. However in cping500's earlier post, whilst more informed than most, there was a clear misunderstanding of the value of mandataory pay audits. The public sector have more of a gender pay inequality issue that the private sector and this will remain true until the public sector complete the migration mandated by the Treasury's pay remit system towards a more private sector style pay system - if in any doubt look at the books of Stefan Cross. Private sector pay reviews [which by definition incorporates audits] review individual pay levels in relation to what the organisation feels is appropriate (typcially based upon current pay, competitive pay and individuals contribution). The private sector objects to additional one-size-fits-all review systems, which add no value, being imposed by Government i.e. equal pay audits utilising job evaluation, the legislation does not refer to jobs rather work and job evaluation is a system which is only suitable for organisations which have relatively stable jobs where work is not fluid. The private sector has far more of an incentive to make sure their pay systems effective being directly accountable to the labour market and shareholders.
This is an area where the Government could be far more effective in addressing whatever pay inequality issues arise by finding ways to facilitate the labour market making it more efficient and this is what more mature organisations like http://www.glassdoor.com/index.htm and the US Department of Labour are doing. I will concede that many in the EHRC and related bodies understand this, but they also understand the value of a little bit of media attention irrespective of how they get it.
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Part of the problem is that the dataset is too wide-ranging to pick so few figures. It doesn't take into account that women are over-represented in certain low-paying jobs.
The law at the moment says that employers are supposed to pay any two people who do the same job the same amount, regardless of anything about those people. If that is not happening, it certainly needs to be addressed.
But if that *is* what is happening, then all we are seeing is the distorting effect of statistical paradoxes.
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
#22 Democrat2009
"This is just another way people like Harriet Harperson/Harm-whitemen will attempt to use "positive discrimination" to further discriminate against the most discriminated against people in this country - the indigenous people of England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales."
Couldn't agree more. Let's wind the clock back 2500 years and get rid of anyone of Roman, Viking, Saxon, Angle etc origin and run the country for the 'indigenous' people of Britain at 500 BC. Of course women cannot be indigineous as it seems OK to discriminate against them.
Although I don't agree with you, I would accept that if that is the way you feel, something must be done to make you feel more included. Of course if you are being just plain selfish and don't care about anyone else but yourself I find my liberalism is being tested. I just hope that you don't need to go to hospital, travel on a bus or want to buy cheap imported goods. In the world you advocate few nations would freely trade with us (look what happened to South Africa), money markets (our main source of income) would move elsewhere and we would have a much lower standard of living.
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> 19. At 00:03am on 14 Jun 2009, Yeltolad wrote:
> Additionally can anyone tell me the occupations
> where males get paid more than females for doing
> the same job?
Well, Mark Easton's original note includes the ONS figure for part-time work that shows women paid more than men - although, amazingly, Harman seems to have overlooked it. I mentioned tennis earlier, where female players get the same money for less work. Finally, google is your friend, search for "39 jobs where women make more than men". For the job at the top of the list - sales engineer - the bias in favour of women is 43%.
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You have to consider the response to the publication of such statistics as well. For instance, what if women are paid more than men in a certain job? that would be because women do their job better/earn it. Man gets paid more. That's discrimination. Equality is about a level playing field, and it goes both ways.
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
A common strategy (used at my work place) is this...
Policy: We have a duty to ensure gender equality on pay
Policy: We will not seek to ensure equal numbers male/female employed in low paid jobs.
Result: Employment of ALL FEMALE cleaners, junior clerical staff, part time staff etc. This brings down the average pay for women, giving a justification to run schemes which give women unfair advantage for high paid posts.
Locally there are large numbers of males who are unemployed and living in poverty, yet this employer makes no effort to employ them in the low paid posts. Indeed, not a single man has been employed in some roles.
Chief executive is female, her deputy is female, head of HR is female.
Harriet Harman, isn't she female?
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My last entry has been withheld by the BBC censors because it may offend the liberal political elite to which the BBC is servile to. Telling the truth is a crime in this country. I think this is another shameful affront to democratic debate. I will summarise the points I made to evidence and verify previous entry - let's see if this one get through the politcal thought police at the BBC.
1. The liberal elite are racist and multiculturalism is apartied. The "Equalities Bill" is another disgusting attempt at social engineering. Positive discrimination is nor positive it is DISCRIMINATION and discrimination and equality are mutually exclusive. .
2. Harriet Harperson and the liberal left have stiffled debate about equality. Her Brown Shirted morons from the Labour Party are an affront to equality and my human rights.
3. The Lib/Lab/Con conspiracy advocate exploitation of the Third World where some people are paid as little as 10 pence per day. How's that for equality.
4. Harperson, Blair, Brown, Cameron and those liberal cowards that sent our young boys and girls to their premature deaths along with hundreds of thousands of innocent Afgans and Iraqis - should be prosecuted for WAR CRIMES. Now justice is about getting equal.
5. Harperson is again using lies and manipulating statistics to knowingly mislead people to get her "Equalities Bill" through the Parliament. This point is directly relevant to the lies and manipulation used by this evil regime prior to the illegal wars / illegal occupation of other soveriegn states.
6. I am not affraid to tell the truth even if the BBC political censors and thought police won't publish it. No doubt they will refer my comments to M15 or the Sate Stazi bacause the clearly do not conform to the Lib lab Con conspiracy propagated by the BBC.
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Boilerbill rather misses the point. I do not advocate the world you seem to be suggesting. I do not understand the world in which you live either. On what evidence do you base your assumptions? Does the liberal elite have an exclusive monopoly on ideas of how the world should be? Is global capitalism the only way? Are you advocating the exploitation of the Third World where workers are paid as little as 10 pence per hour - to justify increasing Western "living standards" Is this your vision of equality? Is positive discrimination positive and are discrimination and equality mutually exclusive? Have I ther right to express my political beliefs without harrassment, lies and physical abuse from Labour Party Brown Shirts? What about my equality? What about my human rights? You will find talk about the indigenous people in every civilsation for example the New Zealand Maori. Why is it so wrong to talk about the English, Irish, Scots and Welsh as being the indigenous population of our country? On what basis do you form your Domesday scenario? Is it because I see the world a lot differently than you do?
The problems with the Lib/Lab/Con conspiracy is that they have lost all legitimacy to talk about equality and fairness. They have created the divisions in society and they have a narcisistic tendency to want to socially engineer more of them.
This liberal political elite should be prosecuted for War Crimes and crimes against humanity. They do not belong in power - they belong in prison. They are criminals. They are racists. Multiculturalism is apartied. They are fraudsters and dishonest. How dare they speak to me about "equality".
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29. At 12:06pm on 15 Jun 2009, Democrat2009 wrote:
Boilerbill rather misses the point.
So did I.
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Clearly, it is right that we should adhere to 2 principals in this respect :-
1. Equal employment opportunities for all - subject only to qualities needed to perform the task.
2. Equal pay for equal work of the same quality
In the case of 1) above, it is common sense for employers so that they have the biggest pool from which to find the best person for the job.
In the case of 2) above, quite apart from common decency and fairness, it also makes sense for employers to motivate and retain their best employees.
All the remains true regardless of whether the person is male, female, middlesex, pink, blue or Martian with 2 heads.
Discrimination is not only illegal but is also stupid (so called positive discrimination may not be illegal but is equally stupid for the same reasons).
Having said all that, the statistics quoted tell us very little because the are bundling unlike situations together. Mark Easton is correct that bundling Full and Part time workers distorts the figures but, within each of those groups, so does bundling together many different disparate groups.
In truth, these statistics can only be a guide and are never going to reveal the true situation.
I can only speak from personal experience:-
1. I have worked for more women managers than men.
2. While my best manager was a man, so was my worst.
3. My company has 3 female directors and many female senior managers.
4. Many nationalities are represented at all levels of management.
5. There is no 'positive discrimination' because there is no need for it.
6. Despite managers and technicians being paid equally, because of the numbers of female site security personnel and canteen staff, the composite female hourly rate is likely to be below the composite male hourly rate.
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The whole debate is irrelevant to the majority of men and women who are only paid minimum wage
So is the debate on equal pay. I don't know who is kidding who but in public services women certainly equal men in the top jobs and there is no gap in pay there.
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The other issue is that some take career breaks to care for their children or for other reasons, and when they return they may not be as advanced in their careers as those who had no break. In order to compare 'apples with apples' we need to compare those groups who have had similar or no career breaks quite separately.
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The work that women tend to choose (I deliberately say 'choose' because its been 20 plus years since GCSEs)is generally lower paid because:
It has less physical risk, it involves less 'long hours at the office', it is generally seen as less 'vital' (personnel/retail - rather than engineering/science) and therefore paid accordingly. Women also take time off to bring up children, which is an asset to a person's felt 'worth' in life - and makes a custody battle more likely to favour the mother. How much money is that worth?
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It is interesting to note that many of you have pointed to the fact that more women work part-time and that more women are in low-paid jobs in their attempt to show that gender equality does exist in the work-place. The problem according to this point of view is data mishandling.
However not one person has raised the issue of why more women work part-time or work in low-paid jobs. Surely this is the biggest indicator of all that equality does not currently exist in the work-place.
I am sure many of you at this point will cite the fact that women go off and have babies, thus taking "career breaks."
Let's look at this a little closer. Perhaps the situation would be different if the following took place:
a) The current structure of work included flexitime or enhanced childcare facilities so that women with young children could continue with their career without sacrificing the well-being of their child;
b) if the idea of raising children could cease to be seen only as "women's work" meaning that both men and women would take an equal share in bringing up children.
Of course this requires a shift too far for many who belive in more traditional gender roles. I can accept this...for now...but even if these arguments do not win you over, why is it that not one person has noted, that yes, the pay gap may be lower when only comparing full-time employees. But it still exists! Is this not important!
What is so wrong in bringing this issue into the limelight? Am I selfish to believe that I should be employed and that my career should develop based on my merit alone, without being called a "man-hater"?
What is so wrong in hoping for a society where we can all be treated as equals? We all deserve to be judged based on our merits. Do you disagree?
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pugsley1
It depends on your view of equality - what you talk of is equality of outcome, not equality of opportunity
At the very heart of the matter is, as you say at the end - what you can achieve based on your own merits, it doesn't really matter that women earn less as a group, or more work part-time, it is that yourself and other individuals are not prevented from achieving their goals (at least by sexism)
Right now I believe that is the case - I still feel sexism lingers in the older section of society, mainly because education prior to the 80s still engaged in sexist practices, but now girls leaving school have, on average, better opportunities
As for the childcare issue, I feel that is a much trickier debate - it seems unlikely you could ever properly balance male and female child-rearing roles, there are physical and mental differences between the sexes - women are always going to be carrying the children at the end of the day
Things such as providing equal paternity leave could balance the issue, but like I say as long as you aren't being forcibly halted in your career by 'society' then there is nothing wrong in my view, maybe women will naturally always prefer part-time work, it's a bit like addressing why more men are builders and more women are hairdressers
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Firstly yes I belive that better paternity leave would improve the situation so thank you for that remark. Also a change in society...men who choose to stay at home to look after children are seen as a bit weird. Clearly this is a hugely damaging stereotype.
Secondly, you may feel that sexism does not exist, but women underachieve in every field. Look at political representation for instance. Half of the population are women, and yet so few of our represesentatives are women.
It may be that more hairdressers are women, but why is this? Firstly, we ned to separate sex from gender...yes women biologically give birth, but it is society that creates gender roles. That is how men and women are expected to act.
Perhaps a stronger argument at this moment is that are women low paid because they choose low paid jobs...or are they low paid because the jobs they do become low paid.
Take teaching for instance...as soon as a lot of women started to qualify as teachers, the ststus of the job went down. Now it is not very well respected and not very well paid. Therer are cries from the medical sector saying that there should be a cap on the number of women doctors to prevent the same happening to that field!!
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A female doing a cleaning/maintenance job will be called a 'cleaner' and get minimum wage or thereabouts.
A male doing a cleaning/maintenance job will be called a 'maintenance engineer' and get paid considerably more.
So yes, Harman screws about with the figures (don't get me wrong, I can't stand her) and her maths here is dodgy at best.
But don't be under any allusion that some structural discrimination - less than previously, and precious little conscious/deliberate discrimination - does not exist in British employment today.
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Darn, does this mean they won't get to bring in the "equalities" Bill? If the quality of the legislation is anything like the quality of most of the legislation brought in by this Govt. It probably won't affect the pay at all, but might, just might address the countless areas of discrimination AGAINST men. Divorce proceedings and family court, in healthcare & the NHS, parenting generally, retirement ages, social mobility, access to nightclubs etc. etc. A truly level playing field would eliminate vast tranches of 'privilege' and 'prerogative' as well. The only sexism you here in common useage today normally starts with the term "All men are ....."
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What rot!
I earn significantly more than my husband. We both have degrees and work in the same field.
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I like how everyone has their own personal anecdotes that they feel somehow disproves the statistics and their specific situation is even remotely representative of social trends. For the record, I work full time, so does my boyfriend, I don't earn as much, and when we get married and have children which one of us do you think will be forced to switch part-time in order to raise the blighters?
While everyone is happily decrying Harman as a 'man-hater' for publishing perfectly accurate statistics (just not the ones you find more comforting), only one person has managed to point out the underlying problem that everyone likes to ignore - which is that the pressure is still on women to go home and look after children. Direct all the blame you like at women for 'choosing' badly paid work, but think for a second about why they do this. It's all about children. The pay gap is actually very small, right up until marriage and suddenly women don't fare as well as men.
Take, for example, the recent enlightening research that shows while there is no discrimination between a childless man and a father, the discrimination between a childless woman and a mother is 100%. A woman with no children will always get a job before a woman with children. If a couple decides to have children, it is the woman who will be pressured to give up her career, both by societal expectations and the structure of the job industry that targets most child-related benefits and breaks at women.
Even if you want to ignore the wider issues of sexism and discrimination that has pushed so many women into part-time work and deny this has any relevance to the pay gap issue, and want to focus instead on the pay gap just in full-time work, that's still a significant gap. While people are busy raging at Harman and simultaneously denying sexism is a problem while calling her a Harper or a man-hater or any other sexist insult we can think of for a woman who's vocal about gender equality, the actual issue passes without hardly a remark at all.
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Does no one think this is just pedantic, and ignores the real issue at hand here, which is that men DO get paid more than women. Arguing over semantics doesn't help anyone. Focus on WHY men get paid more, how it can be changed and stop such nit picking behaviour.
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42 angry_turtle
That's what most of the commentators have done, having pointed out that the pay gap is mostly based on lifestyle and career choices
Maybe that is sexism in some people's view, but what these stats imply is that 'women earn less!!' - therefore saying that either women are denied opportunity, or are actively paid less than men in the same field, which isn't really the general case
As we've seen, far more women work part-time - that has a big impact, now if you want to make the pay equal on paper the best way to do that would be to force parity - i.e. pay women in lower part-time roles more simply to even the national statistics - would that be fair? Somehow I don't think so, it would result in sexism at the very bottom of the job market, men in the very lowest roles would be paid the least and actively discriminated against
That would actually be sexism and one has to wonder what those people did to deserve being discriminated against - be born male, which is exactly the situation feminists are supposed to be opposing
All sexism is wrong, it is foolish to simply draw lines around sections of society and group them together - a male cleaner or shelf-stacker does not benefit from other men occupying the best roles in society
you may as well do it around hair colour next, maybe blonde people earn less on average than brunettes - this must be addressed!! Those blonde people are given a disadvantage
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With such blatant abuse of the numbers, Harriet Harman is guilty at the very least of deliberate and pre-meditated abuse of public trust.
Why do the public pay the salaries of such people to deceive them?
Why is this type of abuse not a diesciplinary or even criminal offence?
In business such deceit would be considered gross incompetence or gross misconduct depending on how much conscious thought was considered to have gone into the process. Either way, such poor performance would not be tolerated let alone accepted and ignored.
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@ angry_turtle, #42: "the real issue at hand here ..... is that men DO get paid more than women."
Maybe, but not for doing the same jobs. Women are over-represented among those in the lowest-paid jobs. Men doing those same jobs do not get paid any more than their female co-workers.
This, however, is not the obvious conclusion one would draw from the announced results. The bare assertion that "women earn less than men" is at best disingenuous, and here is being made for an unashamedly political purpose.
"Focus on WHY men get paid more, how it can be changed and stop such nit picking behaviour."
One hypothesis: Women are more likely, for some reason, to put up with poorly-paid work than men.
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In reply to Delminister's comment,
I do not understand why you believe illegal and migrant workers would affect the pay equality between men and women, but more importantly I believe that you are trying to portray illegal workers and migrant workers in the same light. This is unabashedly ignorant, in my opinion. Migrant workers have the right to work in the UK under the same conditions as any other employee. Illegal workers are often UK born citizens not paying taxes and sometimes claiming benefits, more often than immigrants. Either way it cannot impact statistical results of the pay difference related to gender.
I am in agreement that statistics are used for championing opinions and the way they are sourced and calculated makes them little more than biased opinions. Do not take statistics as literal truth!
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This is just another example reason why we should not listen to anything Harriet Harman has to say. She is simply a sexist.
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I don't understand why reducing the pay gap, and the number of women in part-time jobs, has to be seen as discrimination against men. It's quite possible (and, I think, likely) that there are many fathers who would like to spend more time at home with the kids, and many mothers who love their careers and would like to continue them. But because men earn more, and find it easier to progress (before you argue with that - ask a few head hunters how likely they are to hire a newly married woman in her 20s/30s) they have to continue to work full time, because their wives don't earn enough to support the family.
Gender stereotypes don't just stop women from earning as much, they stop men from spending as much time at home, and to be honest, I think it's them that are losing out more.
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Mark,
I don't think the use of 23% is improper at all. What it describes is a society that has far more women than men in part-time work, one factor of which is far more women than men looking after children (one factor of which is the appalling paternity leave granted new fathers). While a strict like-for-like pay comparison between professional men and women will give a lower (although still unjustified) figure, the 23% figure can be used in a much wider argument about sex equality in Great Britain, and where society and government choose to put men and women. As you note at the end of the article, either the government is at fault for deliberately clouding the numbers, or has an uphill struggle explaining a broad issue to a public with little interest in gender issues.
#48 medijen, I completely agree.
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49 clueduprock
Surely it would be better to present the statistics in their most basic form - the 23% does not as you say, show that more women work part-time - it shows that women get paid 23% less across the board - that's it, there were no figures stating how many people worked part or full-time - Harman just used the 23% as a raw figure, no explanations or reasoning
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OK, what she did is wrong, but why exactly is "12.8% hardly something to crow about"?
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Ms Harman's exaggeration of statistics to support her cause is a cultural thing. It is a lie, but this is the culture of modern sales technique.
I am all for running democracy based on reality, but to get something done within the current culture, everybody exaggerates in order to get their way. This culture should be changed.
This sales culture has caused immense damage. Just a few example:-
[1] The 300 billion $ investment into mobile 3G was the result of grossly exaggerated sell. Surpisingly, this did not bankrupt the telecom industry of the world;
[2] Our current financial crisis is caused by exaggeration of how safe lending to people without income is;
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As far as I can see, this argument tries to demonstrate that women are paid less than men.
Surely to do this accurately, you would need to compare men and women in the same job, at any given workplace, otherwise the stats, accurate or otherwise, are irrelevant.
In my industry, any given position pays the same amount to either male or female.
I am certain that if the study was done in this way, the figures would be almost identical.
Statisticians are notorious for using unreliable measurements and evidence to produce figures that fit their own desires, rather than objective, realistic evidence.
I should know, I have to work with these people every day.
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This is no news! women's lib and truth are strangers! domestic violence from a women's point of view is NOT consistent with reality - Women's Lib often ignore women on women and add it to the male on women, they ignore male on male (a much bigger picture) and completely ignore women on men violence.
So saying women earn 23% less than men - just more of the same women lib rubbish I have had to listen to all my life! I used to believe until I did my own studies and realised the truth.
But even if men did earn more, how many women buy a round at the pub? In the past 12 months one woman bought a round, usually her partner does! But even then that is cheating! 5 men to 4 women, the odd man out has two rounds to the 'couples' - plain theft! Not only is he on his own but he pays double, and probably is the lower income earner!
As a single custodial father, it was very sexist inequality! I was expected to pay, though I earnt less than the women and had 4 kids to support!
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What stands out in this article for me is the following:
".. pay-gap figure of 12.8% (hardly something to crow about)"
Why is a pay-gap figure of nearly 13% not something to Crow about? Any pay-gap is worth "crowing" over.
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Whilst nobody wants to see the misuse of statistics for political gain I have to diasgree strongly with the comment that a pay-gap figure of 12.8% is not something to crow about. This highlights the risk that overinflation of the issue can lead some to think that there is no issue. If I was paid 12.8% less than a male co-worker I would be crowing very loudly indeed.
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56 kerryscouse
But you aren't are you? that's the whole point - it is based on national stats with no regard for the jobs done, you and I seemingly work for one of the many companies who employ people in a set position and pay the same regardless of sex
there will probably always be a discrepancy between the sexes caused by the lifestyle choices of men and women, what size is acceptable is debatable - but 13% isn't too bad, obviously were it pushing 40% or so you could see a clear issue across society - so stick that extra 10% and it's a headline, 'men earn nearly a quarter more' etc
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@ george_monsoon, #53:
"As far as I can see, this argument tries to demonstrate that women are paid less than men. Surely to do this accurately, you would need to compare men and women in the same job, at any given workplace, otherwise the stats, accurate or otherwise, are irrelevant."
But then, the figures would -- in all probability -- show that men and women doing the same job get paid the same amount. Which is the opposite of the point that Harman was trying to make.
@ Edwina, #52:
Yes, indeed. The whole culture of "you have to ask for more than you want, because you aren't going to get everything you ask for" is toxic.
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Live in a tourist area. There's no pay gap, we all get minimum wage. Hooray for our 5 pounds, minus tax and national insurance... Can we get expenses when minimum wage doesn't cover our shopping/rent? lol.
I'd be interested to know of any pay gap (done sensibly of course, not manipulated) between openly homosexual people and heterosexual people.
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Basic median pay figure is pointless, what do these people actually do? How can you compare a prking attendant with a company director?
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
Equal Pay for Equal Work has been enshrined in legislation since the 1975 sex discrimination act.
What the figures show (and the exact numbers are irrelevant) is that over the entire population, women predominantly occupy the lower end of the wage scale, not necessarily because of their gender, but because many get the opportunity to take lower paid jobs.
A close friend and former colleague of mine wanted a career change in his late forties and was denied a place at teacher training college with the very strong inference that the admissions panel were not entirely comfortable with a heterosexual middle aged man wanting to work as a primary school teacher.
Equality is a two way street , and it could be argued equally vociferously that men dont get the chance of lower paid jobs, irrespective of how well they may be suited to them.
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I bet if you added all the wages of female teachers together and compared it with the total of male teachers, the female pot would be bigger. That means that the Education Department gives more money to female than males - that's another statistic that means nothing.
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All lot of people have commented on this:
So instead of the Office for National Statistics (ONS) pay-gap figure of 12.8% (hardly something to crow about), the department put out a press release in April this year which stated that women are paid, on average, 23% less per hour than men.
This to me means it's not 23% but it's still nothing to be proud about?
Maybe we do not dumb politicians spoonfeeding statistics to 'potentially outraged' citizens so they don't have to make up their own interpretation.
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Hariet Harman's use of statistics is not as mendacious as many here claim. We shouldn't just be comparing men and women doing the same job; it also matters how many women manage to progress to high-paid jobs. People generally associate with like-minded people; people generally believe that their job deserves to be better paid; people who are senior enough to allocate money generally look to cut wage costs amongst people whom they deal with least and have the fewest protection. Combining all these factors with the fact that men are still overreprested in senior positions means that the career and earning potential remains worse for women than men.
The 12% figure highlights one form of discrimination - that of women earning less than men for doing the same full-time jobs.
The 22% takes this and includes the fact that women are less likely to get better paid jobs in the first place. This is a fair claim, as it i based on statistically verifiable levels of discrimination.
I agree that third figure of 36% is a lot more questionable, but it does imply that you can pay less money for the same hour's work because it's part time job. People who work full-time regard this distinction a more valid than those who do not - and men are more likely to work full-time than women are - thereby institutionalising the mindset. The figure isn't as relevant as the first two, but it still tells a story. Even then, Harman relied mainly on the second figure rather than the third and that's the one which the full impact of discrimination, rather than just half of it. She may not have used the simplest set of figures, but I'd say she used the fullest and the most revealing - and therefore, the most accurate.
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