Select Committee on Trade and Industry Sixteenth Report


2 Occupational segregation as a factor in the gender pay gap

4. There are different ways of measuring the gap between women's and men's earnings, but the main one, preferred by the DTI, is the gap between men's and women's median full-time hourly pay (excluding overtime) as a percentage of men's full-time hourly pay. According to the Latest Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings, in 2004 the gender pay gap was 14.4 percent. Women working part-time face a disparity in relation to both men working full time (43.2 percent less per hour) and women working full time (33.7 percent less per hour).[1]

5. The causes of the gender pay gap have been the subject of extensive research and are widely known. We have not attempted a review of all this work. However, to establish a context for our inquiry, we draw attention to recent research carried out for the Equal Opportunities Commission on the relative importance of the different factors contributing to the gender pay gap. This research showed that 41 percent of the pay gap was due to discrimination and other factors affecting the choice of employment by women (with occupational segregation being a major element in this); 36 percent was due to differences in employment patterns (the greater tendency for women to experience breaks in employment, or to take part-time or temporary work, often because of domestic responsibilities); 15 percent was due to lower pay in sectors and occupations with higher proportions of women in the workforce; and eight percent was due to the fact that historically women have spent fewer years in full-time education than men so have had lower educational qualifications.[2] These factors are closely related: women tend to take jobs in certain sectors (such as retail) where part-time work is more widely available, but these are very often low-paid sectors. For our purposes, the difficulty of disaggregating these causes does not matter. It is enough to understand that any programme to reduce occupational segregation will need to address these other factors too.

6. The disparity between the types of jobs taken by men and by women in the UK is still very large. 60 percent of women workers are employed in just ten out of 77 recognised occupations,[3] with the heaviest concentrations being in what have been called 'the five Cs': caring, cashiering, catering, cleaning and clerical. The 2001 census showed that women formed 84 percent of the workforce in personal services, 78 percent in administration and secretarial work, and 71 percent in sales and customer services.[4] Many such jobs are in smaller and non-unionised firms.[5] They are often low paid and accorded a low status. There have been attempts to quantify the effect of the 'women's work' factor, which have concluded that, even when all other issues (skills, hours of working, etc) are excluded, the greater the proportion of men in the workforce, the higher the wages. For each ten percentage points by which the proportion of men in an occupation increases, the wages are 1.3 percent higher.[6]

7. One of the reasons why girls have historically taken low paid jobs is that they had lower educational attainments than boys, not least because they tended to leave full-time education earlier.[7] This has changed: a greater proportion of girls than boys now achieve the higher grades in GCSEs (both academic and vocational) and 'A' levels, and at degree level not only are there more female than male students but also the class of degree they are achieving is rising.[8] Disappointingly, despite the wider opportunities opened up by these changes in educational attainment, when they start work young people still tend to opt for traditional occupations (with the result that girls' starting salaries for full time work are, on average, 18 percent less per hour than boys'[9]); and, once people have chosen an occupation, it becomes increasingly difficult to change to a new one. Therefore, the choice of first job is very important.

8. The Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC) has undertaken research into the attitudes of young people towards jobs in non-traditional sectors. In surveys of Year 10 pupils (aged 14-15 years), girls were more likely than boys to think that jobs such as plumbing could be done equally well by both sexes; 80 percent of girls were willing to consider a non-traditional job; and significant minorities of both boys and girls were interested in specific non-traditional work (caring professions for the boys, technical and engineering or construction work for girls). Many of the students said they could be tempted to train for a non-traditional job by: extra money for training; better pay rates than for jobs normally done by their sex; the opportunity to try working in the job before making a final choice; encouragement from others; more information about the type of work; and more of their sex making the same choice.[10] Adults were—at least in theory—equally open-minded.[11] However, many 16-18 year olds are making the same sort of choice of job as their parents did.

9. The witnesses from the Learning and Skills Council (LSC) suggested that, while younger pupils were willing to consider new ideas, by the age of 16 they were "thinking about relationships, thinking about [their] own identity, thinking about the views of [their] peers, thinking about the views of [their] parents"; at the very time when they are expected to make job choices and avoid stereotyping, "that is the point when they actually feel more vulnerable and less willing to take what may be a courageous step and do something different".[12] The witnesses thought that it was too late to expect young people to make atypical choices at 16, when they had never previously been encouraged to think about this possibility or been given information about pay and promotion prospects in different areas of work. Moreover, in some cases they would have already limited their options by their choice of GCSEs.[13] Although, they admitted, this went beyond the remit of the Learning and Skills Council (which deals with education and training from the age of 16), they felt that schools should introduce some of these issues to children even before the age of 14.[14]

10. We are encouraged that the DTI is conducting research[15] into the types of information, and sources of information, that are most influential in determining the attitudes to different jobs of young people (especially those in the 14-19 age group). The Minister told us that the Government hoped to use this knowledge to decide on the most effective ways of tackling stereotypes.[16]


1   Appendix 12, paras 3.1-3.4 (DTI) Back

2   Appendix 5, para 12 (EOC) Back

3   Appendix 9, para 6 (TUC) Back

4   Cited in Appendix 5, Summary (EOC) Back

5   Research for the EOC indicates that while 32 percent of men work in a firm with 50-499 workers (the main UK definition of a medium-sized company), only 23 percent of women do; and 15 percent of men work in a firm with 500 or more employees, compared with only 12 percent of women: Modelling gender pay gaps, Wendy Olsen and Sylvia Walby, EOC Working Papers series No. 17, 2004, cited in Appendix 5, para 15 (EOC) Back

6   Appendix 5, para 12 (EOC) See also Qq 65 and 72: Amicus argued that men's skills were rated more highly, and rewarded more, than women's. Back

7   Appendix 8 (LSC) Back

8   GCE/VCE A/AS Examination Results for Young People in England 2003/04 (Revised), DfES, 12 January 2005 and Qualifications obtained by and examination results of Higher Education students at Higher Education Institutions in the United Kingdom for the academic year 2003/04, Higher Education Statistics Agency, 11 January 2005 Back

9   Q 30 (EOC) Back

10   Appendix 5, para 21 and Qq 2-3 (EOC) Back

11   Ibid.-but the EOC had a caveat, that parents from lower income groups seemed less willing to support their children in the choice of non-traditional careers than middle class parents: Qq 2-3 Back

12   Q 147 Far more boys than girls still opt for physics and mathematics at 'A' level, for example: Appendix 3, para 7 (CBI), see also Q 29 (EOC) Back

13   Q147 (LSC) Appendix 3, para 7 (CBI), The DTI, DfES and Institute of Physics are researching into why girls give up physics at school, for example: Q 191 (DTI) Back

14   Qq 148 and 168 Back

15   To be completed in September 2005 Back

16   Q 181 Back


 
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