It's not a Hallmark Holiday!
March 9, 2022 5:13 AM Subscribe
The Gender Pay Gap Bot caused chaos on Twitter yesterday (International Women's Day). Every time a UK business tweeted using the hashtag #IWD2022, the bot retweeted with the organisation's gender pay gap (using data from gender-pay-gap.service.gov.uk. Businesses started deleting their tweets, some reposting without the hashtag, others amending their message and others not posting again at all, but other Twitter users were quick to screenshot the tweets and call them out. Here's an interview with the creators, Francesca Lawson and Alastair Fensome, where Lawson says: “I want employers to stop treating International Women’s Day as a Hallmark holiday and start taking responsibility for the inequalities in their organizations”.
I hope someone does this in June for Pride month. All of this BS capitalist hypocirsy needs to be exposed to the sunlight.
posted by archimago at 5:46 AM on March 9, 2022 [43 favorites]
posted by archimago at 5:46 AM on March 9, 2022 [43 favorites]
Now deleted, but a crypto startup posted a picture of 7 white men to celebrate women's day.
posted by Dashy at 6:03 AM on March 9, 2022 [27 favorites]
posted by Dashy at 6:03 AM on March 9, 2022 [27 favorites]
Discovered this early today: instant follow.
posted by ivanthenotsoterrible at 6:09 AM on March 9, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by ivanthenotsoterrible at 6:09 AM on March 9, 2022 [1 favorite]
This is so great!
Really striking: media & especially university employers have especially high pay gap. The only sector where women are paid significantly more looks to be direct provision of medical care.
(If the UK is similar to the US, my guess is healthcare pay is more stratified by race than gender so certainly still a very flawed industry, but it shows the power women have in a highly unionized industry - where pay is generally determined by seniority rather than a boss' subjective decision making.)
posted by latkes at 6:20 AM on March 9, 2022 [4 favorites]
Really striking: media & especially university employers have especially high pay gap. The only sector where women are paid significantly more looks to be direct provision of medical care.
(If the UK is similar to the US, my guess is healthcare pay is more stratified by race than gender so certainly still a very flawed industry, but it shows the power women have in a highly unionized industry - where pay is generally determined by seniority rather than a boss' subjective decision making.)
posted by latkes at 6:20 AM on March 9, 2022 [4 favorites]
Gender pay gap in Canada (through 2018)
A deeper dive focusing on Ontario (through 2020), but also including provincial and sectoral comparisons. A good source of references too.
posted by bonehead at 6:20 AM on March 9, 2022 [2 favorites]
A deeper dive focusing on Ontario (through 2020), but also including provincial and sectoral comparisons. A good source of references too.
posted by bonehead at 6:20 AM on March 9, 2022 [2 favorites]
Hehehhehehheh. Good.
Is there a way to do this in the US?
archimago: Check this out: https://popular.info/p/corporate-pride-political-donations
posted by pelvicsorcery at 6:53 AM on March 9, 2022 [4 favorites]
Is there a way to do this in the US?
archimago: Check this out: https://popular.info/p/corporate-pride-political-donations
posted by pelvicsorcery at 6:53 AM on March 9, 2022 [4 favorites]
We also need to do this during pride month. Every company that tries to queerwash themselves using PR needs to have their opensecrets record of donating to anti-LGBT politicians exposed.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 6:57 AM on March 9, 2022 [32 favorites]
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 6:57 AM on March 9, 2022 [32 favorites]
My wife's boss at her very small US company tweeted out something in support of women's day (now deleted) from the company account and received a reply from the bot. So I don't think this was UK specific.
posted by VTX at 7:01 AM on March 9, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by VTX at 7:01 AM on March 9, 2022 [1 favorite]
This is the most awesome use of any social media I have ever seen. Brilliant!
posted by bluesky43 at 7:03 AM on March 9, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by bluesky43 at 7:03 AM on March 9, 2022 [1 favorite]
An archive.is version of the paywalled link in the post.
posted by jacquilynne at 7:07 AM on March 9, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by jacquilynne at 7:07 AM on March 9, 2022 [3 favorites]
Rarely do I cheer Twitter bots, since most of them are "Patriotic Americans" who suspiciously have 8 followers and seem to post from GMT+3 and forget to put definite article in front of noun.
This is a delightful exception.
posted by foldedfish at 7:09 AM on March 9, 2022 [6 favorites]
This is a delightful exception.
posted by foldedfish at 7:09 AM on March 9, 2022 [6 favorites]
Oh I see, this must be a different but similar bot. The tweet my wife told me about was just a general stat about the average gender pay gap in the US. Someone else must have come up with something similar if simpler.
posted by VTX at 7:09 AM on March 9, 2022
posted by VTX at 7:09 AM on March 9, 2022
That's sooo good! Forwarded it to eldest daughter, heard her cackling from the other room.
posted by Harald74 at 7:24 AM on March 9, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by Harald74 at 7:24 AM on March 9, 2022 [1 favorite]
Oh, that's a great idea for pride. Let's see if three months is enough lead time for my terrible attention span to get this going.
posted by gee_the_riot at 7:48 AM on March 9, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by gee_the_riot at 7:48 AM on March 9, 2022 [1 favorite]
I hope they skewed The London Dungeon in there somewhere. Its contribution to International Women's Day was unbelievable.
posted by Paul Slade at 7:48 AM on March 9, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by Paul Slade at 7:48 AM on March 9, 2022 [3 favorites]
This is great. I think it should be done for all kinds of things.
One question that arises is, exactly what pay gap is significant? Is it 1%, 3%.. maybe it's 0.3%? The bot reports sub 1% percentages -- and the tendency, at least in my mind, is to basically consider that equal, and maybe sub-5% as ok. But that's just a feeling, I have no idea what constitutes evidence of hypocrisy, in this case.
posted by smidgen at 7:53 AM on March 9, 2022
One question that arises is, exactly what pay gap is significant? Is it 1%, 3%.. maybe it's 0.3%? The bot reports sub 1% percentages -- and the tendency, at least in my mind, is to basically consider that equal, and maybe sub-5% as ok. But that's just a feeling, I have no idea what constitutes evidence of hypocrisy, in this case.
posted by smidgen at 7:53 AM on March 9, 2022
One question that arises is, exactly what pay gap is significant?
IMO, 0.01% is significant. Why should there be any difference at all?
posted by xedrik at 8:01 AM on March 9, 2022 [14 favorites]
IMO, 0.01% is significant. Why should there be any difference at all?
posted by xedrik at 8:01 AM on March 9, 2022 [14 favorites]
maybe sub-5% as ok
I bet there are a lot more companies where the gap is less than 5% which favour the men over the women, rather than the other way round.
posted by biffa at 8:03 AM on March 9, 2022 [5 favorites]
I bet there are a lot more companies where the gap is less than 5% which favour the men over the women, rather than the other way round.
posted by biffa at 8:03 AM on March 9, 2022 [5 favorites]
Well, I just saw a post that said the average pay was higher than men's. The bot reports, you decide.
posted by amanda at 8:03 AM on March 9, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by amanda at 8:03 AM on March 9, 2022 [2 favorites]
Following it yesterday on of the tweets was an airline with an appropriately 46% pay gap ... And a IWD picture featuring seven female presenting flight attendants. Which I took to mean they couldn't stir up a single female pilot.
posted by Mitheral at 8:03 AM on March 9, 2022 [4 favorites]
posted by Mitheral at 8:03 AM on March 9, 2022 [4 favorites]
So awesome. (I also like the one guy who spends all of IWD politely answering all the wits who ask "Let me know when there's international men's day" by saying "November 19.")
Well, I just saw a post that said the average pay was higher than men's. The bot reports, you decide.
Reading the replies to the tweets with a small difference shows people are pretty reasonable, the reaction to a 2% gap is rather different than a 40% gap.
IMO, 0.01% is significant. Why should there be any difference at all?
Well, if you have everyone equally paid, except the CEO gets a small bonus each year, there's going to be a gender pay gap in favor of whatever gender the CEO is.
(Just to be clear, while sometimes women are underpaid for the same job, the primary driver of the pay gap is that better paying positions are more likely to have men hired or promoted into them.)
posted by mark k at 8:12 AM on March 9, 2022 [10 favorites]
Well, I just saw a post that said the average pay was higher than men's. The bot reports, you decide.
Reading the replies to the tweets with a small difference shows people are pretty reasonable, the reaction to a 2% gap is rather different than a 40% gap.
IMO, 0.01% is significant. Why should there be any difference at all?
Well, if you have everyone equally paid, except the CEO gets a small bonus each year, there's going to be a gender pay gap in favor of whatever gender the CEO is.
(Just to be clear, while sometimes women are underpaid for the same job, the primary driver of the pay gap is that better paying positions are more likely to have men hired or promoted into them.)
posted by mark k at 8:12 AM on March 9, 2022 [10 favorites]
I hope they skewed The London Dungeon in there somewhere
Yeah, that was my "favourite" IWD tweet yesterday. It somehow managed to encapsulate every thing about the Hallmark version of IWD.
posted by scorbet at 8:15 AM on March 9, 2022
Yeah, that was my "favourite" IWD tweet yesterday. It somehow managed to encapsulate every thing about the Hallmark version of IWD.
posted by scorbet at 8:15 AM on March 9, 2022
Gender pay gap in Canada (through 2018)
from the link, a few key stats (emphasis mine):
Highlights
- In 2018, female employees aged 25 to 54 earned $4.13 (or 13.3%) less per hour, on average, than their male counterparts. In other words, these women earned $0.87 for every dollar earned by men.
- The gender gap in hourly wages has narrowed by $1.04 (or 5.5 percentage points) since 1998, when it was $5.17 (or 18.8%).
- The reduction in the gender wage gap between 1998 and 2018 was largely explained by changes in the distribution of men and women across occupations; women’s increased educational attainment; and the decline in the share of men in unionized employment.
- The two largest factors explaining the remaining gender wage gap in 2018 were the distribution of women and men across industries, and women’s overrepresentation in part-time work. These were also the largest explanatory factors behind the gap in 1998.
- Similar to other studies, nearly two-thirds of the gap in 2018 was unexplained. Possible explanations for this portion include gender differences in characteristics that were beyond the scope of this study, such as work experience, as well as unobservable factors, such as any gender-related biases.
I've included the whole thing because those first four points tend to be pop up when you encounter someone who's trying to make the argument that the pay gap is mostly illusory; that it has little/nothing to do with gender per say, but rather is driven by women just not having equivalent training/educational background and/or not pursuing jobs/careers in equally challenging (thus remunerative) fields.
posted by philip-random at 8:24 AM on March 9, 2022 [10 favorites]
IMO, 0.01% is significant. Why should there be any difference at all?
Lots of reasons. The variance in pay for anyone in the same role, ignoring gender, in the same company, is probably larger than 0.01%. Then you have the distribution of people to roles themselves. If there's an odd number of people employed for a particular role, then the imbalance is builtin. On preview, someone mentioned the ultimate odd number of 1: the CEO :-) , although I wonder if they count that in the stat or not (I feel like it would be severely unbalanced more often).
Reading the replies to the tweets with a small difference shows people are pretty reasonable, the reaction to a 2% gap is rather different than a 40% gap.
Ya, fair enough. I'd agree that 5% is bit high, I think my feeling is more like sub 2-3% -- but I really dunno, which is why I wondered, but like you said, I think (most) people are being reasonable.
posted by smidgen at 8:31 AM on March 9, 2022
IMO, 0.01% is significant. Why should there be any difference at all?
In a world without a gender pay gap, you'd still see small differences in median pay just because of random variation in the gender-make up of companies.
The bigger the company, generally speaking, the smaller the difference you would expect - kind of like how if you flip a coin twice, it's not so odd to get 100% heads (2 heads in a row), but if you flip it 100 times that would be statistically quite remarkable and you'd start to wonder about your coin (100 heads in a row).
Note I am not saying that the gender pay gap isn't real. What we see is clearly not random variation, since the gap so often favors men and often by a large margin. But a single company having a 0.01% gap in favor of men is probably not significant on its own.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 8:44 AM on March 9, 2022 [7 favorites]
In a world without a gender pay gap, you'd still see small differences in median pay just because of random variation in the gender-make up of companies.
The bigger the company, generally speaking, the smaller the difference you would expect - kind of like how if you flip a coin twice, it's not so odd to get 100% heads (2 heads in a row), but if you flip it 100 times that would be statistically quite remarkable and you'd start to wonder about your coin (100 heads in a row).
Note I am not saying that the gender pay gap isn't real. What we see is clearly not random variation, since the gap so often favors men and often by a large margin. But a single company having a 0.01% gap in favor of men is probably not significant on its own.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 8:44 AM on March 9, 2022 [7 favorites]
They're reporting median rather than mean pay gap, which means that things like which gender the CEO is should have a smaller difference. To quote the guidance given "The median for each is the man or woman who is in the middle of a list of hourly pay ordered from highest to lowest paid." (This means that the actual salaries of CEOs won't play a role. They're just (most likely) the highest paid on whichever list.)
The calculations that are used are available here. (I'm not sure whether they're including the one with bonus or not.)
posted by scorbet at 8:57 AM on March 9, 2022 [7 favorites]
The calculations that are used are available here. (I'm not sure whether they're including the one with bonus or not.)
posted by scorbet at 8:57 AM on March 9, 2022 [7 favorites]
It's interesting that, though there are some workplaces where the pay of men and women is equal, I didn't see any where women made more than men. Did anyone else spot anything like that? You'd think there'd be at least one.
Also, I like how this refutes the argument that women aren't paid as much because they won't do strenuous, dangerous work. A 30% pay gap at the Intellectual Property Office--I don't think one needs to wear a hard hat to work there.
posted by LindsayIrene at 9:05 AM on March 9, 2022
Also, I like how this refutes the argument that women aren't paid as much because they won't do strenuous, dangerous work. A 30% pay gap at the Intellectual Property Office--I don't think one needs to wear a hard hat to work there.
posted by LindsayIrene at 9:05 AM on March 9, 2022
Vice also has an article on the bot and its creators: Behind the Twitter Bot Posting the Gender Pay Gap of Brands Celebrating IWD.
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 9:08 AM on March 9, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 9:08 AM on March 9, 2022 [2 favorites]
For an engaging and accessible, though somewhat long, explanation of the dynamics and causes of the wage gap, see The truth about the gender wage gap.
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 9:08 AM on March 9, 2022 [5 favorites]
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 9:08 AM on March 9, 2022 [5 favorites]
I didn't see any where women made more than men. Did anyone else spot anything like that?
There are some, like Nottinghamshire Healthcare or Barnet Council, but on scrolling through their feed, there aren't that many.
posted by scorbet at 9:16 AM on March 9, 2022 [3 favorites]
There are some, like Nottinghamshire Healthcare or Barnet Council, but on scrolling through their feed, there aren't that many.
posted by scorbet at 9:16 AM on March 9, 2022 [3 favorites]
I like the account that tweeted back at the bot saying that the information was from April of 2020 and they've spent the last two years working on closing the pay gap. Which is a way of saying they haven't closed it.
I don't know why it takes two years. Just pay women more.
posted by mikesch at 9:25 AM on March 9, 2022 [5 favorites]
I don't know why it takes two years. Just pay women more.
posted by mikesch at 9:25 AM on March 9, 2022 [5 favorites]
I didn't see any where women made more than men. Did anyone else spot anything like that?
Farmer's union. women 57% higher.
posted by mrgoldenbrown at 9:28 AM on March 9, 2022 [3 favorites]
Farmer's union. women 57% higher.
posted by mrgoldenbrown at 9:28 AM on March 9, 2022 [3 favorites]
Is there a way to do this in the US?
Only patchily and with a lot of guesswork. It could be done for public colleges/universities in states where public-servant salaries are public record, for example (hi hi hello, that's me), BUT these IME don't come with gender information, so that would have to be guessed at from names, and the margin of error there would likely be substantial. Plus, gender binary assumed with all the error that entails. (Not sure how the bot was approaching that, or for that matter how the UK data source does.)
posted by humbug at 9:34 AM on March 9, 2022 [3 favorites]
Only patchily and with a lot of guesswork. It could be done for public colleges/universities in states where public-servant salaries are public record, for example (hi hi hello, that's me), BUT these IME don't come with gender information, so that would have to be guessed at from names, and the margin of error there would likely be substantial. Plus, gender binary assumed with all the error that entails. (Not sure how the bot was approaching that, or for that matter how the UK data source does.)
posted by humbug at 9:34 AM on March 9, 2022 [3 favorites]
Is there a way to do this in the US?
Yes. Step 1 is for Congress to pass legislation similar to what the UK has, that would require/authorize companies to collect and submit their data. (I am not a lawyer, maybe the Labor Dept already has enough authority to require this if they want?) Second step, the tech step, is relatively easy after that.
posted by mrgoldenbrown at 9:42 AM on March 9, 2022 [5 favorites]
Yes. Step 1 is for Congress to pass legislation similar to what the UK has, that would require/authorize companies to collect and submit their data. (I am not a lawyer, maybe the Labor Dept already has enough authority to require this if they want?) Second step, the tech step, is relatively easy after that.
posted by mrgoldenbrown at 9:42 AM on March 9, 2022 [5 favorites]
(Not sure how the bot was approaching that, or for that matter how the UK data source does.)
The UK government requires companies & public sector organisations with a headcount > 250 to publish a gender pay gap report based on payroll on a specific day, usually April 5th, which also goes into an online government run database service. This is the service the twitter bot was pulling the data from.
Note, the gender pay gap is calculated as the difference between average hourly earnings (excluding overtime) of men and women as a proportion of men's average hourly earnings (excluding overtime). This is affected by e.g. higher paying jobs often requiring working longer & inflexible hours, which clashes with caring responsibilities (childcare, elderly relatives) which disproportionately fall on women; more women working part time jobs (for less money) than men is a reflection of this, rather than a cause in itself. Plus outright sexism in setting salaries, of course.
posted by Absolutely No You-Know-What at 9:55 AM on March 9, 2022 [4 favorites]
The UK government requires companies & public sector organisations with a headcount > 250 to publish a gender pay gap report based on payroll on a specific day, usually April 5th, which also goes into an online government run database service. This is the service the twitter bot was pulling the data from.
Note, the gender pay gap is calculated as the difference between average hourly earnings (excluding overtime) of men and women as a proportion of men's average hourly earnings (excluding overtime). This is affected by e.g. higher paying jobs often requiring working longer & inflexible hours, which clashes with caring responsibilities (childcare, elderly relatives) which disproportionately fall on women; more women working part time jobs (for less money) than men is a reflection of this, rather than a cause in itself. Plus outright sexism in setting salaries, of course.
posted by Absolutely No You-Know-What at 9:55 AM on March 9, 2022 [4 favorites]
Plus, gender binary assumed with all the error that entails. (Not sure how the bot was approaching that, or for that matter how the UK data source does.)
From the gov.uk link:
"It is important for employers to be sensitive to how an employee identifies in terms of their gender. The regulations do not define the terms ‘men’ and ‘women’ and the requirement to report your gender pay gap should not result in employees being singled out and questioned about their gender"
and
"in cases where the employee does not self-identify as either gender, an employer may omit the individual from the gender pay gap calculations"
posted by atlantica at 10:12 AM on March 9, 2022 [3 favorites]
From the gov.uk link:
"It is important for employers to be sensitive to how an employee identifies in terms of their gender. The regulations do not define the terms ‘men’ and ‘women’ and the requirement to report your gender pay gap should not result in employees being singled out and questioned about their gender"
and
"in cases where the employee does not self-identify as either gender, an employer may omit the individual from the gender pay gap calculations"
posted by atlantica at 10:12 AM on March 9, 2022 [3 favorites]
If giving your CEO a bonus (or just their raw salary) skews your stats for the rest of the company, you're giving them too much money.
posted by maxwelton at 10:14 AM on March 9, 2022 [6 favorites]
posted by maxwelton at 10:14 AM on March 9, 2022 [6 favorites]
s/ I like how some comments immeadiately hone in on the 0.01% case and the possible innocent randomness that causes it. Because that situation is totally emblematic of the pay gap and fighting/hairsplitting over the ideals of 0 vs 0.01% angels on heads of pins is definately where more effort needs to go.
To take the opposite tack:
Pay gap is theft, and in at least some places, if someone tries to steal that much from you, the law allows lethal self defense...
/s
posted by anecdotal_grand_theory at 11:13 AM on March 9, 2022 [9 favorites]
To take the opposite tack:
Pay gap is theft, and in at least some places, if someone tries to steal that much from you, the law allows lethal self defense...
/s
posted by anecdotal_grand_theory at 11:13 AM on March 9, 2022 [9 favorites]
Some followup:
Madeline Odent: A thread of all the employers who deleted their #IWD2022 tweets as a result of getting called out by the @PayGapApp: because i love mess
posted by JoeZydeco at 11:48 AM on March 9, 2022 [15 favorites]
Madeline Odent: A thread of all the employers who deleted their #IWD2022 tweets as a result of getting called out by the @PayGapApp: because i love mess
posted by JoeZydeco at 11:48 AM on March 9, 2022 [15 favorites]
Wow - file under “I wish I’d thought of that…” I quit the bird for mental health reasons and I am grateful for this pointer.
posted by drowsy at 12:08 PM on March 9, 2022
posted by drowsy at 12:08 PM on March 9, 2022
In the USA, the pay gap further worsens for women of color (figure 1 at this 2020 article utilizing 2018 data). And interestingly it does not improve as women achieve higher education or age/stay in the workforce after returning per this 2022 article based on 2021 USA census data.
posted by beaning at 12:29 PM on March 9, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by beaning at 12:29 PM on March 9, 2022 [2 favorites]
Women working in the company also take maternity leave, more career breaks, are more likely to work part time, and retire earlier on average so they end up with less seniority and work experience.
Companies could treat this as more sabbatical/family leave than non-working and do better at recognizing experience. In the USA, women who do not return after FMLA (limited as that is!) are often brought back at entry-level salaries and training points regardless of past experience. For instance, I took off ~5 yrs at about the 7 yr career point. Fortunately, when I returned, the hiring agent recognized that nothing substantial had changed about the position and that I had kept up with CEUs and professional volunteer work, and so brought me back at the same pay-level I would have been if she were hiring me from another firm entirely and only had to bring me to speed with changes in company specific policies.
They also could be better about the issues that cause women to leave in the first place. So many offices still do not offer decent nursing facilities. Not to mention the refusal to learn from the past 2 yrs about the value of shifted work hours and days. They also could be less "guy clubby." I have multiple women who had learned to golf or hunt so they could do the guys' trips with clients, but mention going to a mani/pedi or museum visit or anything not involving sports...and get chirps. And leaving early for a pediatirician visit or school event is entirely different than leaving early for the big game.
posted by beaning at 1:25 PM on March 9, 2022 [6 favorites]
Companies could treat this as more sabbatical/family leave than non-working and do better at recognizing experience. In the USA, women who do not return after FMLA (limited as that is!) are often brought back at entry-level salaries and training points regardless of past experience. For instance, I took off ~5 yrs at about the 7 yr career point. Fortunately, when I returned, the hiring agent recognized that nothing substantial had changed about the position and that I had kept up with CEUs and professional volunteer work, and so brought me back at the same pay-level I would have been if she were hiring me from another firm entirely and only had to bring me to speed with changes in company specific policies.
They also could be better about the issues that cause women to leave in the first place. So many offices still do not offer decent nursing facilities. Not to mention the refusal to learn from the past 2 yrs about the value of shifted work hours and days. They also could be less "guy clubby." I have multiple women who had learned to golf or hunt so they could do the guys' trips with clients, but mention going to a mani/pedi or museum visit or anything not involving sports...and get chirps. And leaving early for a pediatirician visit or school event is entirely different than leaving early for the big game.
posted by beaning at 1:25 PM on March 9, 2022 [6 favorites]
I don't really understand what people want companies to do about this.
They could, uh, do their bit to fix structural issues. Encourage men to work as flexibly as women, for example. Which is one that my employer (7.9% pay gap and I didn't see an IWD tweet from our all-women comms team) is quite good at. They're banned from making men work more than 48 hours a week, of course. But the pay rate given is the median hourly rate.
The biggest cause of the imbalance? A bunch of weird incentive schemes to improve doctor's pay at the top end which were overwhelmingly imbalanced in favour of men – I believe there was a fair bit of work done to equalise this over time.
Also, the gender balance goes from 80% women 20% men at the bottom end to 70% women, 30% men at the top, so there is a promotion imbalance.
Regrettably, although my colleague did do the work to get ready to submit ethnicity pay gap data, the government has held off on collecting it and mandating it, which is a huge shame.
posted by ambrosen at 1:31 PM on March 9, 2022 [4 favorites]
They could, uh, do their bit to fix structural issues. Encourage men to work as flexibly as women, for example. Which is one that my employer (7.9% pay gap and I didn't see an IWD tweet from our all-women comms team) is quite good at. They're banned from making men work more than 48 hours a week, of course. But the pay rate given is the median hourly rate.
The biggest cause of the imbalance? A bunch of weird incentive schemes to improve doctor's pay at the top end which were overwhelmingly imbalanced in favour of men – I believe there was a fair bit of work done to equalise this over time.
Also, the gender balance goes from 80% women 20% men at the bottom end to 70% women, 30% men at the top, so there is a promotion imbalance.
Regrettably, although my colleague did do the work to get ready to submit ethnicity pay gap data, the government has held off on collecting it and mandating it, which is a huge shame.
posted by ambrosen at 1:31 PM on March 9, 2022 [4 favorites]
Mod note: One comment removed. We've talked a lot about the systemic issues that drive gender biases in pay, hiring, promotion, etc. in the past; a comment asking the conversation to basically start from scratch at the beginning isn't a good way to jump into this thread. If you're new to the subject, that's fine, but take that as an opportunity to read and learn vs. declaring the problem unsolvable.
posted by cortex (staff) at 2:05 PM on March 9, 2022 [10 favorites]
posted by cortex (staff) at 2:05 PM on March 9, 2022 [10 favorites]
The most galling headline I've seen about the pay gap was "Closing the gender pay gap: when and how?"
I mean, I can tell you how right now...
posted by basalganglia at 7:02 PM on March 9, 2022 [2 favorites]
I mean, I can tell you how right now...
posted by basalganglia at 7:02 PM on March 9, 2022 [2 favorites]
But the shareholders, basalganglia, some of them might be women and orphans, have you considered that?
I am no longer very economically active but back 15 years ago when we had our first kid, my oh went part time because he made less money than me and people lost their minds. They were super uncomfortable with this totally rational decision even though it is one lauded every time a woman makes it. Also, his work promoted him as part of going part time and upped his hourly rate, because of course they did.
posted by hfnuala at 1:37 AM on March 10, 2022 [5 favorites]
I am no longer very economically active but back 15 years ago when we had our first kid, my oh went part time because he made less money than me and people lost their minds. They were super uncomfortable with this totally rational decision even though it is one lauded every time a woman makes it. Also, his work promoted him as part of going part time and upped his hourly rate, because of course they did.
posted by hfnuala at 1:37 AM on March 10, 2022 [5 favorites]
Plus, gender binary assumed with all the error that entails. (Not sure how the bot was approaching that, or for that matter how the UK data source does.
"in cases where the employee does not self-identify as either gender, an employer may omit the individual from the gender pay gap calculations"
I'm one of those people (openly non-binary employee of a UK company); when gender pay gap reporting time comes round, our HR team get in touch and give me two options: to be counted in accordance with my birth sex, or to be left out of the reporting. So far I've chosen to be left out of the reporting.
It sucks, but the UK's entire approach to non-binary identities (no legal recognition whatsoever, judicial system refusing to budge for weaksauce reasons) sucks, so it's not surprising. It's much worse for me personally that I can't renew my passport without misgendering myself than that I can't be counted for who I am in this kind of reporting, but neither are ideal.
posted by terretu at 3:10 AM on March 10, 2022 [6 favorites]
"in cases where the employee does not self-identify as either gender, an employer may omit the individual from the gender pay gap calculations"
I'm one of those people (openly non-binary employee of a UK company); when gender pay gap reporting time comes round, our HR team get in touch and give me two options: to be counted in accordance with my birth sex, or to be left out of the reporting. So far I've chosen to be left out of the reporting.
It sucks, but the UK's entire approach to non-binary identities (no legal recognition whatsoever, judicial system refusing to budge for weaksauce reasons) sucks, so it's not surprising. It's much worse for me personally that I can't renew my passport without misgendering myself than that I can't be counted for who I am in this kind of reporting, but neither are ideal.
posted by terretu at 3:10 AM on March 10, 2022 [6 favorites]
I don't really understand what people want companies to do about this.
I am not at a UK company, but when a committee at my workplace ran the numbers and found a pay gap between men and women of equal/equivalent ranks, what we asked for was that our employer raise the women’s salaries and give appropriate back pay. And strengthen equity policies to avoid creating similar issues in the future, together with ongoing periodic salary reviews to check that the policies were working.
posted by eviemath at 4:44 AM on March 10, 2022 [14 favorites]
I am not at a UK company, but when a committee at my workplace ran the numbers and found a pay gap between men and women of equal/equivalent ranks, what we asked for was that our employer raise the women’s salaries and give appropriate back pay. And strengthen equity policies to avoid creating similar issues in the future, together with ongoing periodic salary reviews to check that the policies were working.
posted by eviemath at 4:44 AM on March 10, 2022 [14 favorites]
This is good. I was responsible for completing my organisation's gender pay gap report in a previous job, so I like seeing the data being used. One of the more interesting things I had to do, with a lot of opportunity to dig around in the data - how ethnicity affected the gender pay gap, for instance, or deprivation based on home postcode, or length of service, or disability, or ... I was involved in a local project at that point headed by one of the local universities, and one of the things they suggested we monitor was whether there was an effect on women's starting salaries of being interviewed and appointed by an all-male interviewing team. We didn't take any of their suggestions forward, for reasons, but that would have been interesting. We didn't collect recruitment data by gender at all - numbers of applications, interviews, offers, appointments etc.
posted by paduasoy at 5:12 AM on March 10, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by paduasoy at 5:12 AM on March 10, 2022 [3 favorites]
Don't think anyone has linked to the data files - they are here if people want to look.
posted by paduasoy at 5:37 AM on March 10, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by paduasoy at 5:37 AM on March 10, 2022 [3 favorites]
I don't really understand what people want companies to do about this.
This is the heart of pay equity disputes. My employer has HR people who look at levels of training, experience required for a job, levels of expected complexity, effort and responsibility in job tasks. This rating is then used to level out pay differences between traditionally women-majority groups and male-majority employment groups. The classic example is admin assistants and maintenance workers, but it's been applied to everything from financial services, teachers, nurses, lab techs and top level management.
It took a legal process by a big union to force the employer to make it happen, but I personally know several women who got 5-figure settlement checks for historical underpayments. From then to now them employer is trying to make this work, though still failing in a number of areas.
Equal pay for equal work.
posted by bonehead at 9:54 AM on March 10, 2022 [5 favorites]
This is the heart of pay equity disputes. My employer has HR people who look at levels of training, experience required for a job, levels of expected complexity, effort and responsibility in job tasks. This rating is then used to level out pay differences between traditionally women-majority groups and male-majority employment groups. The classic example is admin assistants and maintenance workers, but it's been applied to everything from financial services, teachers, nurses, lab techs and top level management.
It took a legal process by a big union to force the employer to make it happen, but I personally know several women who got 5-figure settlement checks for historical underpayments. From then to now them employer is trying to make this work, though still failing in a number of areas.
Equal pay for equal work.
posted by bonehead at 9:54 AM on March 10, 2022 [5 favorites]
Can someone help me make sense of my company's figures? Downloaded from here:
For DiffMeanHourlyPercent, it has 20.3
For DiffMedianHourlyPercent, it has 19.6
For DiffMeanBonusPercent, it has 33.3
For MaleTopQuartile, it has 82.1
For FemaleTopQuartile, it has 17.9
Can someone explain what this means?
posted by doggod at 1:53 PM on March 10, 2022
For DiffMeanHourlyPercent, it has 20.3
For DiffMedianHourlyPercent, it has 19.6
For DiffMeanBonusPercent, it has 33.3
For MaleTopQuartile, it has 82.1
For FemaleTopQuartile, it has 17.9
Can someone explain what this means?
posted by doggod at 1:53 PM on March 10, 2022
DiffMeanHourlyPercent Mean % difference between male and female hourly pay
DiffMedianHourlyPercent Median % difference between male and female hourly pay
DiffMeanBonusPercent Mean % difference between male and female bonus pay
MaleTopQuartile Percentage of males in the top hourly pay quarter
FemaleTopQuartile Percentage of females in the top hourly pay quarter
So men are paid more on average, get larger bonuses and much more likely to be in top paying jobs.
posted by hfnuala at 3:07 PM on March 10, 2022 [2 favorites]
DiffMedianHourlyPercent Median % difference between male and female hourly pay
DiffMeanBonusPercent Mean % difference between male and female bonus pay
MaleTopQuartile Percentage of males in the top hourly pay quarter
FemaleTopQuartile Percentage of females in the top hourly pay quarter
So men are paid more on average, get larger bonuses and much more likely to be in top paying jobs.
posted by hfnuala at 3:07 PM on March 10, 2022 [2 favorites]
Thanks a lot, hfnuala. I thought that was it, but couldn;t believe it was quite so bad. We have weekly emails coming in with ra, ra, diversity, ra, ra, honour our female colleagues etc.
posted by doggod at 3:24 PM on March 10, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by doggod at 3:24 PM on March 10, 2022 [1 favorite]
OK, I'll have a go.
DiffMeanHourlyPercent is the difference between the mean hourly pay for men and for women. From the guidance about how to work this out when one submits the data:
A mean (average) involves adding up all of the numbers and dividing the result by how many numbers were in the list.
So if you had 5 women who respectively earnt £12, £13, £14, £15 and £15 an hour, their mean hourly pay would be 12+13+14+15+15 = £69 divided by five people = £13.80. Five men who respectively earnt £14, £14, £14, £16 and £18 an hour would have a mean hourly pay of £76 divided by 5 = £15.20.
To work out the DiffMeanHourlyPercent, you divide one mean hourly rate by the other. Again from the guidance,
The mean (average) gender pay gap using hourly pay figure you must report:
take the mean (average) hourly pay for men and subtract the mean (average) hourly pay for women
divide the result by the mean (average) hourly pay for men
multiply the result by 100
This gives you the mean (average) gender pay gap in hourly pay as a percentage of men’s pay.
So for the example above, you'd take the men's pay of £15.20, take away the women's pay of £13.80 = £1.40. That's the difference between the two hourly averages - you then work it out as a % by dividing £1.40 by the men's average of £15.20 and multiplying the result by 100, giving a DiffMeanHourlyPercent of 9.2.
That hopefully gives the idea - so to get a sense of what the 20.3 difference might mean in your company, if the average hourly rate for women in your company was the London Living Wage of £11.05, the average hourly rate for men would be around £13.90. If the average hourly rate for women was more like £30, the average hourly rate for men would be around £37.50. You're looking at a difference of about a fifth (20%). There's an example at the link of calculations for Acme Ltd if that helps.
DiffMedianHourlyPercent is based on a different way of calculating the average: the man or woman who is in the middle of a list of hourly pay ordered from highest to lowest paid.
A median involves listing all of the numbers in numerical order. If there is an odd number of results, the median is the middle number. If there is an even number of results, the median will be the mean of the two central numbers.
So, using the same dataset of ten people I listed above, the median hourly pay for women would be £14 (my list of £12, £13, £14, £15, £15) and the median hourly pay for men would also be £14 (my list of £14, £14, £14, £16, £18). So this median pay gap would be zero.
The guidance goes on to say Medians are useful to indicate what the ‘typical’ situation is. They are not distorted by very high or low hourly pay (or bonuses). However, this means that not all gender pay gap issues will be picked up. They could also fail to pick up as effectively where the gender pay gap issues are most pronounced in the lowest paid or highest paid employees.
My organisation didn't have bonuses so I didn't calculate those. But my guess is that as the DiffMeanBonusPercent is higher (larger gap) than the other two differences, that suggests that bonuses in your organisation are more skewed towards men than the average pay is - men are more likely to receive bonuses than women are or more likely to receive larger bonuses than women do.
The TopQuartile figures refer to the group of employees who are in the top earning quarter. The two percentages you quote add up to 100%. Of the employees in this top group, 82% of them are men and 18% are women. You may find if you look at the lowest paid quarter, the situation is reversed. That is a fairly significant gap. Of the 2957 (I think - using a free version of Excel on a small screen, may not be sorting entirely correctly) organisations in the most recent dataset, only 543 (18% or about a fifth) have 82% or a higher proportion of men in the highest paid quarter.
Hope that makes sense and doesn't sound patronising; it isn't meant to be the latter. I think the govt could do more to explain all this.
There's a report at Towards Data Science which may also be useful, though it isn't using the most recent data.
posted by paduasoy at 3:25 PM on March 10, 2022 [5 favorites]
DiffMeanHourlyPercent is the difference between the mean hourly pay for men and for women. From the guidance about how to work this out when one submits the data:
A mean (average) involves adding up all of the numbers and dividing the result by how many numbers were in the list.
So if you had 5 women who respectively earnt £12, £13, £14, £15 and £15 an hour, their mean hourly pay would be 12+13+14+15+15 = £69 divided by five people = £13.80. Five men who respectively earnt £14, £14, £14, £16 and £18 an hour would have a mean hourly pay of £76 divided by 5 = £15.20.
To work out the DiffMeanHourlyPercent, you divide one mean hourly rate by the other. Again from the guidance,
The mean (average) gender pay gap using hourly pay figure you must report:
take the mean (average) hourly pay for men and subtract the mean (average) hourly pay for women
divide the result by the mean (average) hourly pay for men
multiply the result by 100
This gives you the mean (average) gender pay gap in hourly pay as a percentage of men’s pay.
So for the example above, you'd take the men's pay of £15.20, take away the women's pay of £13.80 = £1.40. That's the difference between the two hourly averages - you then work it out as a % by dividing £1.40 by the men's average of £15.20 and multiplying the result by 100, giving a DiffMeanHourlyPercent of 9.2.
That hopefully gives the idea - so to get a sense of what the 20.3 difference might mean in your company, if the average hourly rate for women in your company was the London Living Wage of £11.05, the average hourly rate for men would be around £13.90. If the average hourly rate for women was more like £30, the average hourly rate for men would be around £37.50. You're looking at a difference of about a fifth (20%). There's an example at the link of calculations for Acme Ltd if that helps.
DiffMedianHourlyPercent is based on a different way of calculating the average: the man or woman who is in the middle of a list of hourly pay ordered from highest to lowest paid.
A median involves listing all of the numbers in numerical order. If there is an odd number of results, the median is the middle number. If there is an even number of results, the median will be the mean of the two central numbers.
So, using the same dataset of ten people I listed above, the median hourly pay for women would be £14 (my list of £12, £13, £14, £15, £15) and the median hourly pay for men would also be £14 (my list of £14, £14, £14, £16, £18). So this median pay gap would be zero.
The guidance goes on to say Medians are useful to indicate what the ‘typical’ situation is. They are not distorted by very high or low hourly pay (or bonuses). However, this means that not all gender pay gap issues will be picked up. They could also fail to pick up as effectively where the gender pay gap issues are most pronounced in the lowest paid or highest paid employees.
My organisation didn't have bonuses so I didn't calculate those. But my guess is that as the DiffMeanBonusPercent is higher (larger gap) than the other two differences, that suggests that bonuses in your organisation are more skewed towards men than the average pay is - men are more likely to receive bonuses than women are or more likely to receive larger bonuses than women do.
The TopQuartile figures refer to the group of employees who are in the top earning quarter. The two percentages you quote add up to 100%. Of the employees in this top group, 82% of them are men and 18% are women. You may find if you look at the lowest paid quarter, the situation is reversed. That is a fairly significant gap. Of the 2957 (I think - using a free version of Excel on a small screen, may not be sorting entirely correctly) organisations in the most recent dataset, only 543 (18% or about a fifth) have 82% or a higher proportion of men in the highest paid quarter.
Hope that makes sense and doesn't sound patronising; it isn't meant to be the latter. I think the govt could do more to explain all this.
There's a report at Towards Data Science which may also be useful, though it isn't using the most recent data.
posted by paduasoy at 3:25 PM on March 10, 2022 [5 favorites]
Thanks a lot, paduasoy, that makes sense. The company is male-dominated at all levels, but it goes from almost parity at low quartile, to twice for middle, three times for upper, and four times + for top. Interestingly, it is a tech company, which goes counter (in this one case) to what one of the articles above was saying re tech (where apparently the gap is smaler).
This tracks which my observations on the ground (along with other discriminatory practices which are not covered by these reports); but it is instructive to see that what I observe in my little corner of the company is representative of the whole. you hardly ever have this kind of info.
posted by doggod at 3:36 PM on March 10, 2022 [1 favorite]
This tracks which my observations on the ground (along with other discriminatory practices which are not covered by these reports); but it is instructive to see that what I observe in my little corner of the company is representative of the whole. you hardly ever have this kind of info.
posted by doggod at 3:36 PM on March 10, 2022 [1 favorite]
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