Initial analysis of gender pay gap reporting submissions has found that – so far – the mean wage disparity at companies in 2020 was the same as in 2018, indicating little overall improvement.
The study was carried out by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD), and examined all submissions lodged as of yesterday (6 April) – the original deadline for reports to be filed.
According to the findings, the median gender pay gap was 12.8% – the same as it was two years earlier.
This disparity means that for every £1 the median male worker earned, the median female worker earned 87 pence. In 2019, women received 86 pence for every £1 awarded to men.
Commenting on the data, Charles Cotton, senior reward and performance adviser at the CIPD, said: “We are now into our fifth year of gender pay gap reporting and there has been markedly little change in the figures.”
He added: “While this is to be expected – and improvements can’t be made overnight – it must be remembered that some of the measures employers have taken to close their gender pay gap may well initially result in it widening.”
But, according to Cotton, what is far more concerning is the large drop in employers that have so far submitted their data.
Although the deadline had been extended by six months, government still urged employers to report their data by the original 6 April date to ensure gender reporting remained a boardroom discussion.
Cotton said: “With the pandemic disproportionately affecting women financially, it’s even more of an imperative for employers to ensure gender pay reporting returns to the top of their agenda.”
There were 10,833 submissions in 2018, but only 6,150 companies reported their figures in 2019. So far, there have only been 2,440 reports filed for 2020.
Cotton added: “Reporting is an integral part of an organisation’s fairness strategy and without it employers lack a valuable tool to assess the fairness of how they recruit, manage, develop and reward their people. We would therefore urge those that have not yet filed their figures for 2020 to do so now, rather than waiting until October.”