Friday 29th May 2020 marked 50 years since the Equal Pay Act received royal assent in the UK, meaning employers were prohibited from paying women less than men for the same job.
Although unequal pay is now illegal, the gender pay gap – the percentage difference between the average hourly earnings for men and women – persists.
Despite efforts to close the gap, it’s 2020 and women are still underpaid and undervalued across the UK. Data from the ONS shows that women on average earn 17.2 per cent less than men.
With women leading the workforce in a vast number of jobs, is there at least smaller pay gap in those cases?
To investigate, Resume.io used ONS figures to identify the 57 female-dominated jobs for which men are paid more. They then found the pay gap for each of these professions. Next, they illustrated these disparities with a scatter graph (shown below) and a series of charts to show just how each occupation and industry fares for gender pay bias.
The research found that in 227 occupations (79 per cent of those listed), men earned more than women. Women earn more than men in just 59 out of 286 occupations.
The biggest gender pay gap in the UK is dentistry – women make up 55.6 per cent of dental practitioners, but on average they get paid 39.3 per cent less (around £26,000), than their male colleagues.
Meanwhile, more than three-quarters of cleaners are women, but men earn 35.2 per cent more (£4,136) for doing the same job.
Health and social care is the sector with the highest number of unevenly paid trades. Twelve predominantly female professions – from dentist to nurse to senior care worker – have a large gap.
However, the biggest scandal is in education. More than three-quarters of nursery and primary teachers, library workers, and special needs professionals are women, yet they are all subject to a considerable pay gap.
Inequality affects society’s lowest earners the most. Eight of the top ten jobs with the biggest gender pay gap see women earning below the national average income of £24,897.
justify;”>The analysis confirms that even in professions where they are the majority, women are still more likely to get paid lower salaries when compared to their male counterparts.
With this report, Resume.io aims to shed light on the current state of gender pay gap across the UK – particularly in those industries where women represent the majority of the workforce.
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