Pay decisions are gender-biased. What can we do about it?
How citizens in Northwest London co-designed a system for fairer pay.
What’s the issue?
More than 50 years since the passing of the 1970 Equal Pay Act, labour performed by women continues to be undervalued in the UK. The impacts of pay inequality are far-reaching. Families with women as the sole breadwinners are more likely to live in poverty. Women also face financial jeopardy in their retirement due to the cumulative loss in pay over their lifetimes. As more women struggle to meet the cost of living, this increases the number of citizens reliant on government welfare schemes. The gender pay gap is therefore not just an equity issue but a significant economic issue (1–3).
Women who are paid less than their male counterparts are also more likely to experience depression and anxiety. Perceptions of workplace discrimination are associated with poor mental health and could affect employee morale and worker productivity. Workplaces with inequitable pay schemes may not only struggle to recruit and retain female employees but could risk being faced with lawsuits and costly litigation (2,4,6).
Causes of the gender pay gap
A major cause that this article focuses on is that occupations in the UK are segregated by gender. For example, 99% of car mechanics are male, while 98% of nursery teachers are female (12). Research has shown that the greater the proportion of women in a particular job, the lower the wage for that job, even after controlling for productivity differences. This trend is consistent over time. For example, biologists, designers, ticket agents and recreation workers in the US all saw their wages drop in real terms between 1950 and 2000 as these professions became more female dominated (2,3,7). This disparity in pay could be a result of the historical undervaluation of female work and ‘feminine’ skills (e.g. nurturing and social skills) which have traditionally been performed by women at home without payment or status. These jobs may also have lower bargaining power as women are typically underrepresented in unions (6,8,14–16).
Other factors include women holding qualifications in subjects that are less valued, having longer gaps in experience due to childcare or requiring flexible working hours to meet caring responsibilities. Even after these factors are considered however, there remains an unexplained difference which may result from discrimination (3,6,10,11). For instance, in the US, car and equipment cleaners (who are predominantly male) earn 14% more than housecleaners (who are predominantly female) despite the occupations having similar requirements. Even within the same job role, female truck drivers, software developers, financial managers, administrative assistants and registered nurses all earned between 10–30% less than their male counterparts (3).
The undervaluation of work performed by women can be understood as an extension of 20th century values around presumed income needs. These values viewed men as breadwinners deserving of a family wage and women as secondary earners who did not require self-sufficiency. For decades this resulted in men and women being paid according to separate wage scales, even if they were doing the same work (13,17). When separate pay scales were abolished, female-dominated roles were often placed at lower wage levels, thus preserving the gender hierarchy (15). Even half a century on, market rates for female-dominated roles still reflect this bias. Employers perpetuate the gap whenever they determine the pay of new hires based on their salary history. The current movement towards individualised pay according to manager discretion could also enable these biases to become more prominent. This is especially the case as men successfully negotiate higher salaries more often than women (2,8).
Why current measures to tackle the gender pay gap aren’t enough
Voluntary initiatives to reduce the gender pay gap have had very little impact. Only a quarter of employers carry out equal pay audits and most have no plans to undertake one. Since 2017, it has become mandatory for organisations with more than 250 employees to publish their gender pay gap. However, exceptions for smaller employers leaves around 59% of UK employees unaffected. Furthermore, a 2015 review found that many public bodies saw publishing their gender pay gap as an end in itself and did not commit to specific actions to close the gap (6,7).
Many countries including the UK have legislation that guarantees equal pay for work of equal value. This means that workers for the same employer are entitled to be paid the same if their work is comparable (10,15,18). A criticism of this law is that it puts the burden on individuals to make a claim if pay discrimination occurs. The individual is required to identify colleagues whose work may be deemed comparable and to obtain information on their wages. This can be difficult to find however due to employer secrecy and cultural norms that discourage sharing salary information. Furthermore, the time and cost of legal action and the risk to employment may act as a deterrent for many potential claimants (2,4,11,19).
What can we do about it?
One way in which the gender pay gap can be tackled is through job evaluation: a tool which was popularised in the 1940s and which is widely used in industry. It involves determining the value of a job role by scoring it against several criteria. This score can then be used to set an appropriate remuneration level for the role, irrespective of the gender of the employee (13,15,16,19–21). If deployed in the right way, job evaluation can help to reduce gender bias within an organisation’s pay structure. For this reason, governments in Canada and Iceland have made its use mandatory for larger employers. A key feature of government-led schemes is that they shift the burden of proof regarding pay equity from the individual to the employer.
Issues with job evaluation
⚖️ 1) Gender bias in the scheme design
The introduction of job evaluation alone is not sufficient to achieve equal pay for work of equal value. It is important to consider how gendered tasks or jobs are valued within the scheme in order to prevent gender bias. According to feminist institutional theory, job evaluation schemes often prioritise the content of male-dominated work and thereby exclude and devalue much of the content of jobs typically performed by women (13,16, 27). Male-dominated attributes that are often over-valued include financial responsibility, team responsibility and physical strength. Female-dominated attributes that are undervalued include organisational skills, relationship skills, communication skills, customer service skills and emotional effort (14,25).
🐣 2) Limited experience of the evaluators
Familiarity about what a specific job entails may affect how evaluators perceive and score the job. It is therefore important that evaluators are drawn from diverse backgrounds. Many job evaluation schemes are conducted by managers without the participation of employees. This could bias the factor weighting towards managerial positions and may limit opportunities to change unfair practices in the determination of wages (31).
✂️ 3) Inconsistent application
Many organisations have different wage determination methods for different occupational groupings (e.g. one method for clerical jobs, another for factory jobs). This is problematic as occupational groupings are often segregated by gender, meaning that male and female staff have their pay determined using different evaluation criteria (15,27). The use of multiple schemes is therefore not consistent with equity goals.
🤑 4) Risk of evasion through outsourcing
Job evaluation schemes are generally intended to be used at the firm level and are not designed to tackle wage differences between organisations. Job evaluation within the firm is only a partial solution as it cannot tackle pay disparities that arise from occupational segregation on a broader scale (22,31). A major risk is that firms could outsource certain roles to avoid having to raise wages as directed by a job evaluation scheme.
How might a fairer system work?
These shortcomings led me to propose a novel approach to job evaluation with two defining features. Firstly, to tackle wage disparities across employers, the new method would be a universal scheme that would apply consistently across all sectors. Secondly, to ensure the scheme represents a broad range of experiences and interests, it would be designed by employees themselves from diverse backgrounds.
To test this method, I brought together 13 members of the public with different job types and incomes to take part across two discussion workshops in Northwest London. Participants were asked to discuss factors that should be considered in determining wages and to weight their importance. Next, they were asked to score a range of job profiles against these factors. Finally, they were asked to place the job profiles on a wage scale according to their scores. Participants had to make all decisions by consensus to ensure all of their perspectives were included.
Factors that should be considered in wage-setting
💼 1) Managerial skills
Participants believed line management responsibility, leadership, communication skills, problem-solving and versatility were all key managerial attributes that should be assessed in determining pay.
⏲️ 2) Antisocial time demands
Currently, there is no consistent acknowledgement that some working patterns are more antisocial than others. Many employers do not pay overtime while others do not reward evening or weekend work. Participants believed there should be greater financial compensation where there is greater loss of sociable hours with friends or family.
🤯 3) Role-related stress
Stress is not routinely measured as a factor to determine wages. Participants believed that this should change in order to better account for the effects that role-related stress has on employees’ personal lives and health. Formal consideration of stress could also incentivise employers to reduce the stress of their workers in order to lower their wage bill.
📖 4) Knowledge and education
Participants believed roles that require a greater level of job-specific knowledge, required experience, expected professional development and education or qualifications should be rewarded. They believed this would help to attract and retain specialised workers.
💀 5) Risk to health and physical endurance
Participants believed pay levels should reflect both physical endurance required and the risk of developing long term physical and mental health complications. They believed this to be justified as demanding physical roles would reduce a person’s working years and shorten their retirement. Participants thought that roles that involve being on your feet all day and that involve frequent in-person interaction with random members of the public should be compensated more. This is significant for roles in the retail and hospitality sectors as these positions typically receive very low pay.
👉 6) Responsibility, accountability and initiative
Participants felt that initiative was a key attribute and that employees ought to be rewarded for taking on additional responsibility and accountability, especially where making a mistake could have major consequences. Responsibility for projects and finances is already considered within existing pay structures. However, participants felt that remuneration should also increase where roles entail a greater level of responsibility for people. This would mean that roles such as educators, health professionals and public transport drivers would see an increase in pay.
🗣️ 7) Communication skills
Communication skills are not valued within existing pay structures and are an essential requirement for many low-paid and female-dominated roles. The participants felt that communication skills should be more highly rewarded, especially where there is frequent communication with members of the public. This could result in retail, hospitality, health and education staff receiving an uplift in pay.
🪄 8) Innovation and empowerment
Participants believed employees ought to be rewarded where they are required to support the development of new ideas in their role.
Discussions on setting pay
🤔 Social ideals
The job evaluation scheme was partially shaped by the social ideals of the participants. In the first workshop, the teacher had a higher job evaluation score than the chief executive and was therefore assigned similar pay, much to the delight of the participants. They argued that if the types of people who wanted to become CEOs were attracted to teaching instead, this would bring more talented, qualified and better motivated people into the profession and would improve the quality of schooling.
The first workshop participants also assigned a high minimum pay level to the lowest-scoring participant as they were concerned about the high cost of living. In addition, they were conscious about reducing inequality between the highest paid and lowest paid professions.
💸 Perceptions of cost burden
In the second workshop, the nurse had the highest job evaluation score which led to it being assigned the highest pay. Participants were critical of drastically increasing the pay of teachers and nurses however, saying this would blow the education and NHS budgets. This chimes with concerns raised in previous literature: that job evaluation is perceived to be less workable if it deviates too far from market rates (13,15, 32). The consequence is that job evaluation schemes are often cautious about changing the way jobs are valued, especially those in which women predominate. Instead they seek to reproduce the status quo and to legitimise inequalities in order to keep labour costs down (32).
🪞 Societal perceptions of worth
Participants expressed confusion when the job profiles were ordered by job evaluation scores and showed a tendency to want to change the order to reproduce existing pay structures. Participants found it impossible to ignore the real-world pay of the job profiles and it could be that this overrode other perceptions of worth when discussing pay levels.
⬆️ Weighting of factors
Participants in the second workshop suggested that greater weight should be given to roles that are high stress, have high responsibility and require a high level of experience or specialised skills.
Implications of the proposed wage structure
The table above shows the job profiles from the second workshop with the highest proposed increases in wages. It suggests that female-dominated occupations that involve caring, nurturing and responsibility for people such as the nurse, teacher and nursery teacher should receive a significant increase in pay.
Conclusion
The results of the workshop call for the wage structure to be reformed to better account for factors such as antisocial time demands, responsibility for people, communication skills and physical endurance. Participants also believed that female-dominated roles that involve caring, nurturing and responsibility for people are significantly undervalued compared to current market rates. However, given that many such workers are employed by public institutions in the education and health sector, serious questions are raised about the likelihood of gender pay inequities being tackled when there is political pressure to cut public spending.
Based on these findings, the following recommendations are outlined:
- 👩⚕️ 1) Policymakers and employers should acknowledge the continued undervaluation of women’s work in the UK. Pay practices for female-dominated roles that involve skills such as caring, nurturing and responsibility for people should be reviewed.
- 🔍 2) To reward employees more fairly, employers should consider assessing factors such as antisocial time demands, responsibility for people, communication skills and physical endurance and risk to health in determining base pay.
- 🤝 3) Policymakers, employers and civil society should work together to develop a common job evaluation scheme for all employees. This should be co-produced with employees from all backgrounds, job types and job levels.
Author & Acknowledgements
This post was written based on research conducted as part of my master’s thesis. Click here to view more of my work.
I would like to thank my sister Amanda Waters for her support and editorial wisdom, my workshop assistants Ismat and Daniel and all of the wonderful participants who took part in the workshops.
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