Part-time work paves way to gender pay gap
A lack of progression up the part-time pay scales is a key reason for the persistent gender pay gap, finds a new report for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation.
Part-time work caps pay progression
While there are lots of reasons for the pay gap, the effect of part-time work on wage progression is especially striking, says the IFS. People in paid work generally see their pay rise annually and as they secure more experience. The new research shows part-time workers miss out on these gains.The vast majority of part-time workers are women, especially mothers of young children. The study finds that by the time a first child is grown up (aged 20), mothers earn about 30% less per hour, on average, than similarly educated fathers.About a quarter of that wage gap is explained by the higher propensity of the mothers to have been in part-time rather than full-time paid work while that child was growing up, and the consequent lack of wage progression. About a further tenth of that gap is explained by mothers’ higher propensity to have taken time out of the labour market altogether.Graduate women’s lifetime earnings hardest hit
The lack of earnings growth in part-time work has a particularly big impact for graduate women, because by continuing in full-time paid work, they would have seen the most wage progression.A graduate who worked full-time for seven years before having a child would, on average, see her hourly wage rise by a further 6% (over and above general wage inflation) as a result of continuing in full-time work for another year. However, she would see none of that wage progression if she switched to part-time work instead, shows the study.Related stories:
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Improving part-time wage progression could close gender pay gap
The IFS proposes that improved wage progression in part-time work could play a significant role in closing the gender wage gap – especially among graduates. Women continue to earn less on average than men despite the fact that they are better educated on average.While the gender wage gap has from 28% to 18% for working mothers educated to GCSE level, it has not fallen at all in the last 25 years for the highest-educated women. Female graduates still earn about 22% less per hour than male graduates, with implications for career prospects and UK productivity.Significantly, women earn about 10% less than men even before they have children. The gap increases rapidly for many women after they have children. Twenty years after the birth of their first child, a woman’s hourly wage will on average be a third lower than the hourly wage of a man with a similar level of education.'Remarkable' that part-time work limits pay progression
Monica Costa Dias, IFS associate director and an author of the report, said: “There are many likely reasons for persistent gaps in the wages of men and women which research is still investigating, but the fact that working part-time has a long-term depressing effect is an important contributing factor. “It is remarkable that periods spent in part-time work lead to virtually no wage progression at all. It should be a priority for governments and others to understand the reasons for this. Addressing it would have the potential to narrow the gender wage gap significantly.” Robert Joyce, IFS associate director and another author of the report, said: “There has been a substantial fall in the gap between the earnings of lower-educated men and women over the last 25 years.“However, there has been no fall at all in the gap for graduates. Traditionally, it has been lower-educated women whose wages were especially low relative to similarly educated men.“It is now the highest-educated women whose wages are the furthest behind their male counterparts – and this is particularly related to the fact that they lose out so badly from working part-time.”Read more about the future of the UK business in the Winter issue of our magazine
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