Mind the Gap

I just got back from London, where the hotel I stay at provides The Independent for breakfast reading.  It’s always interesting to read about the same issues from both sides of the big pond, especially social/economic ones.  Saturday’s issue was no disappointment though the results of a string of reports on Britain’s gender pay gap certainly was.

A few highlights:

• The salary split begins at the graduate level – three times as many male as female grads earn top level salaries within three years of graduation.  On average, the women are earning 1000 pounds sterling less than their male counterparts in that time.
• Women accept that they will have to take a lower level job and work their way up while men wait for the job they really want.
• Pay for women at the executive level was 22% lower than male counterparts – an increase over the 19% gap last year – with some sectors having a gap as large as 26%.In a third study, the gap on hourly pay is down to 17.2% from 17.5%, not much to celebrate.

What are they going to do about it?  Baroness Prosser, the deputy chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission declared that it’s time to “drag the Equal Pay Act into the 21st century.”  I doubt the gap will respond much to the stick and I wonder why no one’s ever tried a carrot.  Certainly supporting the development of women entrepreneurs might be a better way than threatening to bring the long arm of the law into the fray.

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