How has the gender pay gap changed: what the statistics tell us

Each year, Close the Gap produces a report on the gender pay gap in Scotland. The purpose of this report is to outline and analyse the key trends in the gender pay gap across various measures to show how it has changed over time. We’re now going to be producing this report on a biennial basis and in between we’ll be bringing you blogs on how pay gap data is changing. This is the first of two blogs that will look at the most recent pay gap data from 2023 and, as always, we set out why it’s important to look beneath the headline figures.

Median and mean gender pay gaps have narrowed, but this hides the extent of gendered labour market inequalities

Recent data from the ONS’s Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE) indicates that both the median and mean gender pay gaps have decreased between 2022 and 2023 across all measures. The mean pay gaps have had a slightly larger reduction compared to median pay gaps, where falls have been more varied. As shown in table 1 below, the mean pay gaps have all seen significant decreases by around 4 percentage points, with the combined pay gap now sitting at 6.3%, the full-time gap at 3.5%, and the part-time at 22.1%.

 

	Median pay gap (%)				Mean pay gap (%)
	2020	2021	2022	2023	2020	2021	2022	2023
Combined pay gap	10.9	11.5	12.0	8.7	10.4	10.1	10.9	6.3
% change from previous year	-	+0.6	+0.5	-3.3	-	-0.3	+0.8	-4.6
Full-time pay gap	3.0	3.6	3.7	1.7	7.5	6.6	7.9	3.5
% change from previous year	-	+0.6	+0.1	-2.0	-	-0.9	+1.3	-4.4
Part-time pay gap	24.4	32.4	29.2	28.1	29.7	26.9	26.3	22.1
% change from previous year	-	+8.0	-3.2	-1.1	-	-2.8	-0.6	-4.2

Table 1: Combined, full-time and part-time median and mean gender pay gaps, 2020-2023

 

Reductions in the mean and median part-time pay gaps follow established trends from previous years. However, median and mean combined and full-time pay gaps have broken with trends and have begun to narrow. Given how large the decreases in the mean and median combined and full-time, and mean part-time gender pay gaps, it is important to treat them with some caution.

Scottish Government has highlighted that the full-time median figure of 1.7% means that Scotland’s gender pay gap is its “lowest on record”. However, a focus on the full-time figure excludes the 487,600 women who work part-time, most of whom are in low-paid, undervalued jobs and represent 38.3% of the female workforce. All too often, discourses on the pay gap centre on the need to get more women into senior roles. Equally as important is action to tackle women’s low pay, and the economy-wide undervaluation of ‘women’s work’ such as care, admin, and cleaning. Relying on the headline full-time figure creates an inaccurate picture of the gender pay gap and hides the persistent and pervasive inequalities women face.  

Pay gaps are narrowing in most occupational groups

The new data shows a continued trend in the narrowing of the pay gap across most occupational groups. For example, when considering the combined pay gap:

• There has been a significant reduction in the gender pay gap in professional occupations from 11.1% in 2022 to 2.3% in 2023;
• In caring, leisure and other service occupations the gap has decreased from 5% to -2.7%, indicating women have a pay advantage in this occupational grouping;
• In administrative and secretarial occupations the gap has narrowed from 10.1% to 7.5%; and
• There has been a less pronounced narrowing within managers, directors, and senior officials, from 14.5% in 2022 to 13.8% in 2023.

Pay gaps are affected by the composition of men and women within each of these occupational groups. Because more women work in caring, leisure, and other service occupations, pay gaps tend to be much narrower than in managers, directors, and senior officials’ occupations, where women are under-represented and there is a smaller decrease in pay gap figures.

Women's pay is rising faster than men's

The new data shows that the biggest influencer of changes in the pay gap is that women’s average (mean) hourly wages are increasing faster than men’s. Table 2 shows that women’s hourly combined, full-time, and part-time wages have increased almost twice as quickly as men’s between 2022 and 2023, although men continue to have higher average hourly earnings. It is likely that this is a result of recent public sector pay settlements, which were higher than usual following waves of industrial action by trade unions in response to the cost-of-living crisis. Since women make up the majority (66%) of public sector workers, and the majority of trade union members, they have disproportionately benefited from wage increases, and this has led to their pay rising faster than men’s. For example, high-profile strike action over the last year, including the EIS teachers’ strikes throughout 2023 which resulted in a cumulative 14.6% pay increase for teaching staff, have been instrumental in securing pay increases for public sector workers. Without the collective bargaining power and support from trade unions it is unlikely these wage increases would have been secured. This aligns with existing evidence on the pay gap which shows that union membership contributes to higher pay for women. This increase in public sector wages underpins much of the recent narrowing presented in this year’s pay gap data, particularly in the public sector.

 

	Mean (£)
	2022	2023	% change
Male (overall)	19.28	20.77	+7.7%
Female (overall)	17.16	19.46	+13.4%
Male full-time	19.70	21.20	+7.6%
Female full-time	18.10	20.45	+13%
Male part-time	14.09	15.02	+6.6%
Female part-time	14.52	16.51	+13.7%

Table 2: mean hourly pay by gender, 2022 and 2023

 

As shown in table 3, gender pay gaps have narrowed across the public, private, and third sector, with the public sector exhibiting the most substantial reduction between 2022 and 2023. The third sector has also seen a substantial narrowing in its combined and full-time pay gaps. This is also likely to be a driving force behind the overall narrowing of the gender pay gap, as women make up the majority of staff in this sector. Increases in third and private sector pay appears to be partially driven by employer responses to the cost-of-living crisis, such as increases to wages and the introduction of bonuses or allowances to help cover cost increases.

 

	Combined gender pay gap		Full-time gender pay gap		Part-time gender pay gap
	2022	2023	2022	2023	2022	2023
Public	12.5%	4.7%	9.5%	1.7%	27.3%	18.5%
Private	15.9%	15.4%	11.5%	12.5%	32.5%	31.7%
Third sector	17.7%	11.5%	17.2%	10.1%	26.1%	24.5%

Table 3: Gender pay gaps in the public, private and third sector

 

It’s important to note that although women’s pay is rising faster than men’s, on average men are still earning more than women. Women continue to make up the majority of low-paid staff, comprising 60% of workers earning below the real living wage and are more likely to be in insecure work. These issues are particularly acute for racially-minoritised women, disabled women, and single parents (more than 90% of whom are women). It is therefore important to recognise that although headline pay gap statistics may suggest progress, women continue to face stubborn labour market inequalities.

Women do not experience the gender pay gap in the same way

Women are not a homogenous group, and their experiences of the labour market are shaped by their multiple, intersecting identities, which often compound and contribute to the inequalities they face. For example, disabled women and some groups of racially-minoritised women are more likely to be underemployed in terms of skills, and face higher pay gaps. Disabled women, racially-minoritised women, and LBT women are also more likely to experience workplace discrimination, harassment, and bullying.

Headline pay gap figures do not fully capture these divergent experiences, and therefore may create a picture of the gender pay gap that does not reflect the lived reality of women who are most marginalised. There is currently a distinct lack of intersectional gender pay gap data available for Scotland. However, UK-level data from the TUC shows a 9.8% gender pay gap for disabled women compared to non-disabled women, a 23% pay gap when compared to non-disabled men, and a 9.9% pay gap when compare to disabled men. This highlights the continued disadvantage disabled women face in the labour market, and their lower earnings.

UK-level data also provides insight into pay gaps for ethnic-minority women. This shows that, when compared to White British women, median hourly pay gaps are widest for Bangladeshi-British women (14.7%), Pakistani-British women (11.7%), and Mixed White and Black Caribbean women (10.6%). It is important to note that some racially-minoritised women have a pay advantage in median hourly pay compared to White British women, including White Irish women (37.7% pay advantage), Chinese-British women (35.1% pay advantage) and Indian-British women (16% pay advantage).

However, disabled women and some racially-minoritised women are on the whole more likely to be in precarious, low-paid work. Considering both the legacy of Covid-19 job disruption and on-going cost-of-living crisis are disproportionately impacting racially-minoritised women and disabled women, the stubbornly wide pay gaps they face are likely to put them under increasing financial pressure, with many pushed into further and deeper poverty.

Looking at combined gender pay gaps by age groups shows a continued trend of this gap narrowing slightly, with the exception of the pay gap for 18–21-yearolds, which has increased by 8.3%. The data highlights that gender pay gaps are widest for women over the age of 40, and narrowest for those in the 22–29-year-old age group. The widening of the gender pay gap after the age of 30 is driven by a range of factors including gender segregation in subject choice and occupational segregation, women’s concentration in low-paid and part-time work, women’s under-representation in senior management, and inflexible working practices that particularly disadvantage women in caring roles. Additionally, the higher-than-average pay gap present for women aged over 40 is largely due to the motherhood penalty, whereby women returning to work after having children find it difficult to balance caring and earning, often resulting in them moving into part-time work that is below their skill level.

Why it's important to remain cautious about headline figures

It is evident that the picture painted by the headline gender pay gap figures and the reality of women’s lives are quite different. Although the gender pay gap continues to narrow across multiple measures progress is slow and uneven, with different groups of women facing wider pay gaps and further labour market disadvantages due to intersecting and compounding inequalities. Despite the narrowing pay gap, women continue to make up the majority of low-paid and part-time workers, are in increasingly precarious work, and female-dominated sectors continue to be undervalued. Therefore, whilst headline figures can provide some high-level insight into changes in the gender pay gap over time, it’s important they are not taken as the only indicator of gender inequality in the labour market.