CMI report reveals gender pay gap will take 98 years to equalise

Wednesday, 31 August 2011 10:22

A new report from the Chartered Management Institute (CMI) concludes that it will take female UK managers almost a century to be paid the same as their male counterparts.

The study reveals that female managers are paid £31,895 per year, whilst male managers are paid £42,441 for the same job. Although levels of pay for women are rising faster than for men, the report says it will take 98 years for women to catch up.

There is better news for younger female managers. The study also states that junior female managers are now paid more than their male equivalents. They earn £21,969, whereas male junior managers earn £21,367 each year.

However, for female managers as a whole, the pay gap has actually widened from 2010 to 2011, up from a difference of £10,000 to £10,546. This is despite salaries increasing by 2.8 per cent for females in the last year, compared to just 2.3 per cent for males in the same period.

Responding to the report, CMI’s Director of Policy and Research, Petra Wilton, said: “While CMI is delighted that junior female executives have caught up with males at the same level, this year’s Salary Survey demonstrates, yet again, that businesses are contributing to the persistent gender pay gap and alienating top female employees by continuing to pay men and women unequally.

“This kind of bad management is damaging UK businesses and must be addressed.”

The gender pay gap is biggest in Northern Ireland where male managers are paid £13,793 more than their female equivalents. The next largest difference is in the Midlands, followed by London, both with pay gaps of more than £11,000.

Salaries are most equal in Wales, with a pay gap of just £2,441, according to the CMI’s salary survey.

Ms Wilton said that she does not want the government to impose quotas but said “we need the Government to scrutinise organisational pay, demand more transparency from companies on pay bandings and publicly expose organisations found guilty of fuelling the gender pay gap.”

Earlier this year, an independent report for the government told businesses that they need to double the number of women on their board of directors by 2015 or the government may introduce compulsory measures to do so.

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