Gender Pay Gap Reporting

Insight

Troubleshooting

Our median pay gap is significantly different to our mean pay gap

This is not unusual, although it is more common for the median to be lower than the mean. Looking at the 18/19 data on the Government portal, the average reported mean gap is 14.1% compared to median gap of 11.9%.

We don’t have any pay gaps

It is statistically unlikely to have no mean pay gap, and the calculation should be verified. It is more common to have a median pay gap of 0 accompanied with a significant mean pay gap, that is, greater than 5%. The Government portal shows that almost 10% of reported median gaps of 0 are accompanied by higher mean gaps. This is common with larger employers where a high proportion of male and female staff are doing the same job or a job with the same size.

In a call centre, for example, 60% of staff could be doing the same job which would result in a median pay gap of 0. The same call centre could have a higher proportion of male staff in the upper quartiles which would make it likely that the mean pay gap would be more than 5%.

Our pay gap is a “-“ (negative) figure

A gap with a negative figure means that women’s pay is higher than men’s pay. It is often found in female dominated occupations, such as health care. For example, 75% of staff at Kirkwood Hospice  are female, and their pay gap is -31.9%. The Hospice’s provision of a report sets occupational segregation in context of the sector which assists in understanding the pay gap, and the comparatively low median gap of -0.2% could indicate equal pay for work of equal value. Negative figure gaps can also be found in industries where there are a higher proportion of female office staff, for example, manual industries such as window cleaning.

Our bonus gap exceeds 100%

This is statistically impossible and indicates that there has been a calculation error. The gap must be between -100% and 100% as the gap always expressed as a percentage of the male bonus. We can look at some examples below:

Digital image reproduced from Close Your Pay Gap Calculator