Today is the deadline for UK employers with over 250 employees to submit their data on their organisation gender pay gap. This comes after a government initiative to highlight the extent of pay disparity and it is a legal requirement. Women in the UK are on average paid 14% less than men. On Monday a cross party group of female MPs lead by Stella Creasy MP launched the #PayMeToo campaign with the aim of empowering women within their work place to question their pay and demand change.
Within the NHS it is easy to believe there is no pay gap between male and female employees; with the Agenda for Change (AfC) banding system the difference seems minimal, if not non-existent. For those who don’t know, the AfC system came into the NHS in the early ‘00s with the view to simplify the pay of NHS workers. Each worker applies for a job within a specific band according to skill and responsibility of the role, there is scope to increase your pay the longer you are in post, these are the precious NHS ‘increments,’ as it is generally true that your level of knowledge and performance increases over time. Much like the pay rise in the private sector the workers have to meet certain criteria to receive the increment and be signed off by a manager. So everyone in the same job starts at the same salary and increases at the same rate according to their skill set, in theory it is the ideal system to level the gender playing field.
However, this is not the case. The definition of the gender pay gap is the disparity between the average salaries of all male employees and the average salaries of all female employees. This basically means that in a company there may be a lot of women employed into lower paid jobs such as cleaners, clerks, PAs etc. but fewer women sitting in CEO positions. So while the women in each role may be paid equally to her male peers the differences in the average salaries of male and female employees may be different. While the gap is present throughout female’s working lives it becomes more evident when the woman passes the big 3-0. Often referred to as the ‘motherhood penalty’ women may be less favoured for higher paid roles through her bosses fear of her having children or needing part-time or flexible working to fit around her home life. The same is not assumed for her male peers and so they may be pushed for promotion quicker than her.
To look at the NHS data on the matter is a bit mind boggling, thankfully NHS Employers made a lovely poster!
Let’s crunch some numbers! The NHS is made up of 77% women and 23% men, within bands 1-7 women hold the majority of jobs, around 80%, but once we get passed band 7 the gender shift becomes more obvious. In bands 8 upward 31% of employees are male, and 54% of the most senior position holders are men; 22% of the male staff are doctors or dentists, while only 5% of female staff hold those posts (on average female doctors earn 34% less than male doctors). Within the AfC workers paid at bands 8-9 there is around a 25% increase in the proportional representation of men within the NHS and around a 10% decrease proportionally of women. It is hardly fair representation of the workforce and this is the point where the beauty of the AfC system is trashed.
So what we see overall is that more men hold higher paid managerial positions, while women tend to perform the lower paid roles in the NHS despite constituting the overriding majority of employees. This is not a situation where women are unable of perform higher paid roles, but it is the result of a multi-faceted system of female oppression (aka The Patriarchy).
To approach initially from the male perspective; men are more likely to apply for jobs they are less qualified to do. Men are more likely to be considered from promotion earlier as it is assumed they will not require much leave when becoming a parent; and it is generally assumed men are more capable and emotionally stable than women, especially is positions of management. Once in these positions, men are more likely to favour employing other men and so the system perpetuates itself.
Female colleagues may not want to move up the ranks because they do want to have children and don’t see a realistic path to do so. Women are more likely to assume lower paid jobs due to archetypal ‘female’ roles and also a balancing of their work life with their domestic labour. A job which pays more carries more stress and longer hours may reduce the quantity and quality time with their children. Who could ignore the threat of becoming a ‘Bad Mother’ – the monster who leaves her children behind to pursue a career, who leaves her partner holding the baby! And if you don’t want children but want a career, well then you’re selfish! You would never hear a man criticised like that. More often than not, it’s that women don’t have faith in their abilities to perform in a higher paid role.
This feeling is not exclusive, in the storm that is being created around the gender pay gap it is easy to gloss over the other channels of discrimination within society. The Tory government can attempt look like a ‘feminist’ party while still remaining inherently racist, transphobic and ableist. Within the NHS 17% of all employees have a ‘BME’ background, yet white employees are three times more likely to hold managerial positions. 1 in 8 workers in the UK have a disability, yet only 3% of NHS employees declare a disability on application for a job, and 17% report a disability once in the role. It is clear that workers have anxiety in declaring a disability until employed, and many may not afterward through fear of discrimination. Of the 17%, 41% reported barriers to their career progression due to their disability. I don’t know if you’ve notices but within all the statistics Trans* and Queer folk are completely invisible, the percentages are strictly legal identities of male/female workers. Who knows how equal pay is in the non-binary world, my guess is, shit.
This is not exclusive to the NHS; these are issues employees face up and down the UK and across the world. The current advice is for employees from minority social groups is to talk to colleagues about pay, to be more vocal and claim their equal pay. This isn’t so easy in the AfC system, your peers will be paid roughly the same as you, but there are things you can do. We have to challenge the covert racism, sexism, hetero-normative, ableist bollocks that occurs every day in the NHS and in every workplace in the UK. The patriarchy is insidious and even the most ‘woke/right-on/enlightened’ employers will struggle to recognise the social power interplay ruining it for everyone. We need to be loud; we need to demand that there is fair representation in managements, not just of services but on wards, units, of community teams. If you are a white NHS employees I challenge you to look at your surrounding workforce – how may band 6s and above are people of colour? How many have English as a second language? If you have a form of social privileged use it to raise the profile and opportunities for your colleagues, forgo your CPD funding for a year to give a colleague with a disability the opportunity. Support and encourage your LGBTQ+ colleagues to go for promotions, or to get the job they’ve always dreamed of. Get involved in the NHS Women on Boards 50:50 by 2020 campaign. Campaign for better access to childcare and flexible contract for both all workers and that employers encourage men to share parental leave where able.
It may mean that you sacrifice your career progression a little; it may mean you piss off management in forcing them to look at their practices but who cares? Feminism is about fighting for each other not just yourself, use your voice as a platform for others, hold your bosses accountable and demand more.
R xx