International Women’s Day does not lose its significance after one day of celebration, just last year, female staff were paid 23.6 percent less than their male counterparts working in professional services, part-time, or academic work. This highlights the ongoing gender bias that people face not only in the workplace, but also in society.
The University of Nottingham’s lowest pay quartile, divided into four equally sized quartiles, is dominated by female staff (67.2 percent); the highest pay quartile is unequally represented by male staff (62.1 percent).
In April 2017, the Equalities Act of 2010 came into force requiring all public sector organisations, including university bodies, to publish their results of gender pay against six prescribed indicators, including mean and median averages.
“University of Nottingham’s gender pay gap of 23.6% is greater than the median figure for all companies of 18.7%”
This revealed that the University of Nottingham’s gender pay gap of 23.6 percent is greater than the median figure for all companies of 18.7 percent, published by the Office of National Statistics UK.
In a published report documenting the University’s gender pay gap, Vice-Chancellor Shearer West commented that she is “personally invested in ensuring that the University of Nottingham remains fully committed to meeting our values of inclusivity and diversity.”
She commented that flexible hours and practices at Nottingham “encourages more women to further their career within [the] University, and supports women returning to work on a flexible basis or taking on caring responsibilities where they need to do so.”
“We have worked very hard in recent years to tackle this through regular equal pay reviews…initiatives… and monitoring our recruitment experience”
A spokeswoman for The University of Nottingham said: “We have worked very hard in recent years to tackle this through regular equal pay reviews, initiatives to support more women into senior roles, and monitoring of our recruitment experience but we acknowledge that there is still some way to go.”
In celebration of International Women’s Day, organised lectures and seminars by prominent female lecturers have been organised by the University, with the #balanceforbetter initiative running throughout this month. They will be speaking on women roles in engineering, chemistry, and business, feminism in the workplace, and inspiring women to achieve more.
These events mark a “recognition of the outstanding contribution that women staff and students make to our University”. However, we propose a greater recognition would be to tackle the gender pay gap by ensuring an end to the pay disparity.
Mia Haffety
Image courtesy of Hans Splinter via Flickr. Image license here.
