ECU publishes resource to promote equality in pay

The gender pay gap is not inevitable, and higher education institutions (HEIs) have greater power to reduce pay gaps than they might think, the higher education equality body Equality Challenge Unit said at the launch of a new resource in Cardiff on Wednesday (21 April 2010).

Figures show a gender pay gap of 22.5% still exists in the higher education sector [1]. A new resource from ECU aims to empower HEIs to understand the root cause of their gender pay gaps and break the equal pay deadlock.

The JNCHES Pay Agreement includes a strong recommendation that HEIs undertake an equal pay review within 12 months of the introduction of their new, post-Framework pay structures, and periodically thereafter. Growing numbers of HEIs are doing great work to be more transparent about their equal pay patterns through conducting equal pay reviews [2], but many are nervous about publishing the results.

ECU wants to make the way forward easier, particularly for those HEIs that are still to carry out a review. Launched at an ECU conference in Cardiff, Promoting equality in pay is a practical, step-by-step resource for conducting equal pay reviews in higher education.

Levi Pay, Policy Director at ECU, said:

'Significant gender pay gaps can be found in most sectors, but we need to stop seeing these as inevitable or as issues that will simply resolve themselves in time.

We need to start understanding the role that higher education institutions, individual managers and individual selection panels play in either entrenching or narrowing the gap.

Take the example of starting salaries. If starting salaries are routinely based on an applicant's previous salary, HEIs may simply be drawing the sectoral pay gap into their institution. Similarly, if starting salaries depend too heavily on candidates' willingness to push for a higher starting salary, HEIs may find that some groups of staff are less likely to negotiate than others, leading to inadvertent patterns of disadvantage.

An equal pay review is the only way for an HEI to identify what is behind their own pay gaps. An equal pay report is also the most sound basis for deciding on the practical steps that will help close these gaps.

Our new publication will help HEIs to engage with the root causes of pay inequality, rather than accepting it as an unavoidable fact of life.'

Download the resource

Download the resource:

• Promoting equality in pay
  

Notes

[1] 22.5% was the mean pay gap according to the 2007/08 HESA data set: Equality in higher education: statistical report 2009.

[2] 93% of UCEA member HEIs said that they were planning to carry out, or had already carried out, an equal pay review during 2009-10: Section 4.1.3, The Higher education workforce framework.