According to the ONS, the #GenderPayGap has continued to fall this year and is now at a record low. Despite this, '#EqualPayDay 2018’ has remained at 10th November - the same date as each of the past two years. That’s the first clue there's something fishy here... (1/5)
This is because, instead of comparing median wages (the number in the middle), the Fawcett Society uses the mean (the average of all the data). This has the effect of giving more weight to the incomes of a relatively small number of high earners at the top of companies... (2/5).
That might be OK if you want to focus (say) on CEO salaries and the underrepresention of women on boards. But it is unrepresentative of the rest of the workforce, where the #GenderPayGap has already narrowed significantly, especially for women under 39 (3/5)
Indeed, the whole concept of the #EqualPayDay is flawed. We are told this is the day that women effectively stop earning. But there is nothing ‘effectively’ about it. As the ONS constantly warns, the #GenderPayGap does not show differences in wages for comparable jobs. (4/5)
It is therefore completely misleading to imply the #GenderPayGap is about ‘equal pay’, or that it reveals when women are paid less for doing the same work as male colleagues. If campaigners can't even get that right, no wonder polls show so many people are still in the dark (5/5)
