Revealing the gender pay gap
It is two years since larger organisations have been mandated to report on their gender pay gap statistics, and progress is being made. For the Chartered Insurance Institute (CII), reporting has uncovered positive year-on-year trends.
Since the report we produced in 2018, we have managed to halve our pay gap, in just one year alone, to a mean of 14.77 percent. For us, this highlights the benefits of reporting, even though we do not meet the mandatory criteria.
Gender pay gap reporting enables organisations to properly assess their internal organisational pay parity without any risk of subjectivity, and then take whatever actions may be necessary to create a fairer environment for all colleagues.
It is important to approach the pay gap challenge proactively as the national pay gap has, for 2019, shown only a 1 percent improvement on that of 2018. According to the World Economic Forum, at this rate, we shouldn’t expect to see global parity until 2220, more than 200 years from now.
While this is a shocking assessment, it does show that more needs to be done. What we need is proactive and constructive initiatives. This is why the CII has revealed its figures for the second consecutive year.
As a professional body, the CII recognises the importance of leading by example, and has chosen to volunteer not only our gender pay gap figures but also our ethnicity gap figures.
We chose to do this because we believe that it is important for organisations to understand how their people are impacted by imbalance so that they can put in place aspirational targets for measurable plans.
Better understanding
The increase in public awareness has been beneficial to the cause because it has led to a broader understanding of how women’s financial lives are impacted. Although it has been illegal in the UK to pay women less money for the same work as men since 1970, the reality according to the most recent figures from the Office of National Statistics, is that women’s earning potential amounts roughly to just 59 percent of that of their male counterparts over the course of their lives.
There are multiple contributing factors, from the likelihood of women reducing their working hours later in their careers, to a disproportionately small number of women reaching C-suite level in their organisations. This, coupled with the fact that a woman’s pension can be worth on average one-fifth that of the average man’s, shows that the matter is quite complex.
The CII’s Insuring Women’s Futures campaign is a market programme which was launched to conduct proper research on how women’s risks in life differ from men’s, and what factors constitute women’s financial wellbeing. In a previous report the programme highlighted six significant moments at which good interventions would significantly impact the financial wellbeing of women.
It is by the collective impact of all six moments that the financial resilience of women could be materially improved.
The CII’s own experience shows there is no single solution to the challenge of the gender pay gap, but a good place to start is with a willingness to acknowledge that the problem exists and to put clear, deliverable action plans in place to address it.
With clearly defined targets established by a consensus within the profession for what positive change looks like, I have no doubt that we can make real and positive headway towards a better, more fair and secure future for all.
Sian Fisher is the chief executive officer of the Chartered Insurance Institute. www.cii.co.uk
