Employee reward and benefits news
Country is 'making progress' on gender pay gap
The gender pay gap issue is gradually improving, according to a major employment organisation.
Steve Williams, the head of equality at Acas, made his comments following the World Economic Forum's Corporate Gender Gap Report 2010, which discovered that female employees are concentrated in entry or middle-level positions and are scarcely in senior management or board positions in most industries and countries.
The expert explained: "We are making progress. It's important that part of the progress we have made is recognising the gender pay gap is there, it's real, and is a proxy for indicating disadvantages faced by women generally in comparison to men."
He argued that "caring responsibilities" in society are still expected to be taken by women, and they should still take the lead on these responsibilities, meaning they often take part-time work and thus miss out on employee benefits associated with full-time jobs.
Mr Williams added that it is a "multi-faceted issue" and there isn't one reason alone for it as other things come into play and interact with each other to create the gender pay gap.
Posted by Michael Ewing
