Women’s workplace inequality
Gender inequality in the workplace
The gender pay gap is the key indicator of women's labour market inequality and represents the different experiences men and women have in employment, and also in education, training, care and domestic labour.
Gender norms and stereotyping about women's capabilities and interests results in a stark segregation in the types of work that men and women do. This means women are more likely to work in homecare, admin, primary teaching, and early years and childcare, while men tend to work in IT, refuse collection and trades. A lack of quality part-time and flexible jobs, coupled with women’s disproportionate responsibility for caring, finds women under-represented in management and senior roles. While pay modernisation programmes in the public sector have addressed some of the historical gendered pay inequalities, some women are still paid less than men for doing equal work.
Women’s experiences vary
While there are commonalities across women’s experiences of employment, women are not a homogenous group. Disabled women, racially minoritised women, LGBTQI women, Muslim women and other women of faith, refugee women, young women, and older women experience different, multiple barriers to labour market participation, and to progression within their occupation. Disabled women, and some groups of racially minoritised women are more likely to be underemployed in terms of skills, and experience higher pay gaps. Disabled women, racially minoritised women, and LGBTQI women are more likely to report higher levels of discrimination, bullying and harassment. Responses to women’s labour market inequality must therefore be intersectional, and interventions must recognise women’s multiple, intersecting identities.
The cost of gender inequality
Women’s labour market inequality affects not only women and their families. There is clear and mounting evidence that gender inequality at work comes with a cost to employers and the wider economy. A key cause of the gender pay gap and therefore women’s labour market inequality is the lack of quality part-time and flexible work, which creates a barrier to women’s progression into higher paid and more senior positions, and results in many women working below their skill level. Women are also prevented from working in jobs that match their skill level by discriminatory and biased recruitment and promotion practice, and workplace cultures that do not feel inclusive to them. This represents a loss of female talent and skills to employers. Women’s under-representation in STEM sectors is correlated with sectoral skills shortages, which negatively impacts economic growth. A review of the evidence of the economic gains of closing the gender gap in employment found that it could add £17 billion a year to Scotland’s economy.
