Personnel Today
  • Home
    • All PT content
  • Email sign-up
  • Topics
    • HR Practice
    • Employee relations
    • Learning & training
    • Pay & benefits
    • Wellbeing
    • Recruitment & retention
    • HR strategy
    • HR Tech
    • The HR profession
    • Global
    • All HR topics
  • Legal
    • Case law
    • Commentary
    • Flexible working
    • Legal timetable
    • Maternity & paternity
    • Shared parental leave
    • Redundancy
    • TUPE
    • Disciplinary and grievances
    • Employer’s guides
  • AWARDS
    • Personnel Today Awards
    • The RAD Awards
  • Jobs
    • Find a job
    • Jobs by email
    • Careers advice
    • Post a job
  • Brightmine
    • Learn more
    • Products
    • Free trial
    • Request a quote
  • Webinars
  • Advertise
  • OHW+

Personnel Today

Register
Log in
Personnel Today
  • Home
    • All PT content
  • Email sign-up
  • Topics
    • HR Practice
    • Employee relations
    • Learning & training
    • Pay & benefits
    • Wellbeing
    • Recruitment & retention
    • HR strategy
    • HR Tech
    • The HR profession
    • Global
    • All HR topics
  • Legal
    • Case law
    • Commentary
    • Flexible working
    • Legal timetable
    • Maternity & paternity
    • Shared parental leave
    • Redundancy
    • TUPE
    • Disciplinary and grievances
    • Employer’s guides
  • AWARDS
    • Personnel Today Awards
    • The RAD Awards
  • Jobs
    • Find a job
    • Jobs by email
    • Careers advice
    • Post a job
  • Brightmine
    • Learn more
    • Products
    • Free trial
    • Request a quote
  • Webinars
  • Advertise
  • OHW+

Latest NewsFamily-friendly benefitsGender pay gapMaternity and paternity

UK gender pay gap progress slow as motherhood penalty persists

by Rob Moss 26 Oct 2021
by Rob Moss 26 Oct 2021 Charlotte Allen / Alamy
Charlotte Allen / Alamy

The UK’s gender pay gap has continued its downward trend but the pay penalty experienced by women over 40 perseveres, according to data released today by the Office for National Statistics.

In 2021, the gap among full-time employees was 7.9%, up from 7.0% in 2020. This is still below the gap of 9.0% before the coronavirus pandemic in 2019, and so the downward trend is continuing.

ONS has recommended looking at the longer-term trend given the uncertainty introduced to the data by the pandemic. The data released today is taken from the Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE) and is not drawn from the gender pay gap reporting submissions made by individual employers.

Among all employees, the gender pay gap increased to 15.4%, from 14.9% in 2020, but is still down from 17.4% in 2019. This means women are typically paid 85 pence for every pound earned by a man.

There remains however a large difference in gender pay gap between employees aged 40 and over and those aged below 40 years. For over 40s, the full-time gender pay gap is 11.9% to 12.3%, while for under 40s it is between 0.9% and 3.0%.

Sarah Jackson, visiting professor at Cranfield University School of Management, said: “These new figures show we’re making slow progress towards gender pay equality.

Why tackling the gender pay gap involves more than reporting

How to measure and report a gender pay gap

“Motherhood clearly still has a huge impact on women’s career progression, with women who are over 40 or in more senior roles more adversely affected by the gender pay gap.”

The data released today also showed that, compared with lower-paid employees, higher earners experience a much larger difference in hourly pay between the sexes. People in the highest tenth of earners face a 16.1% gender pay gap in gross hourly pay, while those in the lowest 10% of earners had only a 3.1% gap.

“Managers, directors and senior officials” experienced the largest fall in gender pay gap since the pre-pandemic April 2019 figure, falling from 16.3% to 10.2%.

The ONS also found that the gender pay gap is higher in every region in England than it is in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

“We need to challenge the status quo,” said Jackson. “For some reason, we don’t mind that that women take their foot off the career pedal when they become mothers, despite the impact these lost and wasted skills have on our economy. Whereas when men become fathers, we expect them to continue powering through at work, taking very little time to be with their family.

“A gender pay gap means very simply that an organisation has more men than women in more senior roles. Clever employers know they need a pipeline to ensure female career progression, to improve the business outcomes and close the gender pay gap. This pipeline needs to be a flexible career path for men as well as women. Fathers need to feel safe working flexibly to make time for family responsibilities, and women need to feel valued professionally when they work flexibly. We need to value what people can do, not when they do it. Families and business will benefit.”

Sign up to our weekly round-up of HR news and guidance

Receive the Personnel Today Direct e-newsletter every Wednesday

OptOut
This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Today’s statistics related to a pay period when approximately 3.7 million employees were on furlough, fewer than last year’s data when 8.8 million employees were furloughed. ONS estimates include furloughed employees and are based on actual payments made to the employee from company payrolls and the hours on which this pay was calculated, which in the case of furloughed employees are their usual hours.

Diversity and inclusion opportunities on Personnel Today


Browse more Diversity and inclusion jobs

Rob Moss

Rob Moss is a business journalist with more than 25 years' experience. He has been editor of Personnel Today since 2010. He joined the publication in 2006 as online editor of the award-winning website. Rob specialises in labour market economics, gender diversity and family-friendly working. He has hosted hundreds of webinar and podcasts. Before writing about HR and employment he ran news and feature desks on publications serving the global optical and eyewear market, the UK electrical industry, and energy markets in Asia and the Middle East.

previous post
Campaign raises awareness of musculoskeletal disorder risks
next post
What the Stuart Delivery case tells us about the right of substitution

You may also like

Period pain and absence harm women’s pay and...

13 May 2025

Tackling suspect gender pay gap data

30 Apr 2025

What will reward look like in 2035?

28 Apr 2025

Link between reduced gender pay gap and revenue...

4 Apr 2025

Have group litigation claims advanced pay equality?

26 Mar 2025

Sullivan Review shows how ‘sex’ has been purged...

20 Mar 2025

Ethnicity and disability pay gap reporting: Lessons from...

18 Mar 2025

Equality at work: ‘Men are out of touch’

28 Feb 2025

Accenture scraps DEI goals globally

7 Feb 2025

Gender pay gap ‘won’t close until 2065’

22 Jan 2025

  • 2025 Employee Communications Report PROMOTED | HR and leadership...Read more
  • The Majority of Employees Have Their Eyes on Their Next Move PROMOTED | A staggering 65%...Read more
  • Prioritising performance management: Strategies for success (webinar) WEBINAR | In today’s fast-paced...Read more
  • Self-Leadership: The Key to Successful Organisations PROMOTED | Eletive is helping businesses...Read more
  • Retaining Female Talent: Four Ways to Reduce Workplace Drop Out PROMOTED | International Women’s Day...Read more

Personnel Today Jobs
 

Search Jobs

PERSONNEL TODAY

About us
Contact us
Browse all HR topics
Email newsletters
Content feeds
Cookies policy
Privacy policy
Terms and conditions

JOBS

Personnel Today Jobs
Post a job
Why advertise with us?

EVENTS & PRODUCTS

The Personnel Today Awards
The RAD Awards
Employee Benefits
Forum for Expatriate Management
OHW+
Whatmedia

ADVERTISING & PR

Advertising opportunities
Features list 2025

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • Linkedin


© 2011 - 2025 DVV Media International Ltd

Personnel Today
  • Home
    • All PT content
  • Email sign-up
  • Topics
    • HR Practice
    • Employee relations
    • Learning & training
    • Pay & benefits
    • Wellbeing
    • Recruitment & retention
    • HR strategy
    • HR Tech
    • The HR profession
    • Global
    • All HR topics
  • Legal
    • Case law
    • Commentary
    • Flexible working
    • Legal timetable
    • Maternity & paternity
    • Shared parental leave
    • Redundancy
    • TUPE
    • Disciplinary and grievances
    • Employer’s guides
  • AWARDS
    • Personnel Today Awards
    • The RAD Awards
  • Jobs
    • Find a job
    • Jobs by email
    • Careers advice
    • Post a job
  • Brightmine
    • Learn more
    • Products
    • Free trial
    • Request a quote
  • Webinars
  • Advertise
  • OHW+