Gender Pay Gap
What is the Gender Pay Gap?
The gender pay gap is an equality measure that shows the difference in average earnings between women and men.
The gender pay gap does not show differences in pay for comparable jobs. Unequal pay for men and women has been illegal for 45 years.
What are the causes of the Gender Pay Gap?
The causes of the gender pay gap are complex and overlapping:
- A higher proportion of women choose occupations that offer less financial reward (e.g. administration). Many high paying sectors are disproportionately made up of male workers (e.g. information and communications technology).
- A much higher proportion of women work part-time, and part-time workers earn less than their full-time counterparts on average.
- Women are still less likely to progress up the career ladder into high paying senior roles.
Gender Pay Gap reporting
From 2017 onwards, gender pay reporting legislation requires all employers with 250 or more employees to publish statutory calculations on its gender pay gap in six different ways:
- The mean gender pay gap
- The mean gender bonus gap
- The median gender pay gap
- The median gender bonus gaps
- The number of men and women according to quartile pay bands
- The proportion of men and women who received bonuses
As an employer, Bolton Council does not pay bonuses to its staff, so we do not publish figures on this.
Our Gender Pay Gap information is published in our annual Gender Pay Gap Reports. All reports can be accessed on our Pay and Organisational Structure downloads page.