UK employers need to recruit and retain senior women to close the gender pay gap

Analysis by the Financial Times shows that 80% of UK employers pay men more than women.

Jana Hlistova

Apr 09, 2023

Welcome to our #170 weekly newsletter.

“For women taking control of their financial future”

-Jana Hlistova

From The Purse

In this week’s newsletter, we focus on the Financial Times analysis which shows that 80% of UK employers pay men more than women.

The data also tells us that the gender pay gap was higher than the figures collected last year and over the last six years.

In the main, the figures reflect the under-representation of women in senior roles. However we know that retaining women is often a struggle for companies.

Change needs to start at the top. So unless the CEO and C-suite is incentivised to drive change in their business, progress will continue to be slow.

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And you can review the news in brief so you stay on top of global financial, economic and investing trends.

I hope you enjoy this week’s newsletter.

Until next week,

Jana

UK employers need to recruit and retain senior women to close the gender pay gap

Analysis by the Financial Times shows that 80% of UK employers pay men more than women.

According to analysis by the Financial Times, 80% of UK employers pay men more than women on average in their organisation.

And the FT’s analysis of this year’s data shows that the average gap was unchanged from last year: 12.2% (2022-23) vs 11.9% (2017-18). Plus the gender pay gap was higher than the figures collected last year and six years ago.

Ann Francke, chief executive at Chartered Management Institute, said the following to the Financial Times:

“Organisations think and say they’re doing the right thing to advance gender equality in the workplace — but when it comes to taking action on the gender pay gap, evidence suggests they are failing to deliver..”

Certain industries have a wider gender pay gap than others. The financial services industry and tech, for example, have a much wider gender pay gap than say the health and social work sector.

Banks had the largest gap among finance companies employing 20,000 or more.

For example, the gender pay gap at HSBC, which has a smaller workforce in its ringfenced UK business, jumped from 29% in 2017-18 to 51.5% in 2022-23.

The UK arm of the US investment bank Goldman Sachs reported a gender pay gap of 53.2%, the largest among major finance employers, and up from 51.3%.

Morgan Stanley's UK arm's gap widened to 40.8%, up from 40.5%, while Standard Chartered's gap increased to 29% from 27%.

At the banks that disclosed their pay gaps by ethnicity, the gap was biggest between black staff and their white colleagues.

All four banks said that the figures reflected the under-representation of women in senior roles, and said they were taking steps to address this.

Retaining women is often a challenge for companies….

…and the pandemic put women under considerable pressure as they juggled working from home and shouldered the majority of the household chores and childcare.

Women often carry the mental load and emotional burden at work and in the home. They also have to contend with gender bias and gender discrimination (at work), which leads to greater strain, higher levels of stress and can result in burnout.

To avoid what is often referred to as a ‘leaky pipe’, companies must actively cultivate a female talent pipeline, promote top female performers faster, pay them fairly all within a female-friendly environment.

Many senior women leave the workplace in their 50s because of the menopause- whether they are aware of it or not. Ironically, this is often at the peak of their career.

Meanwhile businesses haemorrhage talent and money (because of it). And often they are in the dark about the real reason senior women are leaving the workplace.

1bn+ women globally will be in menopause by 2025.

Change needs to start at the top.

So unless the CEO and C-suite is incentivised to drive change in their organisation, progress will continue to be slow.

But a business which perpetuates gender imbalance at the senior level is ultimately exposed to more risk, is less profitable and less sustainable than its competitors.

The data proves that companies which have gender balance on the board and in the C-suite have superior performance, limit risk and become more sustainable over the long-term.

And according to Denise Wilson, chief executive of the FTSE Women Leaders Review:

“There is no shortage of capable women willing to take on bigger roles. Removing bias from the selection process remains key to progress, along with a more female-friendly workplace culture, equal parenting and affordable childcare.”

What next? (Re) listen to The Purse Podcast:

Financial news

Gold jumps 1.8% to $2021/oz, just 1.4% shy of an ATH on a weaker Dollar as Fed tightening assumptions faded, with market now pricing in a 4.13% year-end Fed Funds Rate, down 17bps vs. Monday.
Global economy set for years of weak growth, IMF chief Georgieva warns. World to expand at average annual rate of ~3% over next 5yrs, well below average 3.8% of past 2 decades and weakest projection for medium-term growth since 1990. But IMF not good at forecasting.
To put things into perspective: This year's tech rally mainly driven by Big Tech firms, so the spread between Nasdaq 100 and the Nasdaq Composite, which captures the performance of the nearly 3,000 stocks is the widest in history.
US 2 year yields jump after solid US jobs report ad bond traders betting that the Fed has one more rate hike (0.25%) to go as the economy shows resilience despite recent banking turmoil.
Fed balance sheet fell by $73.6bn to $8.63tn in past week as banks trim emergency borrowing from Fed due to stabilisation in banking system. Financial institutions drew $149bn, down from $154bn previous week and $164bn 2 weeks ago. Decrease in Fed balance sheet primarily driven by QT.
Global food costs mark 1 year of drops, at odds with inflation. UN FAO’s global food index drops to the lowest since July 2021 BUT there is still little sign it's actually feeding through to grocery shelves.
Eurozone banks are also borrowing money from the ECB discount window, although the so-called Marginal Rate is at 3.75%, well above the Main Refi Rate of 3.5%. Banks raised €168m from ECB discount window in the past week, €111m more than the previous week.
Bank of England ‘may need to cut interest rates earlier and faster’. MPC member Silvana Tenreyro expects such a move ‘to avoid significant inflation undershoot’.
Four out of five companies and organisations in the UK still pay their male employees more than female ones.

Crypto: bitcoin, ethereum, DeFi & NFTs

Digital Gold, aka Bitcoin rallied in tandem with analogue Gold.
Bitcoin traders expect 'big move' next as BTC price flatlines at $28k. Bitcoin stays stuck in an ever-decreasing trading range, but market participants are already eyeing a potentially explosive resolution for BTC price.
ETH Crosses $1,900 for the first time since August. ETH rallies ahead of major network upgrades ie the Shanghai and Capella upgrades, which will allow ETH stakers to begin to withdraw their tokens for the first time.
Dogecoin drops sharply after Twitter blue bird returns. The coin surged by over 20% when the logo was first added, but has since returned to its pre-logo value of $0.086.
SushiSwap hacked, Head Chef says 'revoke all chains'. This has led to a loss of more than $3.3 million from at least one user, known as 0xSifu on Twitter.
Former BitMEX CEO Arthur Hayes calls his Maelstrom Capital a ‘very patient’ fund. Hayes wants Maelstrom to outperform bitcoin and ether, which won’t be easy.
Metaverse fashion week: last week’s event plummeted in attendance from 2022. But it may have offered clues towards a path forward for brands in the virtual realm.
Unreleased David Bowie recording to debut as music NFT. Now, a never-before-heard version of his hit 1983 song “Let’s Dance” is being released via a limited series of NFTs.
Apple hiding a bitcoin manifesto in Macs is fuelling theories that Steve Jobs was Satoshi Nakamoto, the crypto's mysterious inventor.

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