Women working full time in Manchester last year saw their wages increase at a rate five times lower than their male peers.
According to data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS), the mean year-on-year percentage increase for men’s pay in the city was 7.8%, compared to 1.5% for women.
The salaries of full-time female workers not increasing parallel to their male colleagues’ is just one element of the wider gender pay gap issue.
In Manchester, the mean pay for women in full-time work in 2024 was £39,714, while men were paid £52,577. With a 24% difference, this statistic is higher than the average UK pay gap of 20% and significantly so from the 18% North West figure.
Despite the nation’s capital and most expensive city, London, retaining the highest level of wage disparity, its 31% gap is not far off its northern counterpart.
Greater Manchester
There was significant variation between boroughs in Greater Manchester, where the divide narrowed slightly to 21% from the city.
Bury had the most room for improvement, with a wage gap of 26%, while Salford’s 12% figure was the most modest, with the area also seeing the highest annual wage increase for women (12%).
In Oldham, females received a higher percentage increase in pay than males at 10.8% and 10.4% respectively, but the wage gap remained considerable at 19%.
Meanwhile, Wigan was the only metropolitan borough in the region where women earned less than last year, with a mean percentage change of -0.3%, while male colleagues saw an 8.9% rise on their payslip.
Why the gap?
The gender pay gap gives us insight into the economic position of women and is the result of a plethora of sociological factors.
These include an overrepresentation of women in low-paying roles and industries and male domination at the highest professional levels.
Research into the gap can help us understand why women collectively earn lower salaries than men.
The gender pay gap and pay inequality are not synonymous, but for GMB union organiser Kellie O’Dowd, they are rooted in the same societal prejudices.
Speaking to Mancunian Matters, she said: “Equal pay addresses the gender pay gap. If we are tackling gender pay inequality, we are also tackling the gender pay gap.”
Equal pay, on the other hand, is the term used to address gender pay discrimination. This means that employers cannot pay men and women different wages for doing the same job.
Although this practice was outlawed in 1970, pay inequality still exists where predominantly female workforces are paid less than predominantly male workforces despite the work carried out by both parties being of “equal value.”
GMB is facilitating the largest ever private sector equal pay claim, which centres on the fact that retail employees in Asda, most of whom are female, are paid up to £3.74 per hour less than warehouse workers who are mainly male.
In September 2024, more than 60,000 Asda employees took their case to the Employment Tribunal to argue that work of equal value deserves parity in pay, with dozens of workers demonstrating in Manchester City Centre to mark the case beginning at the Civil Justice Centre.
Belfast-based O’Dowd said that jobs that are likely to be taken on by women are “undervalued and underpaid”, noting that females must often shoulder domestic work on top of a career, creating pay inequalities.
This includes the “three Cs” – cooking, cleaning and childcare – which O’Dowd said would be valued at £1.1 trillion a year if quantified.
According to the founder member of Reclaim the Agenda, the organising committee for feminist action in Northern Ireland, one of the best defences marginalised communities have against pay inequality is unionisation.
“It’s about collectivism and it’s about standing up to bosses. Unions are the last line of defence for a society that tries to demonise working people for demanding a decent standard of living.
“Why should individuals have to tackle this issue when trade unions can do that through collective bargaining? Legislation is there, it’s just not being used and individuals are supposed to look for remedies alone. Why should those who are being exploited have to also address this exploitation individually, when we can do it together through the trade union movement?
“If you’re a woman, working class and/or a person of colour and you’re in the workplace, you should be a member of a union because we can tackle all these issues together, which will lead to a better society for us all.”
Bridging the gap
Despite Manchester’s payroll chasm being wider than other places, the region’s public sector is not the main culprit, with the latest data from Manchester City Council, Greater Manchester Combined Authority, Transport for Greater Manchester and Greater Manchester Police reporting pay gaps below the national average.
According to a report published by the House of Commons Library in November 2024, the worst offenders are the financial and insurance industries.
Safiya Mahmood, a graduate working in the finance department at an engineering firm, said she sees “people working to try and change” male domination throughout the sector, but that the drive for reform is not “as big as it should be”.
“Right now, people my age in my position don’t have as many female leaders to look up to,” she said.
Mahmood explained that a lack of female mentors in male dominated sectors can lead to poorer financial and professional outcomes for women, who may not feel encouraged to enter high-paying roles or put themselves forward for promotion.
She said: “We’re experiencing four generations working in an office together for the first time in history.
“Stakeholders are often male and part of an older generation, perhaps with an older mindset [about gender in the workplace], so it would be very helpful for women who have [gained leadership roles] before us to set an example.”
Mahmood also discussed how women are often pigeonholed to fit a certain personality type at work – one which may lead to a rung-less career ladder.
“In the past, it was men who typically went for high-paying roles, so [success] often isn’t about your knowledge, it’s also about how you present yourself,” she explained.
“For so long, there’s been the idea that these jobs are reserved for men in suits, but we’re now in a generation that’s fighting that stigma.
“Sometimes fighting battles means showing your teeth a bit, which men feel more comfortable doing, because if a woman does it, she runs the risk of gaining a bad reputation among her colleagues.”
Regulations introduced in 2017 made it a legal requirement for public, private and voluntary organisations with 250 or more employees to publish annual gender pay gap reports.
As companies undergo public scrutiny, some fare worse than others.
At veterinary group Linnaeus, women hold the vast majority of board member positions, but their median hourly pay was 47.5% lower than men’s in 2023-24.
A Linnaeus spokesperson said: “To help us address historic gender gaps across our business, we have focused programmes in place to support our talent pipeline, which include a framework that enables nursing staff to access training to further their careers in the industry.”
Last year, the UK gender pay gap widened for the first time since 2021. Evidently, legislation can only do so much, and it seems that in Manchester and across the country, tackling patriarchal stigma in the workplace continues to be an uphill battle.
Feature image via Pexels
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