Written by Sinead Crews and Carolyn Cohn
LONDON (Reuters) – Salaries at 21 companies surveyed by Reuters say some of Britain's biggest financial firms are making efforts to hire more women for higher-paying senior roles. The data showed that women are paid an average of 28.8% less than men. .
Banks, asset managers and insurance companies across the UK are grappling with closing the long-standing gender pay gap, largely due to an increase in the number of men in top jobs with big bonuses. On the other hand, this is due to the increasing proportion of women working for low wages. Part-time or junior job with little or no bonus.
According to Reuters calculations based on pay data, the gap at top financial services firms has narrowed by two percentage points since a year ago, but is still much higher than the average for all UK industries (10.7% last year). In a British government investigation.
Since 2017 in the UK, companies with more than 250 employees have been required to disclose the difference in pay and bonuses between male and female employees. The deadline for disclosing data for April 2023 was April 4.
Many large financial firms are struggling to attract and retain women in key roles, hindering the pace of change across the industry and, in some cases, not improving the situation. .
At Goldman Sachs' London international division, the average gender pay gap in 2023 rose to 54% from 53.2% a year earlier, still the largest of 21 large financial employers whose data was reviewed by Reuters. There is.
A Goldman spokesperson said: “Importantly, this gender pay gap report does not take into account pay in similar roles or tenure, but we are committed to increasing the representation of women at our most senior levels. We know we need to work harder to achieve this.”
Insurer Admiral reported an average pay gap of 13.5% in 2023, the smallest gap in the data it looked at.
slow progress
The slow pace of progress raises questions about why the gap isn't closing sooner.
Anne Franke, chief executive of the Chartered Management Institute, told Reuters: “Employers in the financial sector need to understand why women don't reach top positions and get paid for the work they do. “We need to ask ourselves tough questions about why we can't do that,” he told Reuters.
HSBC has revealed that the average pay gap across all its UK operations in 2023 will be 43.2%. In 2022, the average difference in income between women and men was reported to be 45.2%.
According to HSBC, more than half of the bank's staff are women, and 62% of them are in junior positions. As of April 5, 2023, just under one-third of the company's senior leadership team was female, an increase of 1.4 percentage points compared to 2022.
Morgan Stanley's average pay gap across UK employees narrowed from 40.8% to 40.1%, while Barclays' average pay gap narrowed by 2.3 percentage points to 33.6% in 2023.
JPMorgan revealed that the average pay gap fell by 1.5 percentage points to 26.1%. According to the Bank of the United States, the proportion of women in senior positions in the UK was 29.5% as of February 2024, the highest level since 2018.
Standard Chartered's average pay gap narrowed by the most percentage points of all banks surveyed by Reuters, to 22% in 2023 from 29% a year earlier.
The Asia-focused bank reported positive trends, with women in leadership roles increasing from 25% in December 2016 to 32.5% by the end of December 2023.
Aviva said the average pay gap between insurance companies and asset managers in 2023 fell to 21.3% from 24.3% the previous year. Mr. Abdoun revealed that in 2023, it will shrink by 3.9 percentage points to 24.8%. However, Legal & General said the pay gap has widened, reaching 21.3% in 2023 from 20.9% a year ago.
“Penalties against children”
All companies said in their reports on the gender pay gap that the gap reflected the underrepresentation of women in senior roles and that they were taking steps to address this.
The UK Government established the Treasury Charter for Women in Finance in March 2016 to encourage the financial services industry to improve gender balance in senior roles.
The Charter currently has more than 400 signatories, covering approximately 1.3 million employees.
An annual report released last month by think tank New Financial showed that signatory countries had increased the proportion of women in senior positions from an average of 34% in 2022 to an average of 35% in 2023.
At this pace, the average number of charter signatories should reach parity by 2038, but not in all areas, the report says.
Analysis by the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) shows that much of the UK's gender pay gap reflects a 'child penalty', with women's average earnings falling sharply once they become parents.
Seven years after the birth of their first child, women on average earn less than half of what men earn, according to IFS research.
CMI's Franke said all industries are facing a greater impact from slow or uneven progress in tackling pay inequality, whether it's fines, restricted access to government or public sector jobs or “naming and shaming”. He said it was necessary to face it.
“The evidence shows that companies that represent a broader range of people at all levels, including at the top table, make better decisions and drive better outcomes,” Franke said.
“That alone should be enough motivation to drive the changes needed to close the gender pay gap.”
Reuters also looked at gender pay data from Bank of America, Citi, Deutsche, Lloyds, Nationwide, NatWest Bank, UBS, M&G, Phoenix, Schroders Investment Management and St James's Place.
(Reporting by Sinead Crews and Carolyn Cohn in London; Editing by Anusha Sakowi and Jane Merriman)
