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Has the Equal Pay Act Worked?
Some Data
We need some statistics to help us compare wages. Let us look at the rates of
pay for men and women in Britain. Table 1 gives the figures for April 1978.
| |
Men |
Women |
| Average gross weekly earnings |
£86.90 |
£55.40 |
| Average weekly hours |
43.1 |
37.5 |
| Average gross hourly earnings |
£2.04 |
£1.48 |
Full-time men aged 21 and over, and full-time women aged 18 and
over.
The earnings of the self-emplyed are not included.
(Source: New
Earnings Survey)
Table 1 - Weekly and hourly rates of pay and hours worked,
April 1978
The figures are worked out using the total wages bill, the total number of
people working and the total number of hours worked by men and women.
- How do women's hours differ from men's?
- Why is it not fair to use weekly earnings to compare
men's pay with women's pay?
- Which figures give a fairer comparison?
- If women worked the same hours as men, what would be
their average weekly earnings?
- Men work more hours than women. How might this affect
average hourly rates of pay?
Do you think women are paid a fair wage compared with men? What extra
information do you need to help you decide?
Gross Pay
Table 1
gives AVERAGE GROSS weekly earnings. They are
based on the total wages bill and the number of people working.
There are three main types of 'average'- the mode, the median and the
mean.
The MODE is the most common wage.
The MEDIAN is the middle wage when they are put in order.
The MEAN is the total wage bill, divided by the number of workers.
- Which type of
average is used in Table 1?
'Gross earnings' means total pay before tax and national insurance
have been taken away.
'Net earnings' means pay that is taken home after all the deductions.
- Fred's gross pay is £80, and deductions come
to £20. What is Fred's net pay?
- Joan took home pay of £58. If the deductions
were £8, what was her gross pay?
- Which is more important when you plan your shopping - net pay or
gross pay?
- Why do you think that figures of net pay are not published?
Read the Footnotes
Tables of information can be misleading if you don't read the footnotes
carefully. There are two footnotes under Table 1.
- Read the first footnote under Table 1. Does it affect your answer to B1f?
Give reasons to support your answer.
Job
type |
Employee and age |
Hourly pay
rate |
| Men |
Women |
| 1 |
Adam (18 yrs) |
Alice (18 yrs) |
£1.00 |
| 1 |
Bill (21 yrs) |
Barbara (21 yrs) |
£1.30 |
| 2 |
Charles (32 yrs) |
Cheryl (32 yrs) |
£1.60 |
| 3 |
David (40 yrs) |
Diane (40 yrs) |
£1.90 |
Table 2 Ages of employees and rates of pay
in a small firm.
This example will show you the effect of
the first footnote. The pay rates of a small firm are given in Table 2. Job type 2
is more skilled than job type 1, so Charles is paid more than Barbara.
The Equal Pay Act says the men and women doing the
same job should be paid at the same rate.
- Does the firm keep the Equal Pay Act?
- Bill earns more than Adam, but both do the same job.
Give a reason why this might happen.
- Work out the mean pay rate of the men aged 21 and
over (exclude Adam).
- Work out the mean pay rate of the women aged 18 and
over.
- Which is the higher mean pay rate?
What effect does footnote 1 have on the mean pay rates given in Table 1?
- Young
men earn lower wages than older men. If we include the earnings of men aged
18-20, how would this affect the mean of men's earnings in Table 1?
The other footnote says:
'The earnings of the self-employed are not
included.'
- *How will this footnote affect the comparison of men's and
women's earnings?
Both these footnotes would only affect the figures slightly
overall.
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