Pay disparity isn’t just about the gender pay gap. A cycle of gender bias where each stage leads to the next is impacting women’s careers. We delve into the stages of The Gender Pay Trap, to understand its role in modern workplace culture. Since 2017, businesses with 250+ employees have been required to report on their gender pay gap each year. However, as of March 2020, mandatory reporting is no longer being enforced as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic. ONS data from 2019 suggests that the UK gender pay gap is at 17%. This is little changed from recent years, although across the last two decades, the gap has been decreasing overall. In some cases, the gap has actually widened since mandatory reporting began. Even with the changes and challenges Covid-19 has brought, it’s important to keep talking about and addressing inequalities in the workplace. And when it comes to gender inequality at work, it’s not only about mapping the UK’s gender pay gap. Our latest research has identified a cycle of hidden gender bias, where each stage contributes to the next, ultimately perpetuating pay disparity at work. We gathered insights from thousands of UK workers, to take an in-depth look at the domino effect we’re calling The Gender Pay Trap.

Salary expectations

The gender pay gap (the difference between the salaries of men and women, on average, across a business, a region, or an industry) is influenced by a range of factors. One factor is women’s salary expectations. Our research of over 5,000 workers tells us that women typically expect a salary of £7,430 less than men in 2020. On average, women expect to earn £25,495, whilst men expect £32,925  That’s a 29% difference. If, on average, women have lower salary expectations, then what they accept is also lower. Our research suggests women are more likely to feel uncomfortable compared to men when it comes to asking for a pay rise, while previous Totaljobs research with Robert Walters found that over half (57%) of women have never negotiated their salary. Almost three quarters (73%) of women feel uncomfortable, while 56% of men cite the same. A third of women also note that a lack of confidence impacts them when it comes to salary conversations, with almost same amount (28%) believing it’s not part of their company culture to ask for a raise. A further 20% want to avoid damaging their relationship with their manager by bringing up money matters.

Impact of the Covid-19 pandemic

While the Covid-19 pandemic has had significant impact on businesses and people across the UK, more women believe they are held back by a lack of confidence when it comes to asking for a raise. Compared to the third of women who are lacking confidence, fewer (29%) cite the pandemic as a factor that dissuades them from asking for higher pay.

Pay rises and bonuses

When it comes to bonuses and pay rises when in a job, there are also discrepancies. Although the same proportion of men and women receive pay rises, men received an extra 29% compared to women. That remains in line with our research in 2016, when the pay rise gap was 28%. Bonuses are different, with men more likely to receive these, at 37%, compared to 30% of women. The amount received in bonuses is even bigger, with men on average receiving 69% more. This has decreased from 82% in 2016, but clearly there’s still a way to go. Representation partly plays a role in the bonus pay gap. Roles or industries where receiving bonuses is an inherent part of the company reward system are more likely to have higher levels of male representation. Many industries are looking into why they may be seen as less appealing for different genders, by tackling misconceptions and looking at the diversity of their talent pools.

Job dissatisfaction

Totaljobs research with Robert Walters shows that 54% of women are unsatisfied with their pay. It’s no surprise that lower salaries and lower reward lead to lower job satisfaction. Employees are twice as likely to be unhappy in their jobs if they think their employer doesn’t pay fairly. With this, 1 in 5 people say they would quit their job if they discovered a colleague of the opposite gender earned more for similar work – even in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Knowledge gaps

Our research revealed differences in the way that men and women encounter, and think about, gender bias. Generally, women are more likely to recognise the impact of gender bias. Only 4 in 10 (43%) of women think their employer pays everyone fairly, compared to 47% of men. With this, half (51%) of men and half of women believe their employer promotes equality. In general, workers are lacking trust when it comes to the steps employers are taking to tackle gender pay disparity and to promote equality. There’s still a need for greater transparency around the actions being taken. Even with mandatory reporting of gender pay gaps in the UK in 2017, our research suggests many UK workers are still unsure about what this means exactly. Of the 7 in 10 people who have heard of the ‘gender pay gap’, 82% couldn’t correctly define it. There’s still more to be done to ensure teams understand the implications of the gender pay gap, how it’s calculated, what it means, and what factors influence it. Only then can businesses be confident in the proactive steps they’re taking to close the pay gap.

Gender bias in job adverts

When candidates look at jobs, it’s not just relevant skills they’ll be looking out for, or the responsibilities of the role they’re considering. It’s also how they relate to that ad. We all have our own unconscious biases, based on our experiences of the world, our upbringing, our peers and even the media we engage with. Gender bias occurs when we favour one gender over another, most often as a result of prejudice or historical stereotypes we can confidently say we have shifted away from, but that can still influence us on an unconscious level. Totaljobs research into gender bias in job ads is based on a 2011 academic study by Duke University and University of Waterloo. It found that people are less likely to respond to job ads that have words biased in favour of the opposite gender. We found that industries which have an over-representation of men or women tend to use language that reflects that. This means the cycle of low gender representation in certain industries continues. For example, in recent years there have been increasing calls to improve the representation of women in STEM. Science is one industry that might be considered historically male dominated – and as a result, job adverts for this sector contain more male-coded language. This in turn unconsciously puts women off applying. Social care, on the other hand, has high female representation, and job adverts in this industry typically include more female-coded language than others. Interestingly, there is also gender bias across seniority levels. More experienced, higher ranking roles contain more male-biased language, reflecting the lack of representation of women on leadership teams, or at senior manager level. Whereas, ‘Assistant’ level roles are more likely to be female-coded. These discrepancies don’t mean that a woman wouldn’t describe herself using historically ‘male-coded’ language – like ‘leader’, ‘analytical’ or ‘confident’. Or that men wouldn’t describe themselves as ‘supportive’, ‘dependable’ or ‘responsible’, typically ‘female-coded’ words. It means that we can all still fall foul of historical gender stereotypes, on an unconscious level.

Reviewing gender-biased language in job ads

We created the Gender Bias Decoder to help identify gendered words in job ads and to make people aware of the unintentional effects of language, to ensure that qualified people aren’t unconsciously discouraged from applying. Language might not be something we think of in great detail when we think of the wider picture of gender inequality and the gender pay gap. But, by understanding how historical context is still something that impacts our own internal biases, we can shift the scales.

How the Gender Bias Decoder works

Simply paste your job advert into the Decoder and our tech will highlight any words associated with gender stereotypes, based on academic research. From there, it’s up to you what you do with the information. It’s not always a case of removing coded language – many words come with their own bias, and individuals may respond differently. You can aim to balance the job advert evenly between male and female-coded language. Find out more about the stages of the Gender Pay Trap.