Women earning 3.6% more than males under reverse gender pay gap that has existed in north for a decade, researchers state

Women were paid more than men in the north last year due to a reverse gender pay gap that bucks a trend reported in the south, Britain and much of the world.
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Stormont researchers report this has been the case for the more than a decade.

“The difference in male and female pay has moved from males earning 11.7% per hour more than females in 2000, to females earning 3.6% more than males in 2020. This reverse gender pay gap has existed in NI for 11 years. In the UK as a whole, males working full-time earned 7.4% more than full-time female workers 2020,” researchers Michael Scholes and Aidan Stennett report.

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They point out that the NI Statistics and Research Agency uses FT median hourly pay – excluding overtime – as their headline measure of gender pay differentials. This, they warn, can disguise a more complex picture that emerges when measures outside full-time hourly pay are examined.

A reverse gender pay gap has existed in NI for 11 years, researchers have stated.A reverse gender pay gap has existed in NI for 11 years, researchers have stated.
A reverse gender pay gap has existed in NI for 11 years, researchers have stated.

“There is a GPG in terms of gross annual pay, weekly pay, hourly pay for all employees, hourly private sector pay and hourly public sector pay. Indeed in terms of gross annual pay, this is quite signicant – i.e. females earn 31.1% less than males.

“Hourly pay for all employees also shows a signficant gap; with male employees earning 8.2% more than female employees. NISRA explains that the main reason higher hourly earning for all male employees for this is due to the ‘part-time effect’, stating that: ‘These higher earnings are primarily due to a larger proportion of males (84% compared with 57% of females) in full-time work, which has higher hourly rates of pay on average than part-time employment and proportionately fewer low paid jobs.’”

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