It’s International Women’s Day, so we thought we’d take a look at how the employment rate, conditions and the gender pay gap have changed for women across time.
The Labour Force Survey (LFS) and the Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE) allow us to research a number of employment-related topics. We can compare women’s employment types, conditions and the gender pay gap over time, for example.
LFS is one of the largest UK surveys, and a unique source of information about employment, unemployment and economic inactivity – alongside related topics such as occupation, training, hours of work and personal characteristics of household members aged 16 years and over. The UK Data Service holds over 300 LFS studies dating back to 1975 (available at various levels of access including Nesstar and Secure Lab).
ASHE is one of the largest surveys of individuals’ earnings in the UK, and includes data on the wages, paid hours of work, and pension arrangements of nearly 1% of the working population. (These are sensitive data, which are accessed through our remote Secure Lab).
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) publishes frequent statistical bulletins about employment in the UK, and offers a good understanding of how employment in general, conditions and types of employment have changed across the years.
Source: Office for National Statistics – UK labour market: February 2019
According to the UK Labour Market: February 2019 report, based on the Quarterly Labour Force Survey data (October-December 2018), the employment rate for women has reached a new record, 71.4%, the highest since records began in 1971. Unemployment for women reached the lowest level since 1971: 3.9%. The October to December 2018 estimates show that there were only 617,000 unemployed women – 68,000 down on October to December 2017.
The report argues that the increase in the employment rate for women in recent years has been partly influenced by ongoing changes to the state pension age for women, and fewer women retiring between 60-65 years old.
Source: Office for National Statistics – Labour market economic commentary: February 2019
As this graph shows, women’s economic activity has seen a dramatic increase (from 3.3% in September to November 1995 to 7.8% in September to December 2018). Also, the increase has accelerated significantly between 2008 and 2015 – a possible response to the changes introduced by the Pensions Act amendments.
The ONS statistical bulletin Gender pay gap in the UK: 2018, based on ASHE data, provides in-depth insight into the gender pay gap over time. This is calculated as the difference between average hourly earnings (excluding overtime) of men and women – so a 2.0% gender pay gap means that women earn 2.0% less per hour, on average, than men. A negative -2.0% gender pay gap would mean that women earn 2.0% more, on average, then men.
Source: Gender pay gap in the UK: 2018
The full-time gender pay gap has decreased constantly from 17.4% in 1998 to 8.6% in 2018, the lowest yet recorded. The gender pay gap among all employees (including part-time and full-time) is higher (17.9%) because more women work in part-time jobs, which are lower paid – but it, too, has fallen considerably (it was 27.5% in 1998).
Source: Gender pay gap in the UK: 2018
At a regional level, we can see that the gender pay gap has fallen in all regions since 1998. Two interesting aspects are that:
- in Northern Ireland the pay gap is now in favour of women (negative 3.5%)
- for two decades the gender pay gap in London has remained almost the same, and in 2018 the capital had the widest gender pay gap in the UK at 13.7%.
So, while there is still progress to be made to achieve #BalanceforBetter, we can celebrate International Women’s Day with the news that in 2018 the employment rate for women in the UK hit a record high (71.4%), while the gender pay gap has decreased in all UK regions, hitting the lowest ever recorded for full-time work (8.6%).