Yoppie, the pioneers of personalised period care, has found that despite the UK having one of the strongest female workforces around the globe, the聽gender聽pay聽gap has widened in 2021.
34% of Women Form Part of the Global Workforce
There are an estimated 3.9 billion women in the world, 1.4 billion of whom are currently in employment, meaning that just over 34% of women form part of the global workforce.
The country with the largest percentage of its female population in employment is Singapore; of the 2.7 billion women in the nation, 1.5 billion (or 53.5%), are in employment.
New Zealand comes a close second with just under 53% of the female population in employment, followed by Canada (50.5%) and the Netherlands (49.7%).
The UK (48.1%) ranks 7th in the world, with the rest of the top ten consisting of China (49.3%), Australia (48.7%), Germany (47.7%), Japan (47.2%), and South Korea (46.7%).
At the other end of the scale, the five countries in which the lowest percentage of the female population are in employment are Algeria (11.2%), Egypt (11.8%), India (14.5%), Morocco (15%), and Saudi Arabia (15.6%)
Despite the UK鈥檚 high placement on the list, and relatively high percentage of women in the workforce, there remains a significant聽pay聽gap聽between female and male employees and, as of 2021, the UK鈥檚聽gender聽pay聽gap聽sits at 15.4%.
While much focus has been put on reducing the聽gender聽pay聽gap聽in recent years, Yoppie鈥檚 research shows it has actually increased from 14.9% in 2020. The only silver lining being that it鈥檚 still the second-smallest聽gap聽seen in the last decade.
Gender Pay Gap in the UK
The current UK聽pay聽gap聽also differs depending on the level of professional seniority under focus. The聽gap聽between men and women at managerial, director, and senior official level is currently 10.2%, up from 9.3% in 2020, suggesting that women in higher paid positions still earn far less than their male counterparts.
Interestingly, the聽pay聽gap聽for the rest of the nation鈥檚 professional occupations is slightly smaller, standing at 9.2% in 2021 having fallen from 10.1% in the last year – proof perhaps that businesses are ticking the聽gender聽pay聽gap聽box at lower levels of the employee hierarchy rather than addressing the issue in full.
Founder of聽Yoppie, Daniella Peri, commented:
鈥淚t鈥檚 reassuring to see that the UK ranks so highly in terms of the total number of women in employment. It鈥檚 quite easy to forget that this is the first step in creating workplace聽gender聽equality and unfortunately, there are still many women around the world who simply aren鈥檛 allowed to make this decision for themselves.
Of course, this still doesn鈥檛 justify the fact that the聽gender聽pay聽gap聽is still alive and well in the UK and it鈥檚 actually grown larger over the last year.
While the聽gap聽remains far smaller than at any point in the previous decade, an increase over the last year may suggest that many businesses are slipping back into old practices, having bowed somewhat to media pressure in previous years by rapidly increasing female earnings.鈥�
