Why are we paying men who work part-time less than part-time women?

Glen Poole examines why part-time men are earning less than part-time women on average. 

Last month we revealed that the biggest gender pay gap for people under 40 is experienced by men who work part-time and we looked at the selective use of statistics that keeps this fact hidden from the general public.

This week we decided to take a closer look at the part-time gender pay gap and discovered that in every age bracket, the average man who works part time will earn less than the average woman who works full time per hour.

There are currently around 2 million men working part time in the UK. Here we provide 5 little known facts about the part-time gender pay gaps that impact men based on figures from the Department of Culture Media and Sport and the Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE).

1. Men who work part-time earn less than part-time women

According to the Government’s provisional figures for 2013, the average median pay for men who work part-time across all age groups is £7.90 per hour, compared with £8.40 for women.

This equates to a 5.4% gender pay gap in favour of women. Using the same calculation for full-time workers, the average median pay for men who work full-time across all age groups is £13.73 per hour, compared with £12.15 for women (a gender pay gap of 11.5%).

	Women	Men	Pay Gap
Full-time workers average hourly pay	£12.15	£13.73	11.5%
Part-time workers average hourly pay	£8.40	£7.90	5.4%

Put simply, men who work part-time earn less per hour on average than women who work part-time.
2. The part-time pay penalty is 58% bigger for men than women

When you look at the gaps between full-time pay and part-time pay for men and women, it’s clear that the gap for men is considerably larger.

Men who work part-time experience a pay gap of 42.1% compared to men who work full time, while women who work part-time experience a gap of 26.7%.

	Full Time	Part Time	Pay Gap
Men’s average hourly pay	£13.73	£7.90	42.1%
Women’s average hourly pay	£12.15	£8.40	26.7%
Differential	11.5%	5.5%	57.7%

Put simply, men who work part time will fall further behind their full-time peers, in terms of their earnings, than women who work part time.

3. The part-time pay gap is bigger for men who work in the private sector

When we compare the public and private sector we find that the majority of part-time workers are found in the private sector. This is particularly noticeable for men who are four times more likely to be working part-time in the private sector than the public sector.

The average median pay for the 1.2 million men who work part-time in the private sector across all age groups is £7.13 per hour, compared with £7.33 for the 2.9 million women who work part-time in the private sector, a gender pay gap of 2.7%.

There are also 291,000 men working part time in the public sector, accounting for 14.2% of the part-time workforce. They earn 17.5% more than the 1.8 million who work part-time in the public sector on average. This is presumably because of the large number of women working part-time in lower paid, public sector jobs such as childcare and social care.

There are a further 200,000 men and 582,000 women who work part time and not classified as working in either the public or the private sector.

	Men	Women	Pay Gap
Private sector part-time hourly pay	£7.13	£7.33	2.9%
Public sector part-time hourly pay	£12.70	£10.48	17.5%
Unclassified	£10.76	£9.26	13.9%

Put simply, most part-time men work in the private sector and they earn 2.9% less per hour than their female colleagues.

4. The part-time pay gap for men is found across multiple occupations

The tendency for men to earn less per hour when they work part time is found across nearly all occupations. The only exception is the professions where both men and women who work part-time earn more than colleagues of the same sex who are working full time.

One of the key cause of the gender pay gap is the fact that more women work part time and end up earning less than the majority of male colleagues who are more likely to work full time. This trend is repeated in reverse with men who work part time earning less per hour than female colleagues who work full time.

The biggest gender pay gaps for part-time men (compared with full-time women) are found at management level (8.4%) and amongst administrative staff (11.2%).

Job Types	Part-Time Men	Full-Time Women	Pay Gap
Managerial	£15.06	£16.44	8.4%
Professional	£21.64	£18.49	17%
Technical	£12.59	£13.53	6.9%
Administrative	£8.75	£9.85	11.2%
Skilled trades	£7.50	£7.97	5.9%
Leisure and care	£8.03	£8.25	2.7%
Sales and customer service	£6.85	£7.14	4.1%
Process, plant and machine operatives	£7.55	£7.61	0.8%
Elementary occupations	£6.48	£6.69	3.2%

Put simply, men who work part-time earn less than male and female colleagues who work full time in all occupations except for the professions.

5. The part-time pay gap is biggest for men in their thirties

Men who work part-time earn 5.4% less than part-time women on average, based on median hourly pay. However, the part-time gender pay gap varies with age. For part-time men, for example, the biggest gap occurs in 30-39 age group where the gender pay gap is 7.8%.

Another notable difference is that the part-time male workforce continues to increase its average earning power throughout their career, rising from a pay of £6.50 per hour in the teen years to £9.86 per hour at 60+.

Part-time female workers follow a different earnings trajectory rising more rapidly from £6.40 per hour in the teen years to a peak of £9.40 in the 30-39 age range. After 40, part-time women continue to earn more than the under 30s, but earn increasingly less each decade, falling back to £8.65 per hour at 60+.

This is presumably due the seniority of part-time positions that men over 40 take on when compared with women.

AGE	Male Part Time	Female Part Time	Pay Gap
All Ages	£7.95	£8.40	5.4%
18-21	£6.50	£6.40	1.5%
22-29	£7.40	£7.47	0.9%
30-39	£8.67	£9.40	7.8%
40-49	£9.70	£9.00	7.2%
50-59	£9.81	£8.97	8.6%
60+	£9.86	£8.65	12.3%

Put simply, men who work part-time earn 5.4% less per hour than part-time women on average, but men’s part-time earnings improve slowly with age for men.

—Photo Credit: Flickr/Mary Hutchinson

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Article by Glen Poole author of the book Equality For Men

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