08/04/03

Women Choose to have lower pay than men

John Elliott & Maurice Chittenden

The Sunday Times 

THE gap between men's and women's earnings is not caused by discrimination, according to new research. Instead women choose jobs that pay less because they want more flexible and socially useful careers.

Social scientists at the London School of Economics tracked the careers of more than 10,000 students who graduated in 1995 from 30 universities and colleges in one of the biggest surveys of its type.

They found that although female graduates earn 12% less than their male counterparts - £25,260 for men and £22,550 for women after three years¹ experience - the difference is better explained by choice than workplace discrimination.

The study found that women decide from as early as 17, when they choose their degree course, on how to combine work and motherhood. They prefer careers such as teaching and nursing, where they can take an extended break to raise a family. These choices "affect women¹s wages even at an early stage of their career and are the single most important determinants of the gender wage gap", it concludes.

Female students pick degree subjects such as education and the arts, which produce a lower mean wage than engineering, maths and computing, where most students are men.

Women are also more likely to work in smaller firms, in the public sector or on temporary contracts where pay is usually lower than in the City or large companies.

Part of the gap is explained by different attitudes. Just over half the women stressed the importance of a socially useful job, but only 32% of men thought that important. Salary is also a bigger issue for male graduates: 25% said financial rewards were "very important" compared with 14% of women.

New rules introduced today mean parents of children under six can require employers to consider allowing them flexible hours. It also gives women the right to find out what men doing the same job are earning. However, the study suggests the changes will affect only a few women at first because most are likely to have flexibility already. But with two-thirds of female graduates saying they expect to take career breaks to have children, it could have a substantial longer-term impact.

Dr Arnaud Chevalier, a research associate at the LSE who also studies social change from University College, Dublin, said: "Our research shows that women tend to go for degrees and jobs dominated by women, even if they have lower financial return. If you are in a job where you are the only woman, or you are in the minority, that might bring you stress. So you are more likely to go for a job where women are in the majority."

Chevalier is to present his study to the Royal Economic Society¹s conference in Warwick tomorrow.

The study mirrors a survey of 47,000 workers for this year¹s The Sunday Times 100 Best Companies To Work For, which found women were less well off but happier at work.

Dr Pete Bradon, a research psychologist at the University of Plymouth who worked on that survey, said: "Perhaps women do not expect so much. Employment is not their main form of happiness; they look for something outside the job."

Many women agree. Nicole Joyce, 33, joined Cardiff-based Admiral Insurance as a trainee team sales manager 11 years ago and is now the youngest of the four managing directors, all women, of the group¹s direct insurance brand companies.

She said: "Money is a factor because you need it to pay your mortgage, but it is more important to be happy and feel you are making a difference.

"When I do have children the company is very flexible in giving time off."

But Naomi Feinstein, a partner specialising in employment law at Lovells, the legal firm, said: The pay gap is self- perpetuating. If you know women tend to be in a particular industry. women think, "I will go there because I will be more comfortable."