| | By Mick James
Everyone agrees that
one of the answers to
the skills shortage in
consultancy (and
possibly a few other
problems as well) is to
radically increase the
profession's ability to
retain women,
particularly at senior
levels.
So everyone must have
groaned at figures from
the Chartered Management
Institute and
Remuneration Economics
that show that senior
women are resigning at a
far higher rate than
men, but that the pay
gap between men and
women has actually
widened for the first
time in many years. At
all levels, female
managers are earning
less than men.
The news has been
received with
predictable despair by
all sections of the
media, with the
Guardian, in
particular, claiming
that at this rate, it
will take "80 years" to
reach pay parity. Calls
for strengthened
anti-discrimination
legislation have come
from all corners.
Sometimes a set of
stats like this hits you
in the face with such
force that you simply
have to put your hands
up and surrender.
Alternatively, you can
hit them back a couple
of times to see if
they're as tough as
they're pretending. The
release accompanying the
survey, and most of the
commentators that
followed it have made
much of the fact that
women managers are on
average younger than
men: as the CMI puts it:
"...despite rapid | |
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| | promotion and a higher
incidence of bonus
payments, the survey
reveals that efforts to
redress the pay gap have
begun to stall. These
findings come, despite
women enjoying faster
career progression than
their male colleagues."
At 37 years old, the
average female team
leader is five years
younger than her male
counterpart. Aged 40,
female 'department
heads' are three years
younger than their male
equivalent. The age gap
expands in more senior
roles as, at an average
age of 44, women still
achieve director roles
quicker than men (age
48).
Let me construct a
little scenario of my
own here:
Imagine a practice of
a consultancy firm which
consists of a male
director (48), five
partners, of whom one, a
44-year-old woman, is at
the top of her grade,
and nine managers, of
whom four are
40-year-old women and
also at the top of their
grades. Expansion
allows the firm to have
a round of promotion:
the female partner makes
director, the four
female managers get
partnership and another
five women are promoted
to manager. The firm
sits back and waits for
the plaudits for its
commitment to diversity
but instead the next
thing it receives is a
stern letter from the
Equality Commission
about its widening pay
gap. It's easy to see
why – all the women
managers are on the
bottom of their new
grade scales, and it
will take several years | |
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| | for this discrepancy to
work its way through the
system.
I'm not saying this
is the full explanation
for the CMI's results.
But you have to take
into account that the
survey is also reporting
the rather unremarkable
fact that younger
managers earn less than
older ones.
And there are good
reasons why women
managers should be
younger than older ones:
it's a bit of a leap to
assume that a younger
average age means that
women are "enjoying
faster career
progression" than men.
That would work, but
what would also cause
this is a rapid increase
in the number of female
managers in recent years
– and that's precisely
what has happened.
Since 1999 the number of
women managers in the
workforce has more than
tripled, to over a third
of the total, but that
still leaves a lot of
ageing men in post.
You also have to be
very careful with
aggregating these kinds
of figures to avoid
Simpson's paradox. This
mathematical quirk
gained notoriety when
the University of
California found itself
on the wrong end of a
discrimination suit for
failing to admit a
higher percentage of
female than male
applicants. Yet when
the university
investigated it found
that each individual
department was admitting
a higher proportion of
women applicants than
men. The maths is
complex but the result
basically stemmed from
the fact that women were | |
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| | disproportionately
applying to courses that
were harder to get.
It's unlikely that
the CMI figures are
simply an instance of
this, but if women are
overrepresented in lower
paid sectors, then that
would drag the average
down. And that is in
fact the case – our
ever-expanding public
sector has made great
strides in achieving
numerical parity between
male and female
managers, and pays
significantly less than
the private sector.
There's also a
decapitation effect –
women tend to take
themselves out of the
workforce as they get
older. Discrimination
or choice? Probably
both. From a resources
view we may deplore the
loss of talent, but it's
not everyone's dream to
be a senior manager
until they drop. For
many couples I know the
decision of who steps
back and does the
parenting is a purely
pragmatic one based on
salary. In a surprising
number of cases in my
circle that's been the
man, but on the CMI
figures (and bear in
mind a high proportion
of the sample will be
married to each other)
it's nearly always going
to be the women.
So is there room for
complacency? Almost
certainly not – there is
real and significant
discrimination out there
– but I think it's a
little early to declare
that the whole gender
equality project has
gone into reverse. This
year's results are the
first for a decade that
don't show women
increasing their pay | |
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| | faster than men – and
then only by 0.2 of a
percentage point.
What we shouldn't do
is reach for the statute
book:
anti-discrimination
legislation isn't
actually helping
anymore. Many, smaller
employers have privately
confided to me that they
shy away from precisely
those candidates who
come equipped with the
most rights and means of
redress. What I would
like to see is a culture
– quite possibly backed
up by legislation – of
greater transparency
about pay. Nothing
promotes change in an
organisation faster than
a leak from payroll.
Employees need to be
confident that they are
getting the right rate
for the job, whether
they are men or women –
I strongly suspect that
if you analysed just
male employees, you
wouldn't necessarily see
much in the way of
"equal pay for equal
work". It might be
culturally uncomfortable
to start with, but I've
heard nothing but
positive feedback from
consultancies with open
policies on salaries,
and I see no reason why
the rest of the industry
– if it is serious about
diversity – shouldn't
follow suit.
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