Staff pay gap: Women at Cardiff Uni paid on average 19 per cent less than men

According to the most recent report published by Cardiff University, female staff are paid 19.4 per cent less than male staff with regards to hourly earnings. With an almost equal split in male and female staff employment, with 52.92 per cent female staff and 47.08 per cent male staff, these figures show that men are being paid more than women.

Cardiff University began reporting their gender pay gap figures publicly in 2017, reporting a gap of 21.8 per cent, showing that an improvement of 2.4 per cent has been made between 2017-2019, a slow but upward improvement.

The university claims that a significant factor in this gap is the makeup of the workforce, with more women in lower-paid roles, and more men in senior roles. The 2019 report explained that the university has eight pay grades, with females making up the majority of staff on the lowest six pay grades.

Image: Gender distribution across pay grades at Cardiff University

One shocking figure in the report was the bonus pay gender gap, which stood at a staggering 32.8 per cent, meaning that males received 32.8 per cent more bonus pay than females. When including Clinical Excellence Awards schemes, the bonus pay gender gap surged to 54.2per cent, confirming that men are being paid higher bonuses in medical roles at the university.

How does this compare to the rest of the UK?

According to the ONS, the UK’s gender pay gap for 2019 was 17.3 per cent, showing that Cardiff University’s gap is worse than the UK’s average at 19.4 per cent.

On average, UK universities pay female staff 15.1 per cent less than male staff, according to the Times Higher Education, showing that Cardiff University fares worse than other UK universities for its gender pay gap.

How do Cardiff University staff feel about this gap?

The inequality in pay has aggravated many staff who feel this is unfair. In November 2019, members of the University College Union (UCU) at Cardiff University participated in strike action to address issues of inequality, precarity, pensions, workload and pay. These strikes continued throughout March of 2020.

How does the ethnicity pay gap fare?

Cardiff University also released figures for their mean ethnicity pay gap, which came in at 0.5 per cent. According to the ONS, the ethnicity pay gap is actually smallest in Wales as a region, with a figure of 1.4 per cent compared to London’s 23.8 per cent. This figure also shows that Cardiff University stands at a better position than both the Wales average and the UK average (2.3 per cent) with 2019 figures.

The report stated: “Whilst our initial figures look promising, we know that representation at each level of the university needs further work”.

What did the university have to say?

The report notes that the university is committing to several schemes to help close this gender pay gap, including unconscious bias training made compulsory for all staff. The report stated: “The university has been working to promote gender equality across the organisation for a number of years – but we must do more. Addressing the disparity in gender representation at senior levels takes time, but we are working hard to solve this.”

The report stated that improvements had been made since 2018, with the mean gender pay gap falling by 2.2 per cent, however recognise that the challenge is ongoing and more efforts must be made to close this gap.

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