New data has revealed a huge disparity between men and women in Britain’s highest-paid positions.
Focusing on posts with a six-figure income, the government data showed four times more men than women earning £100,000 or more in 2015-16.
According to the new HMRC data, 681,000 earned over £100,000 in 2015-16, compared to 179,000 women.
This new data has emerged as companies have no choice but to publish their payrolls by gender in April.
“These stark figures show how far our country still has to go on closing our gender pay gap. It represents not only a loss of career earnings for women, it also represents a loss of talent for employers,” said Justine Greening, a Tory cabinet minister.
“What counts now is companies taking action to close this gap. That means making flexible working laws actually work on the ground, enabling women to get on with their careers after, as well as before, starting a family, and it means more girls aiming for the high-paying careers in areas like engineering that have been male-dominated.”
All companies with over 250 employees have been forced to publish data. Among the worst performing are Virgin Money (LON: VM) and Octopus Capital, which have pay gaps of 32.5 percent and 38.1 percent respectively.
Employers with low or no gender pay gaps include the armed forces, the BBC reported.
The same data also highlighted the large gender gap in average earnings.
Sophie Walker, the leader of the Women’s Equality party, said: “These figures show inequality runs through every level of the economy. It is scandalous that women still make up barely a fifth of top earners, and this discrepancy is not confined to those in well-paid jobs.
“Gender inequality is a feature, not a coincidence or side-effect, of our economic, political and social system. The foundation of that model is the unpaid childcare and social care work that is predominately done by women – and which is not recognised in official economic data or factored into political calculations. That has obvious knock-on effects on women’s earnings and their chances of climbing to the top of the career ladder.”