The proportion of high earners* that are female has not changed in the last four years, despite initiatives to reduce the gender pay gap, according to new research from global law firm Clyde & Co.
Data obtained directly from HMRC reveals that women accounted for just over one quarter (27%) of all higher rate tax payers in each of the last four financial years. Last year only 1.21m of the 4.47m higher rate tax payers were women.
Clyde & Co points out that the percentage of female higher rate tax payers has not moved for four years even as the total number of higher rate tax payers has grown by nearly 1m individuals.
The firm says that one of the most recent Government initiatives aimed at reducing gender pay differences is gender pay gap reporting.
In July 2015 the Prime Minister announced new rules that will require UK organisations with 250 employees or more to publish information about the difference between the average pay of their male and female employees.
In October the rules, which are expected to come into force in Spring 2016, were extended to include bonuses and cover public sector organisations, as well as private and voluntary sector employers, explains Clyde & Co.
Other initiatives aimed at tackling differences between genders include Lord Davies' new target for FTSE 100 firms to have 33% female board members by 2020.
Individual businesses have now also begun to set their own targets, earlier this year Lloyd's Banking Group announced that they are aiming to have women in 40% of their Senior Management roles by the end of the decade.
Charles Urquhart, Employment Partner at Clyde & Co, comments: "Over 40 years since we saw the first legislation aimed at tackling differences between the sexes in the workplace, these further initiatives, and the intent behind them, are welcome."
"We don't know yet precisely what figures employers will be required to publish but if it's simply a matter of reporting an average of men and women's basic pay and bonuses every 3 years, it won't tell us much more than we already know."
"For gender pay reporting to be valuable, a like for like comparison across all levels within an organisation, from the CEO to unskilled levels of employee, would be needed. This would be much more useful than 'average' data across an organisation, but it would create far more of a burden on employers, which the Government will no doubt be wanting to avoid."
Charles Urquhart continues: "Any reporting obligations put on employers need to go hand in hand with increased Government focus on the cause of the issues and ways the Government can help to improve the situation."
Clyde & Co says that child care provision enhancements in addition to protections to maternity leave and further broadening of family friendly policies, such as leave for fathers and grandparents, could help to address some of the issues.
Heidi Watson, Employment Partner at Clyde &Co also believes these initiatives should be welcomed: "If this regulation does one thing, it will highlight issues which we already know about – lack of women in senior roles, more women in part-time work, more women in low paying sectors – so that governments and individual companies will be further fuelled to tackle them, which seems to be the aim."
"Employers can get ahead of the game by focusing on their diversity programmes, voluntarily giving more information about these initiatives to put their figures in context. The key will be demonstrating a positive picture to clients and potential recruits, and ideally showing a reduction in the gap over time."
Clyde & Co says that in some European countries, including Sweden, Belgium and Norway, quotas have been introduced to increase the number of women in senior roles.
Charles Urquhart says: "Quotas would of course increase the number of women in senior roles, but they are a blunt tool that moves the focus away from which individuals are actually best suited for a role, which can in turn lead to certain individuals being put at a disadvantage."
"The UK Government has to date not been interested in introducing quotas, with the 'target' system at director level in FTSE 350 companies reporting success. But will this drive the change that the UK Government clearly wants, and will we see numbers of women increasing in senior management roles beneath the board level where targets focus?"
*Tax payers declaring an income between £31,786 to £150,000 (Higher rate tax payers)
People with the standard Personal Allowance start paying this rate on income over £42,385
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