A new survey released by
Hays has found that only 18% of men in the workplace believe that a pay gap exists for equally talented male and female workers.
45% of women surveyed found that equally capable male and female workers are not paid or rewarded equally in the study released for International Women’s Day yesterday.
The survey also found that almost half of the women surveyed, compared to a fifth of the men, believe that the same career opportunities do not exist for equally capable colleagues of both genders.
"Our survey shows there is a major disparity between the views of men and women when it comes to equal pay and equal opportunities,” says Alistair Cox, CEO of Hays.
“We found that more women than men think the sexes aren’t paid or rewarded equally, while more than double the number of women to men say the same career options are not open to both genders.
“This suggests that most people in executive and senior management roles – the majority of which are men – still fail to see any inequality when it comes to pay and career opportunities between the sexes. This makes it difficult to see how we will see any significant advancement in this area while the majority of people in senior roles do not recognise it as an issue.
Some 44% of survey respondents called on employers to institute more flexible working practices in the quest for greater equality in the workplace, an equal amount also called for better work place education as a way to boost diversity.
Only 9% of the more than 6000 survey participants called for the implementation of quotas in order to boost equality.
“Given all the research espousing the benefits of a gender-diverse workforce, it is a paradox therefore that we still see such a gap in representation and a disproportionately low number of women in leadership positions, supported and encouraged to reach their career goals, and paid equally,” Cox continued.
“Many organisations now have specific programmes in place to address this issue, yet it has to be asked how successful these might be given that the majority of our survey respondents felt as though no imbalance existed in terms of pay or opportunities.
“Maybe this lack of recognition of the issue is the real obstacle to change."
