Pay transparency is critical to nearly all women in public affairs - yet only a quarter of companies publish salary bands
Discomfort discussing money at work, limited pay transparency and the perceived gender pay gap characterise this years’ survey of women in public affairs.
The annual Women in Public Affairs (WiPA) survey, led by research agency Opinium, reveals that the overwhelming majority of women in public affairs (96%) consider the publication of pay bands important to address gender-based disparities in our sector.
Almost half (48%) believe their pay has been influenced by their gender, race or age, and a third (34%) believe there is a pay disparity between men and women. Nearly half (48%) feel uncomfortable discussing salary with their line manager, and over half (53%) feel uncomfortable with discussing it with colleagues.
Disappointingly, only a quarter (25%) said their company publishes salary bands - showing no improvement since last year’s WiPA survey.
Only half (48%) said their company includes salary bands in jobs adverts, also showing no improvement since last year. Yet 83% said a lack of transparency over pay would deter them from applying for a job – and this figure rises to a whopping 88% for 18–34-year-olds.
On a positive note, seven in ten feel comfortable or very comfortable discussing maternity leave and pay, rising to 80% when discussing sick leave, indicating an increasing openness towards these topics.
Other findings include:
Perceptions of the gender pay gap are worse in public affairs compared to female workers across the UK. A third of women in public affairs think pay differs between genders (34%), versus a fifth of women in the nationally representative sample (21%).
Over half (57%) of women from a minority or disadvantaged background perceive a bias in pay related to identity factors including gender and other intersecting identities.
Of those women who believe pay differs, the vast majority believe that men are being paid significantly more – on average £5k more per annum.
Concern over perceived pay differences between genders is likely to be compounded by the cost-of-living crisis remaining a worry for nearly all women in the industry (93%), only slightly down from last year’s survey results (96%).
Nine in ten (91%) are likely to continue their career in public affairs over the next three years.
In response to the findings, WiPA is launching a campaign to improve pay transparency across the sector, by calling on more public affairs employers to publish salary bands on job adverts to help women in the industry make informed decisions.
We will also be publishing a new guide to negotiating pay, to help women advocate for themselves both at work and in job applications. The network will also hosting events aimed to increase women’s confidence in the workplace around money, and will undergo further work to understand the intersectionality of pay disparity.
Victoria McNish, Chair of WiPA, said:
“Every year our survey makes clear just how important pay transparency is for women in our industry. The numbers that feel their pay has been influenced by gender, race, age, or other identities is stark. Yet it is disappointing to see how many don’t feel they can discuss this with their manager.
Pay transparency seems to be stagnating, with little improvement on our survey findings last year. That’s why today we are kicking off our campaign to call for improvements in pay transparency - particularly in job ads. At WiPA we also want to do what we can to enable women to advocate for themselves in conversations around pay. We will be working with various partners across the industry to develop a new guide to negotiating pay, which we hope will go some way to empower women in public affairs in doing just that.”
Priya Minhas, Opinium Associate Director, said:
“Talking about pay is sometimes seen as one of the last taboos, and our latest research has found that women working in public affairs are twice as likely to feel uncomfortable discussing their salary than female workers across the UK. More broadly, we found an environment persisted in public affairs where many women were reluctant to even negotiate their salaries for fear of the potential repercussions of misjudging the conversation. The experience of women in public affairs appears to be typical of the wider lack of transparency in the industry and our research also highlights the key steps that it can take to make its workforce feel more comfortable.”
Notes to Editors
The survey received 225 responses from women working in the industry. Respondents predominantly work in London (80%) and in-house (62%). The majority of respondents do not have any dependents (77%) and only 16% identify as ethnic minorities.
The full survey report is here.
The results of last year’s survey are available here.