Universities must make flexible working “the default”, including at higher salary levels, to truly tackle their gender pay gaps, according to a report that poses the question: “How long will it be until we see the first job-share vice-chancellor?”
The Higher Education Policy Institute (Hepi) report, published on 14 March, finds that women working in UK universities earn, on average, 11.9 per cent less than men – a gap “smaller than the national gender pay gap, currently reported at 14.4 per cent”. But there is “extensive” variation between universities, with median gender pay gaps in 2022 ranging from zero to 41 per cent, and progress on closing the gap appears to be slowing.
The report blames “a number of structural barriers which may be preventing pay parity”, including “imbalanced maternity and paternity leave, unequal access to the job market for part-time workers, and biased recruitment metrics” such as those based on academic publication records, which fail to take account of the part-time working or career breaks that are often part of women’s lives as mothers.
Among its recommendations is that institutions “should consider how many more roles can be offered on a part-time, job share or flexible basis”, including at higher salary bands.
“To be truly progressive, flexible working should be the default, with a decision to advertise a job on a solely full-time basis made for operational reasons that cannot be mitigated,” adds the report, written by Rose Stephenson, Hepi’s director of policy and advocacy.
Noting that credit should be given to the University of Reading, which has been advertising pro vice-chancellor roles on a job-share basis, the report asks: “How long will it be until we see the first vice-chancellor role held on a job-share basis?”
During her interviews with institutions, Ms Stephenson writes, she “heard repeatedly that women are overrepresented in the lowest pay quartile because these roles are more likely to be part-time and therefore offer the flexibility that allows female colleagues to balance work with caring responsibilities”.
Testing that by looking at advertisements on the website jobs.ac.uk over five weeks, in the £70,000-£80,000 job bracket 6 per cent of jobs were offered on a part-time basis, falling to 4 per cent in the £80,000-£90,000 bracket.
“Even at the lower salary scales, only 19 per cent of roles are offered on a part-time basis,” says the Hepi report.
Yet across the UK workforce, it notes, 26 per cent of employees work part time.
“With female colleagues – particularly mothers – being more likely to work part time, there simply are not the flexible jobs available, at higher-paid roles, to lead to pay equity. In a post-Covid world, there is no reason why most jobs cannot be undertaken on a flexible or part-time basis,” Ms Stephenson told Times Higher Education.
The report is also clear that institutions should create more opportunities “for fathers to work part time or flexibly, to progress equality both at work and in the home”, she added.
“For this to happen, more jobs need to be offered on a part-time or flexible basis,” said Ms Stephenson, something that “should already be high on institutions’ agendas, given the imminent implementation” of the Employment Relations (Flexible Working) Act 2023, which will give employees the right to ask for flexible working from day one in a new job.
