Attitudes of the British Public to Business Ethics 2024
17 June 2024
The gender pay gap represents embedded discrimination, stereotypes and barriers in opportunities for women. To much of the public, the gap’s existence in business is a problem that needs rectifying.
With greater accountability and transparency now required of organisations, opportunities need to be taken to highlight steps implemented to close the gap within companies. There are serious reputational risks with having a large gender pay gap, as well as the potential to alienate women in both recruitment and internal progression.
Exhibiting disparities in pay due to gender reflects negatively on an organisation, particularly if it is not accompanied with adequate steps of addressing the issue that will reap results. Failure to do this can display to external stakeholders a non-progressive mindset within the business, and can have wider ramifications for recruiting talent from other diverse backgrounds. If there is a pay disparity between men and women, and a passivity to address this, it may be likely that the same could happen to those with disabilities, or from different ethnic backgrounds.
Gender pay gaps are the outcome of economic, cultural, societal and educational factors. On average, women are paid less than men on an hourly basis, across sectors. This gap has been an issue of focus in recent decades, as activism has grown and the gender balance in historically male-centric sectors has grown. Gender pay gaps stem from the perception of full-time work as being of the greatest value, occupational segregation, and the undervaluing of women’s work.
Gender pay gap reporting has become a legal requirement for all UK organisations with 250 employees or more, with private and voluntary sector organisations able to include a narrative statement alongside their figures outlining the reasons behind the gap and actions being taken to rectify it. Reporting is making organisations more accountable for closing the gap. Monitoring from the Global Gender Gap Report has shown that, overall, the gap has been reduced by 3.6% since 2006. Yet, with current progress, the overall global gap is predicted to take 108 years to completely close.
The IBE’s Associate Director, Professor Chris Cowton, discusses a new question on CEO pay that was included in our recent public attitudes survey.
20 July 2023
Deputy Director, Rachael Saunders outlines some of the key findings from the 2023 Attitudes of the British Public to Business Ethics survey.
13 July 2023
Catch up on our latest webinar with Professor Alexander (‘Sandy’) Pepper.
16 December 2022
Britain’s businesses could behave better - the 2021 results of the IBE's annual survey of the attitudes of the British public to business ethics.
17 January 2022
Read the latest blog by Mark Chambers, IBE's Associate Director (Governance).
11 March 2021
In this blog, Guendalina Donde, IBE's Head of Research, discusses the results of the 2020 Attitudes of the British Public to Business Ethics survey.
13 January 2021
The 2020 results of the IBE's annual survey of the attitudes of the British public to business ethics.
30 December 2020
This briefing provides an overview of the ethical concerns and lapses that were recorded by the IBE in its monitoring of media coverage in 2020.
23 December 2020
This briefing provides an overview of the ethical concerns and lapses that were recorded by the IBE in its monitoring of media coverage in 2019. It gives an overview of which sectors and issues related to business ethics were most covered in the news. For 2019, we have recorded a total of 361 different stories involving lapses of companies with a UK presence.
29 January 2020
The 2019 results of the IBE's annual survey of the attitudes of the British public to business ethics.
17 December 2019
Read the IBE's annual analysis of business ethics news stories from the last year - which were the sectors and issues most in the news in 2018?
30 January 2019
The 2018 results of the IBE's annual survey of the attitudes of the British public to business ethics
13 December 2018