Majority of women believe male peers earn more

It doesn’t sound too promising that 100% of senior female lawyers felt their male peers were still earning more than them, this comes from a recent report by recruiter free job site and twosteps.com.

The research, which surveyed 500 lawyers and legal professionals found some interesting results regarding perceptions and pay. Most men appear not to be threatened by their female colleagues as 70% feel they earn the same or more than their female peers.

There has been continuous debate around whether employers should adhere to open salary policies or the introduction of compulsory boardroom ratios of men to women. Some European countries have already introduced these policies and boast huge positive effects on business and the economy. Both Norway and France have been pioneers in this field. The New York Times also confirmed that an analysis by the consulting firm McKinsey found that the operational profit of companies with the most women on boards was 56% higher than those with men only at the top level. Boards with more women also surpass all-male boards in auditing, risk oversight and control.

The twosteps research also compared weekly working hours and identified that generally men were working more hours a week than women. The survey found that whilst 53% of women worked 30-40 hours, 68% of men were working 40-60 hours. This could however be explained by a lack of flexible working options. Only 30% of the UK employers offered their staff flexible working. This was significantly less than employers in most other countries including Australia (60%) the US (68%) and Germany (75%). The lack of flexible working opportunities could be feeding the endless struggle of complete gender equality as women are still predominantly the primary carers in many parenting relationships.

With UK employers not supporting flexible working and women unable to work more hours this could explain why the same research also found that 8% more men received bonuses last year than women. Interestingly, 60% of both male and female lawyers also feel they aren’t paid enough for what they do.

On the plus side the research found that UK employers give on average 5 extra days annual holiday allowance than Australia and the US. This is most probably due to the infamous British weather and British people needing to take holidays abroad to get their vitamin D fix.