THE inclusion of the gender pay gap in the first white paper for Scottish independence has been welcomed amid calls for greater “visibility” of the benefits for women during the Yes campaign.
The First Minister told The National at the launch of the first indyref2 prospectus that issues of gender equality will “of course” be covered by the documents set to follow.
In the latest data from the Office for National Statistics, Scotland’s gender pay gap narrowed by a tiny 0.3 percentage points between 2020 and 2021.
There are a wealth of reasons for why the gender pay gap is still a feature of modern Scotland including systemic issues, women are more likely to be in low paid, or public sector jobs, some women can only work part-time due to caring responsibilities.
There is no easy answer, but one thing that the new white paper showed clearly is that the UK is performing worse in this area than many of our neighbours.
In Scotland, 82% of residential carers, 77% of cleaners, 96% of nursery nurses and assistants and 76% of retail cashiers are women, with many of these jobs in the public sector and low-paid.
On Tuesday, the pay gap was revealed as one of the key indicators chosen by the Scottish Government, measuring the UK’s performance against other countries - of which only Austria had a higher pay gap (20.4%).
The whitepaper showed the UK with a pay gap of 19.8%, while Belgium (5.8%), Ireland (11.3%) and Sweden (12.1%) were the three best performing.
Roz Foyer, general secretary at the STUC, was positive about the inclusion of the gender pay gap in the white paper. She told The National: “I actually welcome the fact that you know this whole report is concentrating on quality of life indicators like the gender pay gap.
“I think these are really important issues that we need to grapple with because if we're talking about some sort of constitutional change, we should be having a debate around what quantitative difference can that deliver to the quality of life of people in Scotland.”
Anna Ritchie Allan, executive director at Close the Gap, said that there needs to be action on the “undervaluation” of women’s labour, with one of the big opportunities for the Scottish Government to do so being through the creation of the National Care Service.
She also explained that where the pay gap has marginally closed, this has been down to a reduction in men’s pay, and not because women are being paid more, and that there is plenty of work to be done.
Ritchie Allan said: “I think that would be good if women’s needs and women's experiences were embedded in all of the working papers, I think that we don't see enough of that.
“I went to the document itself and did a Ctrl F [search] working for gender and women, and it's marginal, [as it is] in most publications. So I think we need to have much more substantive consideration of that so it clearly sets out really what this means for different groups of women in Scotland.”
She added: “Women are just a slight majority of the population and they weren't as visible as they should be in the first independence campaign so what we'd really like to see what the impact for women will be?
“What the benefits for women will be, but also what the vision is for women in an independent Scotland and how can independence realise women's equality in the labour market?”
For Foyer, one thing that stuck out to her amongst the 10 countries used as comparators with the UK, including Ireland, Denmark, and Belgium, also have “higher rates of collective bargaining” and tend to work in partnership with trade unions.
Foyer added: “The [Scottish] Government could be making choices right now to raise women’s work in areas and pay for areas where women’s work is embedded and undervalued.
“If the public sector raises pay in some of these key areas, it raises pay right across the board for women workers in low paid employment.
“We don’t think that women should be having to wait for independence to get equal pay and have that work valued.”
Allan also agrees the Scottish Government could do more and that a lot of the causes for the pay gap are “not unlawful”. Simple moves like strengthening regulations around pay gap reporting from private firms could make a difference, but Ritchie Allan adds there is a “critical weakness in those regulations is that they don’t actually have to take any action”.
