You are viewing your 1 free article this month. Login to read more articles.
Gender pay gaps across the industry are widening in some cases, with only narrow progress achieved in others, the latest round of reports indicate as trade figures call for greater transparency.
Figures for median and mean salaries at trade houses, academic publishers and booksellers appear to show there is a long way to go before gender parity on pay is reached. For the large publishing houses, the April 2018 snapshot data showed some key figures actually swinging in men’s favour.
Out of 14 firms where the 2017 median average gap already favoured men, half saw that gap widen in the 2018 figures. Where the 2017 mean was in men’s favour, 43% of the firms saw a further increase in that gap. The Publishers Association has admitted that work to close the gap will “take time to bear fruit”.
At Penguin Random House, the median pay gap was 3%, a 4.6% swing in men’s favour from 2017, although the mean figure dropped slightly to 9.3%. The publisher put the blame on the closure of its Rugby distribution site, where men on lower pay had dominated. More men remain in senior, higher paid positions than women elsewhere in the firm.
The figures appear to show how distribution affects the data – something Hachette had called on other firms to strip out. Its statistics for HUK Ltd, which excludes Hachette Distribution, Bookpoint and LBS, as well as Bookouture, Little, Brown, Octopus, Orion and Quercus, showed the mean gap increasing by 0.7% to 30.4%. The median was narrowed, however, to 20.1% from 24.7% - the biggest swing towards women in all the reports. For the whole group including distribution there was a smaller, but still widening mean gap of 17.8% (14.2%) but a median of 0.6% in women’s favour (1.3%).
Over at Macmillan, which, like others, did not separate out its distribution workforce, there was a median swing of 6% towards men, although women still have a 28% advantage over their male counterparts. The mean advantage of women over men actually increased by 3% to 5%.
For Bloomsbury, however, the median imbalance widened from 17.2% to 21.7%, with only a marginal 0.4% swing the other way in its mean data. HarperCollins' data remained broadly the same to the previous year, with a median gender pay gap of 10.2% (10.4% in 2017) and a mean of 16.5% (16% in 2017). The publisher said it had more women than men in every pay quartile but an increased proportion of men in the top tier.
Melanie Tansey, Group HR director Hachette UK, renewed the publisher’s calls for more transparency from the industry on gender. She told The Bookseller: “The purpose of gender pay gap reporting is to shine a light on the make-up of your workforce. The gender of those in the highest and lowest earning roles has an enormous impact on the overall figures.
“We passionately believe that meaningful change starts with openness and transparency which is why we report our figures including and excluding our distribution arm. We truly believe that’s the clearest and most honest way to reflect the publishing industry and reporting in this way gives us the platform on which to build the actions we all need to take to tackle the gender pay gap.”
In the academic sector, progress appeared a little better in many cases, although SAGE saw a 2.4% rise in its median gap and a 1.8% increase in its mean. There were slight rises in the median difference for Scholastic, the Oxford University Press and Wiley too. The latter also saw its mean gap deepen by 2%.
Stephen Lotinga, c.e.o. of the Publishers Association said publishers were still “committed” to addressing the issues of gender pay parity. He said: “Greater salary transparency, flexible working and programmes to support women in leadership will all make a difference, but we must continue to challenge ourselves about what more can be done.
“The Publishers Association is supporting our members on this journey by sharing best practice, providing training and through our annual diversity and inclusion workforce survey.”
For booksellers, the mean figures also showed the gap increasing further with a 5.5% increase at Bertram, 1% at Amazon and 1.3% at Blackwell’s. There was a healthier picture in the median figures, with Amazon UK eliminating its gap - which had slightly favoured women - completely. At WH Smith Group UK the median stayed while the mean narrowed from 20% in 2017 to 19.7% in 2018. Waterstones showed an 11.7% (13.9% in 2017) mean gap in favour of men in hourly pay, and a 4.7% (4.5%) median discrepancy.
“It is encouraging to see the gender pay gap beginning to close in some parts of the books sector,” said Meryl Halls, m.d. at the Booksellers Association. “There is, of course, much work to be done to eliminate the gender pay gap altogether – and it’s all the more important in an industry where women make up the bulk the workforce numbers, but we welcome the positive swings, and we’d hope to see further progress next year.”
Suzy Astbury, m.d. at publishing recruitment firm Inspired Selection, said people should be wary of the reports being “spun” by companies and proper strategies needed to be put in place. Biases needed to be challenged, inclusive policies introduced if necessary and more transparent reporting of salary brackets, promotion and bonuses.
She said: “Some companies have started putting in better policy and more inclusive processes and whilst it might not be reflected in this year’s results those companies should be applauded and not criticised. The positive results we are looking for will come but it will take time.
“What we should be doing is celebrating inclusion and diversity in our industry and focussing on continuing to improve this. The gender pay gap is another tool we can use to measure this and challenge how we hire, promote and reward our staff equally, fairly and transparently.”
The national average median pay gap is 17.9%, according to the Office of National Statistics.