The Gender Pay Gap - how do large British lingerie companies compare?

What is the gender pay gap?

"The gender pay gap is the difference in the average hourly wage of all men and women across a workforce. If women do more of the less well paid jobs within an organisation than men, the gender pay gap is usually bigger. The gender pay gap is not the same as unequal pay which is paying men and women differently for performing the same (or similar) work. Unequal pay has been unlawful since 1970" - Gender Pay Gap Service

Due to recent legislation, all employers with 250 or more employees must calculate and publish (among other things), their mean and median gender pay gaps. This has recently come into effect with April 2018 being the first time private companies have been forced to publish this data. I have taken the opportunity to go through the reports of lingerie companies and compare them by category so you can find out what these gender pay gaps are, how they compare across companies, and what each individual company has to say about it. That's too much to fit in one blog post so welcome to a short series!

If you cannot view the images below the data can be found in this spreadsheet.

Disclaimer: I am not a statistician, economist, or business expert. I am but a simple lingerie blogger with a dream of gender equality.

What are mean and median? Why do they differ?

Means and medians are both ways of calculating averages. The mean is typically what people refer to when they talk about an average, and is calculated by adding up all of the wages and dividing this by the number of employees. The median is essentially the "middle" value. You can calculate this by arranging all the salaries in order, then picking the one right in the middle.

The thing about the mean is that it's easily influenced by outliers. If your company has five employees and you pay four of them £10/hour, but you pay the fifth £100/hour, the mean wage is £28/hour, despite this not really reflecting how most of the employees are paid. The median in this case would be £10/hour, which is more reflective of what's happening (but ignores just how much the fifth person is paid).

The Wage Gap in Department Stores/Big Retailers (that sell lingerie along with various non-clothing items):

Rankings:

Mean
1. Marks and Spencer
2. John Lewis
3. House of Fraser
4. Debenhams

Median
1. Debenhams
2. House of Fraser
3. Marks and Spencer
4. John Lewis

The Wage Gap in Major Clothing Retailers

Rankings:

Mean
1. JD Williams
2. Asos
3. Yours Clothing

Median
1. JD Williams
2. Asos
3. Yours Clothing

The Wage Gap in Lingerie Companies

Rankings:

Mean
1. Victoria's Secret
2. Ann Summers
3. Wacoal Group (owns Freya and Elomi, among others)
4. Bravissimo
5. Boux Avenue

Median
1. Bravissimo
2. Victoria's Secret
3. Ann Summers
4.Wacoal Group
5. Boux Avenue
 
When does each company stop paying women?

I stole this idea from this guardian article and I copied the dates from there, though of course the dates can be easily calculated manually.

If you cannot view this diagram, please visit the guardian article linked above.

What Next?

Along with these figures, most companies published a report explaining the reasons for them and what they intend to do about their relative wage gaps. In the coming days, I will summarise and analyse these reports to the best of my ability and produce an overall ranking of which companies I believe are taking the best steps towards gender equality.