Northern Ireland
Low pay by gender
Key points
- At all ages, at least a third of part-time employees were paid less than £7 per hour in 2007.
- Almost half of those paid less than £7 per hour were part-time workers, mainly women. Of the full-time workers, around half were women.
- Although more common among young workers, low pay occurs at all ages. The number of low paid workers is similar in each of five age groups, namely, up to 21, 20s, 30s, 40s, and 50 and above. As a result, two-fifths are aged 40 or over.
Graph 1: By age
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Graph 2: Shares by gender
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Graph 3: Shares by age
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Definitions and data sources
As discussed in the indicator on low income by work status, a third of people in working-age households in Northern Ireland who are in low income households have someone in their household who is doing paid work. It is clear that in-work poverty must be linked with low pay. But exactly how? Analysis for Great Britain shows that, while just 15% of low paid workers lived in households suffering from income poverty, 65% of the households in in-work poverty were low paid. Low pay is, therefore, a major cause of in-work poverty even though most people who are low paid do not suffer from it. Source: NPI analysis of Households Below Average Income. Reasons why it is possible to be low paid and not in in-work poverty include: other adults in the other households earn more; long hours; lower than normal housing costs; tax credits.
The first graph shows how the proportion of employees paid less than £7 per hour varies by age, gender and full-time/part-time.
The next two graphs show the distribution of employees paid less than £7 per hour. In the second graph, the data is divided by male/female and full-time/part-time. In the third graph, the data is show by age group and full-time/part-time.
The data source for all the graphs is the Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE) and the data is for 2007.
Overall adequacy of the indicator: high. ASHE is a large annual survey of employers.