Wales
Pay inequalities
Key points
- Over the past decade, earnings near the bottom of the pay scale for both full-time men and full-time women have risen faster than the earnings of the average full-time male worker.
- Earnings near the top of the pay scale for both full-time men and full-time women have also risen faster than the earnings of the average full-time male worker.
- Taken together, these results point to a narrowing of the pay distribution among those with below-average earnings and a widening of the distribution among those with above-average earnings.
- Half of all part-time workers - both men and women - were paid less than £7 per hour in 2007. This compares with 20% of full-time women and 15% of full-time men.
Graph 1: Over time
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Graph 2: By gender
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Definitions and data sources
The first graph focuses on pay differentials. It shows four statistics:
- Gross hourly pay of full-time male employees at the 10th percentile, i.e. the pay of men one tenth of the way from the bottom of the male pay distribution.
- Gross hourly pay of full-time female employees at the 10th percentile, i.e. the pay of women one tenth of the way from the bottom of the female pay distribution.
- Gross hourly pay of full-time male employees at the 90th percentile, i.e. the pay of men one tenth of the way from the top of the male pay distribution.
- Gross hourly pay of full-time female employees at the 90th percentile, i.e. the pay of women one tenth of the way from the top of the female pay distribution.
In each case, the statistics are shown as a proportion of average (median) hourly pay of full-time male employees thus providing a measure of earnings inequalities. The left-hand axis shows proportions at the 10th percentile and the right hand axis shows the proportion at the 90th percentile.
The second graph shows, for the latest year, the distribution of employees across the pay spectrum with the data show separately for part-time women, part-time men, full-time women and full-time men.
The data source for all the graphs is the Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE). Some detailed changes were made to the ASHE survey base in 2004 and an adjustment has been made for this in the first graph. The proportions in the second graph have been calculated from the hourly rates at each decile using interpolation to estimate the consequent proportion earning in each of the pay groups.
Overall adequacy of the indicator: medium. ASHE is a large annual survey of employers but the published data does not provide direct estimates of the number of people at various low pay thresholds.