Northern Ireland
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.
- Pay at the bottom for full-time men is higher than pay at the bottom for full-time women. Similarly, pay at the top for full-time men is higher than pay at the top for full-time women. However, in both cases, the pay inequalities between men and women have declined over the last decade.
- Two-fifths of all part-time workers - both men and women - were paid less than £7 per hour in 2009. This compares with 15-20% of full-time workers.
- For full-time employees, the rate of pay at the 90th percentile in Northern Ireland is about 3½ times the rate of pay at the 10th percentile. This degree of overall pay inequality is similar to most of the regions in Great Britain. The only regions with a markedly higher pay inequality are London and the regions around it.
Graph 1: Over time
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Graph 2: By gender
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Graph 3: Compared to Great Britain
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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 full-time 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 full-time 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 full-time 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 full-time 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 restriction to full-time employees only is to avoid the distorting effects of differences in the full-/part-time balance either by gender or over time.
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 third graph shows, for the latest year, how the ratio for full-time employees between the hourly earnings at the 90th percentile and the hourly earnings at the 10th percentile in Northern Ireland compares with the regions of Great Britain.
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.