Gender pay gap figures pose more questions than answers

But there is something new here, something important. And that’s an official stamp.

From now on, the gender pay gap is not just something to be put in statistical papers and economic analysis.

By forcing so many companies to disclose this information, the Government has brought this important topic right to the forefront of national attention.

So it’s good that we’re talking about it and cogitating the myriad results that have sprung our way. But this data will not, on its own, change anything. What will matter is how Britain reacts to them.

What about the data? Well, it’s broad-brush stuff – there’s nothing here about individual pay or, for instance, a comparison between earnings of men and women who haven’t taken a career break.

The overall picture of a nation saddled with a national gender pay gap is already well established. What it does is pose questions without giving answers.

“What the stats don’t tell us is about the causes of the gender pay gap,” said Rob Joyce, Associate Director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies.

“There is already lots of research going on about the underlying causes in difference in ages.

“What happens after children are born, for instance, or about the different career paths that people follow after childbirth.

“These stats are relatively simple comparisons between men and women in a firm. They don’t say much about underlying causes.”

But there’s a flip side to this. The gender pay data has highlighted areas of real concern, showing us the business sectors where women appear to suffer the greatest shortfall in average salaries.

In finance, education and construction, for instance, the gender pay gaps yawn wide. So why should that be? What’s happened at our banks, schools and building companies?

Why are two-thirds of headmasters male? Why do we still create so few female graduates in the STEM subjects of science, technology, engineering and maths?

Ford UK pays women, on average, more than it pays men. It learned a lesson 50 years ago, when its female sewing machinists went on strike in pursuit of the goal of being paid the same as their male counterparts.

That industrial action laid the path to the Equal Pay Act.

“The biggest challenge we face is that the motor industry is seen as male dominated, so we have to make our company seem attractive to female talent,” said Andy Barratt, chairman of Ford UK.

“We have done that through being a great to place to work, offering people exciting career development opportunities and bringing balanced resources to allow people to manage their life they way they need to.

“One of the things that is key for us is getting women into engineering. We’re very big investors in STEM. We decide pay on position, regardless of gender.

“We are now finding a lot of female employees who are moving up through managerial positions on ability, which is pleasing.”

But what of finance, seen by many as the bastion of overpaid male bankers, and underpaid female branch staff?

Debbie Mavis is the Head of Talent and Resourcing for TSB, which pays the average man a quarter more than the average woman.

She told me: “We need to make progress but it isn’t going to happen overnight. It will be a long journey, and we are taking it very seriously. But what we need to do is understand the root causes of the gender pay gap.

“We need to get more women into senior roles, and we’ve started to do that very successfully. We’re working on 50/50 gender balance shortlists for roles, and finding women who deserve to be on the list.

“We need our organisation to be inclusive to men and women so everyone can be at their best.”

This data has shone light on gender pay, but this is a problem that has been talked about for decades.

The question is whether the Government, British business and society at large will now find a way to turn good intentions into solid actions.