Partner Article

Female bosses pay themselves less than men

On Equal Pay Day, new research has revealed that female business owners earn less than men, even when they set their own pay.

The findings, compiled by Creditsafe, showed that the remuneration package for a director of a large business (250+ employees) run by a female only board is, on average, 142% less than that of the equivalent in a large company with a male only board.

Creditsafe, the global business intelligence experts, analysed its country-wide company databases to understand the state of pay among large businesses across the UK.

Based on analysis of over 5,500 large businesses, the research revealed that those companies with male only boards pay themselves an average emolument (salary, fees, bonuses, expenses and the estimated money value of any other benefits) of £246,005. This compares to an average emolument of £101,647 among large businesses with female only boards and £178,562 with mixed boards.

Rachel Mainwaring, Operations Director at Creditsafe, commented: “It is well documented that women earn less than men in the business world, but these figures cannot be explained by discrimination as they highlight business owners setting their own pay.

“There could be many possible reasons for the difference. For example, female boards might be reinvesting more back into their businesses or simply generating less profit than their male counterparts. We aim to run the research again next year to draw a comparison.”

Creditsafe’s research also compared how well large businesses run by male and female boards pay their employees. When it comes to pay, male boards are more generous, paying their staff an average annual salary of £36,987, which is 19% more than the average salary of £29,797 paid by female run large businesses. However, mixed boards pay the highest with the average salary found to be £42,126.

Equal Pay Day aims to raise awareness of the gender pay gap, by marking the day in the year that women effectively stop earning relative to men, based on the previous year’s earnings.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Creditsafe .