Figures show BAME women face higher gender pay gaps

New figures from Labour show women from minority ethnic groups face significantly higher gender pay gaps than white women.

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Labour has called for mandatory ethnicity pay gap reporting as its new analysis showed many Black, Asian and minority ethnic women are significantly worse affected by the gender pay gap than their white counterparts.

According to Office for National Statistics figures, Black Caribbean women earn 18 per cent less on average than men. Labour says that makes Wednesday 26th October Equal Pay Day for Black Caribbean women.

It points out that the gap is even wider for Black African, Pakistani and Bangladeshi women, with Equal Pay Day for Black African women falling on 27th September (a 26 per cent pay gap), Bangladeshi women on 19th September (a 28 per cent gap) and Pakistani women falling on 8th September (a 31 per cent gap).

This is over two months before Equal Pay Day is usually held – the day where UK women on average stop earning relative to men because of the gender pay gap. Last year Equal Pay Day took place on 18th November.

Anneliese Dodds, Labour’s Shadow Women and Equalities Secretary, called on the Government to back Labour’s policy of introducing mandatory ethnicity pay reporting for companies with over 250 employees. She is also seeking assurances that full datasets will be regularly published.

The Government consulted on introducing ethnicity pay reporting in 2018, but has now said it will now not move forward with the policy.

Dodds said: “The pay gap for all women is already bad enough; disturbingly, these figures show it’s even worse for many Black, Asian and minority ethnic women.”

Baroness Doreen Lawrence, Chair of the Labour Party’s Race Equality Act Taskforce, added: “Two years ago I highlighted the systemic inequality which led to Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic communities being disproportionately impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic. These figures provide further shocking evidence of those inequalities.

“Labour’s Race Equality Act will take the urgent action needed to tackle racial inequality across our society, including introducing mandatory ethnicity pay gap reporting and better data collection.”

Meanwhile, a new analysis by BITC has found that employees from ethnic minority groups experience steep pay gaps in management roles, with some exceeding £4,000 per year. BITC analysed its Race at Work surveys and found that managers with Black African, Chinese, Indian, mixed race, Pakistani and Bangladeshi backgrounds have higher pay gaps than employees with other ethnic backgrounds, with those from a Chinese background facing the highest annual pay gap at £5,911.