Francis Green, Findings from the Skills and Employment Survey 2024, Cardiff: Wales Institute of Social and Economic Research and Data, Cardiff University.
Mae'r cynnwys hwn ar gael yn Saesneg yn unig.
This report examines whether the job quality gender gap is widening or narrowing along six key dimensions: Working Time Quality, Weekly Earnings, Job Security, Autonomy & Skill, the Physical Environment and Work Intensity. The gap in each of these dimensions is important for gender equality in health and wellbeing, but only the pay gap is well monitored in official statistics. The report derives indices and tracks the gender gap at intervals over the last four decades. It finds that:
- In addition to the narrowing gender gap in Weekly Earnings for employees, there has been a gender convergence in Working Time Quality, in Autonomy & Skill, and in the Physical Environment of work.
- For example, the proportion of men who report that their health or safety is at risk from their work declined from 38% in 2001 to 21% in 2024. Among women, the proportion at risk did not significantly change over the long term, remaining at 22% in 2024.
- There has been a modest gap in favour of women in job security, and this gap has not changed significantly. In 2024 the proportions who said that there was a chance of job loss in the next 12 months were 18% for men and 12% for women
- There has been no substantive gender gap in work intensity (the pace of work). For both sexes, work intensity has risen between 1992 and 2017, but it has fallen back since then. For example, the proportion of men who reported having to work at high speed at least three quarters of the time rose from 21% in 1992 to 44% in 2017, falling to 37% in 2024.
- In 2024 there was a substantive gender gap in favour of men with respect to the Social Environment of work, but the trend is unknown. This gap arose because women were far more likely than men to experience workplace abuse.
The report calls for better, regular monitoring of all objective dimensions of job quality, so as to adequately monitor ongoing gaps according to sex and other protected characteristics. This could be achieved at comparatively low cost using regular government nationally representative surveys.