Why Women (Appear to) Earn Less Than Men in the U.K.

The U.K. is the biggest country yet to delve into the explosive topic of the pay gap between women and men. The April 4 deadline has now passed for firms with at least 250 employees in Britain to report wage disparities, and what’s been published is a wave of embarrassing information.

More than 10,000 companies have completed a blunt, uniform assessment of the gap between what men and women earn on average in its workforce. The figures highlight that women are often under-represented in higher-paying roles, which is a big reason for the headline-grabbing numbers. For example, at HSBC Holdings Plc, Britain’s biggest bank, women earn on average 59 percent less than men, a figure skewed by the fact that less than a quarter of senior managers are female. The numbers aren’t measuring the pay of men and women in the same job.