Report: Tackling gender, disability and ethnicity pay gaps

This report examines the effectiveness of interventions led by government and employers to tackle gender, ethnicity and disability pay gaps in the UK.

The research was carried out by the Institute for Employment Studies on behalf of the Equality and Human Rights Commission. It offers insights on the lack of evidence surrounding interventions to reduce the ethnicity and disability pay gaps; the impact of measures to attempt to reduce the gender pay gap; the failure of voluntary initiatives; and the drivers of pay gaps in labour market structures and wider society.

Key findings:

• Pay gaps reflect wider, entrenched social and economic inequalities and tackling them is a complex task.
• There is little available robust evidence on the impact of interventions to tackle pay gaps.
• Many employers do not yet understand the size and causes of their pay gaps and have often taken only tentative steps to tackle them.
• Some government-led strategies and employer interventions were found to have the potential to reduce the pay gaps for women, disabled people and ethnic minorities.