Evidence library

This paper is an updated version of Gender Pay Gap Statistics published in March 2022. It
provides the latest gender pay gap statistics for Scotland and revisits the complexities of
measuring and reporting on the pay gap.

Key findings

• From 2021 to 2022, there has been a slight increase in Scotland’s mean gender pay gap
  from 10.1 per cent to 10.9 per cent.
• The mean pay gap between male and female full-time workers has also increased to 7.9
  per cent in 2022 from 6.6 per cent in 2021.
• Women who work part time earn 26.3 per cent less on average than men working full
  time.

Intersectionality and the gender pay gap

Disabled women, racially-minoritised women, LGBTI women, refugee women, young women, and older women experience different, multiple barriers to participation in the labour market and to progression within their occupation, which also contributes to the gender pay gap.

There remains a lack of intersectional data on gender pay gaps. The most recently available data from the “A Fairer Scotland for All: An Anti-Racist Employment Strategy” shows there is a gender pay gap for both minority-ethnic male and female workers, compared to white workers in 2019.

As of 2019, the ethnicity pay gap was wider for racially-minoritised women (16.2 per cent) compared to white workers. It is important to acknowledge that racially-minoritised women are not a homogenous group, and the gender pay gap is more complex as evidence has found clear differences in pay gaps across ethnic groups and migration status.

For example, British-born racially-minoritised women experience pay advantages or smaller pay gaps than immigrants from the same ethnic group, except for Chinese and Indian women.