All but three Oxford colleges pay men more than women, new data has revealed.
New College recorded the greatest median gender pay gap, at 24.3%. This is followed by Somerville College, which registered a 22.9% median difference in hourly rate in favour of men.
Lady Margaret Hall has an 8.7% difference in hourly rate in favour of women. Two colleges – Trinity College and St. Catherine’s College – have no median gender pay gap.
The average median difference in hourly pay across all Oxford colleges is 11.2% in favour of men.
The releases follow a change in the law which requires every employer with over 250 employees to calculate the mean and median difference in hourly rate between genders, as well as figures on bonus pay and the proportion of women in each pay quartile.
Last week, it was revealed Oxford University has a median gender pay gap of 13.7%. Meanwhile, several colleges, including Merton and Univ, are believed to employ fewer than 250 staff, meaning they have no legal obligation to report on their pay gap.
New College had the largest gap between median pay for men and women. In its report, the college said: “We are confident that men and women are paid the same for doing the same job at New College. However, men and women are often employed in difference roles across our organisation creating a gender pay gap.
“We are actively exploring steps to reduce the lack of female representation across roles of different seniority and encourage a diverse applicant mix for new job openings. Once we account for differences in the department that male and female employees are employed in, our mean gender wage gap falls to 5%” the report continued. “We interpret this as a relative lack of female representation amongst our senior roles.
“A key area that we hope to make progress in is the recruitment of women into senior administrative roles and into traditionally “male” departments (e.g. IT). Members of appointment panels will be expected to undergo unconscious bias training and we will take active steps to ensure a diverse applicant pool.”
Somerville, which registered the second highest median gender pay difference in hourly rates, said in its report: “Somerville College is confident that its pay policy complies with Equal Pay legislation and that its staff are paid equally for doing equivalent jobs.
“The Gender Pay Gap shows the difference between the average rate of pay between men and women. This is different from Equal Pay.
“Women are over-represented in the lowest paid roles, such as our Housekeeping staff, and under-represented in the highest paid roles, such as our teaching staff.”
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The new data also reveals the proportion of women in each pay quartile. Magdalen College have the lowest proportion of women with 29% in the upper quartile of pay, followed by Keble on 30%. At the other end of the scale, 58.3% of St. Hilda’s College’s top roles are filled by women.
The release of bonus pay was also required under the new regulations. Many colleges do not pay bonuses to staff. Wadham College pay 58.1% of women bonuses, and 43.7% men, the highest recorded figures. Trinity pay 66% of male employees bonuses.
The University of Oxford earlier recorded a 48.7% median difference in bonus pay in favour of men.
Other universities have also released gender pay gap data. Cambridge University registered an 15%, higher than Oxford. The University of London has a median gender pay difference of 10.9%.
Oxford University has the fifth lowest gender pay gap in the Russell Group, although every Russell Group university has a median gender pay gap of over 5%.
The UK Government Equalities Office states that “by identifying the age of the middle earner, the median is the best representation of the ‘typical’ gender difference.”
They state: “By taking into account the full earnings distribution, the mean takes into account the low and high earners in an organisation – this is particularly useful as women are often over-represented at the low earning extreme and men are over-represented at the high earning extreme.”
Brasenose has the highest mean gender pay gap among Oxford colleges, at 28.7% in favour of men, whilst Mansfield is the only college to have a mean gender pay gap in favour of women, at 1.2%.
The mean figure is seen as less accurate because it is unable to account for outliers.
Additional reporting by Greg Ritchie and Matthew Roller
This article was amended on Wednesday 4th April, to reflect St John’s and Christ Church releasing their own gender pay gap reports.
