Recent research by independent pay analysts Incomes Data Services (IDS) shows less than half of workers have asked for a raise despite being dissatisfied with their pay. Data from PayWizard shows nearly half of workers are either ‘dissatisfied’ or ‘highly dissatisfied’ with their salary. This compares with a quarter who say they’re ‘satisfied’ or ‘highly satisfied’. These figures are based on a survey of over 13,000 UK workers. When asked ‘how satisfied are you with your salary?’:

• just 4% of workers said they’re ‘highly satisfied’
• 19% said they’re ‘satisfied’
• 29% are neither satisfied nor dissatisfied
• 26% said that they are ‘dissatisfied’
• and 22% are ‘highly dissatisfied’.

Least satisfied workers

Women reported being slightly more dissatisfied than men. Some 53% of women are either ‘dissatisfied’ or ‘highly dissatisfied’ compared with 47% of men. This is probably due to the gender pay gap – a measure of the difference between female and male earnings. According to official statistics the UK gender pay gap is 17.2%. This means that on average, female workers earn 83 pence for every £1 a male worker earns.

Asking for a raise?

Despite half of workers being dissatisfied with their salary only a minority take action. IDS research shows only 47% of dissatisfied workers asked bosses for a raise. If you work in the commercial services sector you’re more likely to ask for a raise than workers in the public sector. Only 44% of workers discussed pay with their supervisor. And 33% said they expect to be working for their current employer in a year’s time, indicating they’re probably not looking for another job.

PayWizard

This research is based on surveys completed between 1 January 2007 and 31 March 2008 on the PayWizard websites. PayWizard is a joint initiative of the WageIndicator Foundation, Incomes Data Services (IDS) and the TUC. It is an internet-based salary survey through which people can compare their pay to that for people with similar jobs. The concept is used in over 20 countries, including the Netherlands, Germany, Brazil, Russia, Mexico and South Africa. The PayWizard.co.uk website processes completed surveys and the results of which are automatically entered into a database. The data is tested for reliability and ‘cleaned’ through automatic checks that filter out extreme or impossible answers.

Since May when the TUC published its Touchstone pamphlet Life in the Middle: The Untold Story of Britain's Average Earners, the TUC has been running an online MiddleBritainometer, challenging people to guess where they fit on the UK's income scale.

The more than 2,000 respondents underestimated their position on average by 16 percentage points. On average people said that they earned slightly below median earnings, guessing that they came at 47 per cent on the income scale (thus earning more than 47 per cent of the population but less than the remaining 53 per cent).

But the average wage reported by people who took the test was £27,500 which puts them at 63 per cent on the income scale (63 per cent of the population earn less than this amount.)

Those earning over £35,000 made the biggest errors. These earnings put them in the top 20 per cent of earners (ie above 80 per cent on the income scale), but on average they guessed that they were 26 percentage points lower than they actually were.

Those earning significantly below median earnings of £20,000 thought they came higher in the income scale. Those earning under £10,000 a year (which puts them in the bottom 20 per cent of earners) thought that they came 13 percentage points higher on the income scale than they actually did.

People earning around median earnings of just under £21,000 thought that they earned less than average. Those earning just below (those actually coming between 40 per cent and 50 per cent on the income scale) guessed that they were 7 percentage points lower than they actually were. Those just above median earnings (50 per cent and 60 per cent on the income scale) guessed that they were 14 percentage points lower.

TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber said: 'It is depressing but perhaps not that surprising to learn that the rich think that they are poorer than they actually are. But we also find that people on really low wages don't appreciate just how badly off they are compared to other people. Everyone seems to think they live in Middle Britain, and that our country is more equal than it actually is.

'But when most commentators talk about Middle Britain they get it wrong, making the same mistake as the rich in our survey, thinking that people well up the income scale are in fact middle earners.

'For all the talk of Middle Britain being the key group that decide elections, they have not had a fair share of economic growth since 1979.

'If people knew the truth about just how unfairly distributed income and wealth is in Britain, then they would be angry.'

The TUC's Life in the Middle pamphlet showed that since 1979 the income of median earners has gone up by 60 per cent, while much bigger increases for the better-off have pushed up average earnings by 78 per cent. While median income fell behind far more under the Conservatives as society rapidly became more unequal, the gap has continued to grow if slowly under Labour.

Women are found to be more vulnerable than men to recession-based job losses, especially in less developed countries. The study therefore looked at the position of women in the labour market and how they can be provided with better access to decent work. The independent employment research organisation Incomes Data Services (IDS), the UK partner of the WageIndicator foundation, carried out the survey.  

The research results show that we are still some way off decent standards in the workplace, particularly for women. The IDS research focuses on 12 countries and gathered more than 97,000 responses from the online WageIndicator country surveys over the period 2007-2009.

For example, the gender pay gap is still large at 28% in favour of men for full-time workers and 17% for part-time workers. The research also conducted a time-series analysis for seven WageIndicator countries. It shows that, between 2006 and 2009, the gender pay gap in each country has not closed over the period.

Not surprisingly, women are more dissatisfied with their pay than men in all countries surveyed.  

One of the causes of the gender pay gap may be the higher incidence of women in part-time work, which is more often low-paid than full-time work. The survey found that, particularly in households with children, women are likely to work part-time. This shows that women still take up the majority of care responsibilities in the family and, as a consequence, are less likely to be in full-time paid employment.

Women also seem to struggle to climb the career ladder, with more men than women having received a promotion in all countries in the sample. Furthermore, in four out of five countries women were also found to have worse career opportunities than their male colleagues, with the Netherlands being the exception.

The research was carried out as part of the ITUC’s ‘Decent Work for Women’ campaign.   Decent Work is the main aim of the International Labour Organisation. It is supported by four strategic objectives:

• 1.    Standards and rights at work
• 2.    Employment creation and income opportunities
• 3.    Social protection and social security
• 4.    Social dialogue and tripartism

The UN furthermore focuses on gender equality and empowerment of women in the workplace in one of its Millennium Development Goals (http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/).  

The Decent Work Check of six countries (Argentina, Brazil, India, Mexico, the Netherlands and South Africa), carried out by Incomes Data Services (IDS), found that there is still a lot of work to be done. All countries showed areas of non-compliance with the ILO Standards, with legislation being minimal or non-existent.  

These findings are confirmed by separate analysis by IDS, looking at working conditions in 12 countries, using data from the online WageIndicator survey for each country, based on more than 95,000 responses. The survey looked at health and safety, overtime, and participation in work-related pension and medical insurance schemes, among others.

The research showed that the majority of workers working overtime do not receive compensation for these hours. An example was Mexico, where 80% of survey respondents said that they are not paid compensation for the extra hours worked. Also, in most countries, women are less likely to receive overtime compensation.

Trade union membership and coverage by collective agreement can improve conditions for workers, especially for women who are often among the most vulnerable in the workplace. This is particularly the case in developing countries. However, the survey results also show that the degree of trade union membership is still low in some countries. It ranges between 9% and 40%, with Brazil and Finland being the positive exceptions with 70% and 80% of survey respondents in each country saying that they are a member of a trade union.

Another positive finding was the extent of coverage by collective agreement. A significant proportion of survey participants who are not a member of a trade union are nevertheless covered by a collective agreement, showing the extent of the influence such agreements can have in the workplace.

Countries that have signed up to the ILO treaties on working conditions have committed themselves to implement policies and undertake clear actions so they will meet the terms that they agreed to. The Decent Work Check from the WageIndicator Foundation provides a possibility to check in how far countries are complying with these Standards for Decent Work (http://www.decentworkcheck.org/main/international-conventions).

'It's encouraging to see the gender pay gap narrowing but it is still unacceptably high. The day when men and women are paid equally looks as distant as ever.

'Women moving into part-time work will be shocked to learn that the part-time gender pay gap is 35.2 per cent. Millions of highly skilled women are being forced to sacrifice decent wages and their careers to combine work and family life.

'It shouldn't require a recession to make inroads into the gender pay gap. Employers are not going to close the pay gap of their own accord. The Government should introduce a range of strong measures to tackle discriminatory pay systems and occupational job segregation.'

NOTES TO EDITORS:

- According to the ONS the gender pay gap for full-time workers, based on mean hourly earnings excluding overtime, has fallen from 17.4 per cent in 2008 to 16.4 per cent in 2009.

- The TUC has calculated the part-time gender pay gap (35.2 per cent) by comparing the mean hourly earnings of men working full-time (£16.07) with women working part-time (£10.40).