Men urged to be 'allies' to combat gender pay gap

Men have been invited to "unite" with women at a roundtable discussion on how to tackle the gender pay gap in Jersey.

Lesley Mourant from Mind the Gap - a group of female business leaders advocating for gender parity - said eight men were already signed-up to the event, which would focus on "ally-ship".

At the heart of talks will be the 6.3% average pay gap between men and women, she said, with men earning on average £2 more than women per hour, according to a Statistics Jersey report published in March.

"We really believe that narrowing the gap benefits both men and women and we are only going to speak from a position of power if we are united," said Ms Mourant.

The gender pay gap is widest in the finance and information sectors where men get paid more than 20% extra, according to Statistics Jersey.

The gap also tends to widen as workers get older, peaking in people's 50s, according to the report.

Ms Mourant said: "We have been told by male colleagues that they don't really know how to support us so we are delivering a roundtable about how best we can work together."

She said the goal was to "hear experiences" and gain insights into what people could do to "move forward and let go of biases which are deeply ingrained in us as a society".

She said the subject was "contentious" adding: "Most people will assume men and women can't get paid differently for doing the same job.

"That isn't the gender pay gap. We're talking about the average, the difference in earnings between men and women."

She said reasons given for this gap included taking maternity time or a lack of ambition.

She said there was also a school of thought that women "lacked confidence" but that this was a "debunked myth".

"If we start drilling down into different sectors and age ranges that disparity becomes absolutely wider.

"For us, this is all about bringing men into the conversation because we know we can't make change unless all of us are moving in the same direction."

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