Pay transparency yields results – it’s time for theatre to try it

Equal Pay Day is the day in the calendar that marks the disparity between men and women’s pay. The date changes each year, depending on how badly we’re doing in creating social equity, but the premise is simple. The TUC breaks down the pay gap in a way that many of us can almost feel: it surmises that the average woman in the UK must work 52 extra days (nearly two months) before she starts getting paid in comparison to the average man.

But there’s another layer to add to the gloom sandwich: the cultural sector’s gender pay gap. Recent data from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport confirms that for the second year in a row, the gender pay gap in the cultural industries has increased. And salaries in the arts already lag behind that of other areas.

The cultural sector pays women 15.2% less than men – this compares to a 14.2% gap in other industries. This means that women working in arts and culture face a double blow: the gender pay gap and the cultural sector pay gap. But there’s an intersection of society that’s less visible in the reporting of economic disparity.

Gender pay gap data is taken from the government’s detailed Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings, which does not provide a breakdown by ethnicity or disability status. We are left to estimate how bad the pay gap is for marginalised communities by joining the dots with other data. Last year, the TUC reported that disabled people are three times more likely to be economically inactive and experience a 14.6% pay disparity between their earnings and those of non-disabled workers. Similarly, Black (Caribbean and African heritage) people, according to ONS data, earn 5.6% less than their white counterparts. Identity adds nuance to gender-pay disparity.

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