Gender pay gap in the UK widens among top earners, study finds

‘Women are still are a distinct minority and they become rarer the higher one climbs’

Women will have to wait until 2069 to reach pay parity (PA)

Britain’s gender pay gap gets wider among top earners, suggesting that the “glass ceiling” in terms of income in the UK has become more apparent, new analysis has found.

The London School of Economics’ International Inequalities Institute looked at women’s share of income since the Eighties.

If the gap had improved among the wealthiest 10 per cent and richest 1 per cent of households, the share in the top 0.1 per cent – 53,000 people in the UK – was virtually unchanged, according to a new study published on Tuesday.

“Women now make up more of the top income groups [than they did in the past], but they still are a distinct minority and they become rarer the higher one climbs,” said Alessandra Casarico, a professor at Bocconi University in Italy and one of the authors of the report.

“Composition of income is important. In the old days, the rich were those with property; they have been replaced by CEOs and entrepreneurs, among whom women are not well represented,” she said.

In the UK, only 9 per cent of Britain’s top earners, who earn £456,000 or more, were women.

This was the lowest representation among six countries mentioned in the report, where data was available for 2013. The result compares with 16.6 per cent in Spain or 13.5 per cent in Norway. Italy and Denmark also had higher ratios.

Professor John Hills, co-director at the LSE's International Inequalities Institute, said: "Right at the top it is still a male world."

"Woman have managed to increase their representation in the top 10 per cent because of their success in the professions and business, but few of them are among the very wealthiest."

Last week, a study by consultancy firm Deloitte has shown that the gender gap is slowly closing in the UK but women will still have to wait until 2069 to achieve pay parity.

A recent survey by Halifax found that a gender pay gap has emerged in the amount of pocket money UK parents give to their children, with boys receiving almost 12 per cent more weekly pocket money compared to girls.

Despite David Cameron’s vow last summer to “end the gender pay gap in a generation”, the UK is still lagging behind the European average when it comes to gender equality at work, according to a Glassdoor study.