Gender pay gap is a ‘fallacy’ – councillor

A councillor has defended his position after saying that the ‘gender pay gap is a fallacy’.

Jack McLean made the comments on Twitter after looking through South Holland District Council’s gender pay gap results which compares men and women’s average pay across the organisation.

The council says its pay gap has increased by 0.65% up from 1.5% and way below the national average of 8.6%.

Coun McLean tweeted: “Here’s the problem, the gender pay gap accounts for nothing. It is completely arbitrary without accounting for life choices, job titles, positions, education, career duration or average hours worked. Despite this, employers with 250 employees or more are required by law to carry out gender pay reporting.

“I hope they all ignore their findings and opt for true equality, where merit is genderless and gender is meritless.”

When challenged on Twitter with how the gender pay gap problem could be solved, he said: “The gender pay gap is a fallacy. If employers base their decisions on merit and employees are not forced into jobs, the gap is arbitrary.”

When contacted by The Voice about the comments he said: “Nobody denies not paying a gender the same for the same job is wrong. It takes nothing into account about life choices, experience and work.

“There’s so many things you have to factor in to come to the conclusion there’s inequality. Women don’t make the same lifestyle choices.”

A South Holland District Council spokesman said the authority had “a slight fall in the number female employees” and said more than half its managers were shared with Breckland.

“We are pleased to be operating with a gender pay gap much smaller than the national average and will continue to strive to achieve figures as equal as possible,” they said.